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 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 STUDIES^Niv - 
 
 
 A CONTRIBUTION TO 
 
 THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMUND GOSSE 
 
 HON. M.A. OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 
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 ■431398
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 (1883) 
 
 IN writing this book my object has been to do 
 for some of the rank and file of seventeenth 
 century hterature what modern criticism has done, 
 on a much larger scale, for Shakespeare, Milton, and 
 Dryden. Those great figures have been taken out 
 of their surroundings, and have been discussed upon 
 their own merits, biographically, aesthetically, histori- 
 cally. But in scarcely any instances, and in these on 
 no consistent plan, has this been done for the smaller 
 writers. Yet it is in these less monumental figures 
 that the progress of Uterary history is most clearly to 
 be marked, and it has seemed to me not undesirable 
 that ihj truth which we try to tell definitely and 
 exhaustively in a set of volumes about Milton or 
 Dryden, should be told as definitely in a single 
 chapter about Cowley or Otway. I have therefore 
 tried to make each of the ensuing studies an exhaus- 
 tive critical biography in miniature, yet each in some
 
 viii Preface to the First Edition 
 
 way connected with that which precedes it, and all 
 treated on the same relative scale. It was necessary, 
 in order to do this, to take more pains than is at first 
 sight apparent in the choice of names, some which 
 presented themselves seeming to be too full of in- 
 dividuality, and very many more to be not full 
 enough. 
 
 The volume was begun in 1872, and, with neces- 
 sary intervals, has occupied me ever since. The first 
 list of contents upon which I decided, ran thus : — 
 Lodge, Webster, Dekker, Donne, Randolph, Herrick, 
 Cowley, Orinda, Etheredge, Otway. In the second 
 half of this list it has not seemed necessary to make 
 any modification ; in the first half three names occur 
 which will not be found represented in this book. 
 Perhaps I may be allowed to mention the reason of 
 this alteration, as it helps me to explain the scope of 
 my inquiry. Whether Dekker or a somewhat earlier 
 name would best fit my purpose was still undecided 
 when the Council of the Hunterian Club asked me to 
 introduce to their subscribers their magnificent reprint 
 of Samuel Rowlands. I was obliged, for this purpose, 
 again to read through the entire works of that author, 
 and I then saw that he was even a more typical figure 
 than Dekker, his immediate successor. 
 
 It was with reluctance that I resigned Donne and 
 Randolph, and from opposite reasons. It seemed that
 
 Preface to the First Edition ix 
 
 the one was too small and the other too large for 
 the species of portraiture which I had chosen. Upon 
 reflection I decided that, in spite of his promise and 
 his virile grace, the author of The Jealous Lovers was 
 too vague a figure to be painted at full length in a 
 gallery of portraits. In the study on the Cotswold 
 Games he is introduced, not too inadequately, I hope, 
 in the centre of the manly school of Ben Jonson. 
 Again, as I read more and more deeply in the litera- 
 ture of the seventeenth century, I became convinced 
 that I could not adequately deal with Donne within 
 such narrow limits. That extraordinary writer casts 
 his shadow over the vault of the century from its 
 beginning to its close, like one of those ancient 
 Carthaginian statues, the hands and feet of which 
 supported opposite extremities of the arch they occu- 
 pied. Donne is himself the paradox of which he 
 sings ; he is a seeming absurdity in literature. To 
 be so great and yet so mean, to have phrases like 
 Shakespeare and tricks like Gongora, to combine 
 within one brain all the virtues and all the vices of 
 the imaginative intellect, this has been given to only 
 one man, and that the inscrutable Dean of St. Paul's. 
 To write fully of his work would be to write the 
 history of the decline of English poetry, to account 
 for the Augustan renascence, to trace the history of 
 the national mind for a period of at least a century.
 
 X Preface to the First Edition 
 
 I felt Donne to be as far beyond the scope of my work 
 as Ben Jonson would have been. 
 
 All critical work, nowadays, must be done on the 
 principle of the coral insect. No one can hope to 
 do more than place his atom on the mass that those 
 who preceded him have constructed. It will not be 
 supposed that I am so presumptuous or so ignorant 
 as to forget what has been written for seventy years 
 past on the poetry of the seventeenth century, or 
 how much genius, industry, and judgment have been 
 expended on its elucidation. It must, however, be 
 remembered that this minute care has usually been 
 reserved for greater men than those with whom 
 I have to deal. When I began this volume onl}' 
 three of the poets discussed in it had been edited, 
 only one in the exact modern method. When the 
 ensuing study on Herrick first appeared in 1874, 
 Mr. Palgrave had not produced his C/uysomela, Dr. 
 Grosart had not collected and edited the works, 
 Mr. Edwin Abbey had not reprinted and adorned 
 the Hesperides with illustrations that form a brilliant 
 and sympathetic commentary. Since my successive 
 studies have been written. Lodge, Rowlands, Dover, 
 and Cowley have for the first time been edited, 
 in each case, however, for private subscribers alone. 
 Crashaw now exists in two stately quartos, edited by 
 Dr. Grosart ; but Orinda, Etheredge, and Otway are
 
 Preface to the First Edition xl 
 
 still attainable only in the original editions. As long 
 as the books themselves are so difficult of access, 
 so long will hasty criticism continue to repeat the 
 acute, but often entirely false and unfounded gene- 
 ralisations of writers like Hallam, who enlightened 
 our darkness before literary analysis had become a 
 science. 
 
 As far as actual historical discovery goes, it is hard 
 for any one nowadays to glean after Dr. Grosart. How- 
 ever, I may claim in some of the studies, in those on 
 Lodge, Rowlands, and Etheredge in particular, to have 
 added some essential facts to our previous knowledge. 
 This, however, has not been my principal aim. I have 
 rather desired to enrich the biography of each poet 
 by a careful analysis of the evidence concealed in his 
 work, and in the writings of his coevals, a field which, 
 particularly as we descend the century, has been sin- 
 gularly little worked. I hope, moreover, that in the 
 critical part of the work it may be found that I have 
 not unsuccessfully introduced certain elements, the 
 influence of contemporary politics, the relation to 
 foreign literatures, the relative aspect of divergent 
 schools, which have been hitherto neglected. 
 
 By first printing each study in a provisional form, 
 I may have laid myself open to the charge of seeming 
 to disguise the unity of my work. I cannot, however, 
 regret a practice which gave me the great advantage
 
 xii Preface to the First Edition 
 
 of getting my work revised by the most competent 
 hands. It is impossible to ask friends to weary them- 
 selves with the examination of manuscript, but the 
 busiest scholar will revise a friend's work in print. 
 I have submitted these essays, in their earlier form, 
 to several persons who have made a special study 
 of English poetry, and their strictures and corrections 
 have been of inestimable service to me in my final 
 revision. To all these friends my best thanks are due, 
 but, particularly to Mr, Leslie Stephen, who was in 
 most cases the first reader of these studies, and but for 
 whose indulgence — that of the kindest of editors — they 
 could scarcely have seen the light ; to Mr. Swinburne, 
 for whose censure and encouragement, particularly in 
 the early part of the design, I cannot be too grateful ; 
 to Dr. Grosart, for gifts of books and correction of 
 various matters of detail ; and lastly, to Mr. J. Henry 
 Shorthouse, for sympathetic notes on Crashaw and on 
 Orinda.
 
 PREFACE 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION 
 
 IN being called, after nearly fourteen years, to revise 
 this book, I do not find that very much can be 
 added to positive knowledge in matters of fact. To 
 the essay on Crashaw, I have been glad to append a 
 note describing the valuable MS. privately printed by 
 Dr. Grosart in 1888. It is a great pleasure to me to 
 record that, in that year, my friend Mr. A. V/ilson Verity 
 removed a reproach from our literature by issuing his 
 excellent edition of Etheredge, which will probably 
 be final. Otway still lacks, and loudly calls for, a 
 modern editor, the 181 3 compilation of Thornton — 
 which I have to confess that I had never seen when 
 I wrote my essay — being the only attempt yet made 
 to place the full text of this poet before the world. 
 
 As I read now what I wrote so long ago, I feel 
 that my taste was more exuberant than it would be 
 to-day, and my judgment sometimes more positive. I 
 am hardly so sure now, as I was in 1883, that Ephelia 
 was the daughter of Orinda, or that Heroick Friendship
 
 xiv Preface to the Third Edition 
 
 is a genuine production of its putative father. No 
 doubt I erred, not seldom, in a juvenile preciousness 
 of manner. But I have not attempted to put old 
 wine into a new bottle, since who knows that the 
 enthusiasm of youth may not have been better ad- 
 vised than the sobriety of middle life ? As I speak 
 of Donne in the original preface, perhaps it may 
 not be immodest to say that in my Jacobean Poets, 
 published in 1894, I attempted to deal at some little 
 length with the fascinating problem of his character as 
 a writer. 
 
 In the hope of increasing the usefulness of the 
 volume for purposes of reference, I have added to this 
 edition an index, compiled for me by Mr. R. J. Lister. 
 
 December 1896.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Thomas Lodge ,,»»»> 
 
 Page 
 I 
 
 John Webster ..... 
 
 • 47 
 
 Samuel Roivlands . . . . . 
 
 8i 
 
 Captain Dover's Cotswold Games . 
 
 . 103 
 
 yRobert Herrick ..... 
 
 . 125 
 
 ,Rtchard Crashaiv .... 
 
 . 157 
 
 , Abraham Cowley ..... 
 
 . 191 
 
 The Matchless Orinda .... 
 
 . 229 
 
 Sir George Etheredge .... 
 
 . 259 
 
 Thomas Otivay ..... 
 
 . 299 
 
 Appendix. . . • • • 
 
 • 343 
 
 Index ....•• 
 
 • 345
 
 THOMAS LODGE 
 
 IF a full and continuous biography of Thomas Lodge 
 could be recovered, it would possess as much in- 
 terest to a student of Elizabethan manners and 
 letters as any Memoir that can be imagined. It would 
 combine, in a series of pictures, scenes from all the prin- 
 cipal conditions of life in that stirring and vigorous 
 age. It would introduce us to the stately civic life of 
 London city, to Oxford in the early glow of humanism 
 and liberal thought, to the dawn of professional literature 
 in London, to the life of a soldier against Spain, to the 
 adventures of a freebooting sailor on the high seas, to the 
 poetry of the age, and then to its science, to the stage 
 in London and to the anatomical lecture-room in 
 Avignon, to the humdrum existence of a country 
 practitioner, and to the perilous intrigues of a sym- 
 pathiser with Catholicism trembling on the verge of 
 treason. 
 
 Lodge is therefore in many respects a t3'pical figure. 
 His genius, from the purely literary point of view, is 
 sufficiently considerable to make him interesting in 
 himself, and to give him a noticeable presence in the 
 shifting pageant of the times. But what mainly dis- 
 tinguishes him from four or five other composers of 
 
 A
 
 2 '•,/ : '.^Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 .''cl&licate! lyrics. and amorous romances is the length and 
 picturesque variety of his career. Of this career, 
 unhappily, we possess but the outline. A few dates in 
 wills or at the close of prefaces, a few nimble conjec- 
 tures, a page of biography in the AthejtcB of Anthony 
 a Wood, these we have to piece together as best 
 we may, and to endeavour to recover from them the 
 lost presence of a man ; nor are we without this con- 
 solation, that, for an Elizabethan poet, Lodge stands 
 out before us at last with some measure of distinct- 
 ness. 
 
 The year of the birth of Thomas Lodge is a matter 
 of pure conjecture. At the death of his mother in 
 1579 he was not yet twenty-five, and at the death of 
 his father in 1583 he had almost certainly passed that 
 age. The various circumstances of his early career 
 combine to make it probable that he was born in 1557. 
 He was the second son of people in affluent circum- 
 stances, his father. Sir Thomas Lodge, a grocer, having 
 been Lord Mayor of London in the plague-year, 1563. 
 The poet in after years took care to sign himself 
 "Gentleman," and to hold himself a little above the 
 crowd of playwrights. His family pedigree was, or 
 professed to be, an ancient one, and he claimed descent 
 from Odoard di Logis, Baron of Wigton in Cumber- 
 land, a nobleman of the twelfth century. The poet's 
 mother, Anne, Lady Lodge, was the daughter of a 
 previous Lord Mayor of London, Sir William Laxton, 
 who died before the poet's birth, in 1556; his grand- 
 mother. Lady Laxton, who lived to see him grown 
 up, seems to have shown him a particular partiality,
 
 Thomas Lodge 
 
 and to have selected him for preference among her 
 daughter's children, who were six in number. In 
 1 57 1 he entered Merchant Taylors' School, as has 
 lately been discovered.^ According to Wood, Thomas 
 Lodge made his first appearance in Oxford about 1573, 
 "and was afterwards servitour or scholar under the 
 learned and virtuous Mr. Edward Hobye of Trinity 
 College, where, making early advances, his ingenuity 
 began at first to be obsei'ved by several of his compo- 
 sitions in poetry." This Edward Hobye was perhaps 
 the son of that accomplished Sir Thomas Hobye, who, 
 a quarter of a century earlier, had Englished the 
 Courtier of Count Baldassar Castiglione. 
 
 About 1575 there were three distinct schools or 
 haunts of polite letters in England, each of them silent 
 to the world, but each preparing to make itself widely 
 felt, and each fitting out soldiers for the great conflict 
 of the wits. At the court of Elizabeth, Sidney, Greville, 
 and Dyer were turning over the masterpieces of Greek 
 and Italian literature, and dreaming, at least, of some 
 form of stately English emulation. At Cambridge, 
 amid a breathless circle of private admirers, Spenser 
 
 ^ To the courtesy of the Rev. Charles J. Robinson I owe the com- 
 munication of this entry, from the Minutes of the Court of the Merchant 
 Taylors' Company, held 23rd March i57t: — 
 
 " Item the foresaide M' and Wardens have admitted Thomas Lodge, 
 
 fir, Thome L. militis, Edmond Greenock, fil G , Thomas 
 
 jMorgan, fil M , William Widnell, fil, William W., mercator 
 
 scissor, Robert Smythe, fil, Robert S. Jarrett Keyne, fil, John K., 
 fishmonger, Samuel Lane, fil, John L., vintner, are admitted of the 
 number of those 1. schollars that are limited to be taughte within o' 
 schole." 
 
 The reference is to fifty scholars who were to pay 2s. 6d. a quarter.
 
 4 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 was testing his powers of versification, as yet with 
 little notion of the direction they would ultimately take. 
 At Oxford, when Lodge went up to Trinity, John Lyly 
 had already been four years at Magdalen, and though 
 still only twenty years of age, had attracted consider- 
 able notice by his neglect of purely academical studies, 
 and by his proclivities to poetry and romance. Among 
 the youths who were clustered around him were 
 George Peele, afterwards a famous playwright, and 
 Abraham Fraunce, a writer of more reputation than 
 merit. Probably in the same year which saw Lodge's 
 advent at the University, Thomas Watson came to 
 Oxford, and joined the coterie. 
 
 It would be very interesting to follow the intellectual 
 development of this set of Oxford students, who seem, 
 in some obscure way, to have found at Cambridge an 
 ardent friend and adherent in Robert Greene. Their 
 early exercises in verse and prose have all been lost, 
 unless, indeed, as seems not unlikel}^, some portion ot 
 Lyly's epoch-making Euphues was composed before its 
 author took his degree in 1575. Lodge was beyond 
 question deeply influenced by Lyly. To the close of 
 his career his style continued to be coloured with 
 Euphuism, and on two separate occasions he blazoned 
 the name of Lyly's masterpiece on a title-page of his 
 own. To his intimacy with Peele he owed, in all 
 probability, his interest in the stage, and his zeal for 
 the revival of dramatic art; and Watson, whom he 
 was destined to surpass in every branch of poetry, may 
 have led him first in a lyrical direction with his amorous 
 and precocious HekatompatJiia. His own writings
 
 Thomas Lodge 5 
 
 show that he was deeply read in the classics, that he 
 had mastered French, Spanish, and Italian, and that 
 he was familiar with all the learned subtilties which 
 at that time engaged the leisure of the Universities. 
 
 All that we positively know of Lodge's Oxford 
 career is that he was at college with Edmund and 
 Robert Carev/, sons of Lord Hunsdon, and that he 
 remained at Trinity until he took his degree of Bachelor 
 of Arts, on the 8th of July 1577, being then probably 
 twenty years of age. He did not remain at Oxford to 
 take the higher degree of Master of Arts ; but return- 
 ing to London, was admitted, on the 26th of April 
 1578, into the Society of Lincoln's Inn. His elder 
 brother, William Lodge, had belonged to the Society, 
 in which his father also had held office since 1572. 
 In the winter of 1579 he had the misfortune to lose 
 his mother, Lady Lodge ; in the course of that year 
 she had drawn out her will, in which she makes 
 particular mention of her son Thomas, bequeathing 
 part of her property towards "his finding at his book 
 at Lincoln's Inn," and the rest to him at the age of 
 twenty-five, with this provision, that should he " dis- 
 continue his studies," and cease to be what "a good 
 student ought to be," this property should, on his 
 father's decision, be divided among his brothers. It 
 is unsafe to argue from this caution that Lodge was 
 already a youth of unsteady character; on the contrary, 
 he must have shown particular powers of intelligence 
 to be thus selected among six children as his mother's 
 sole legatee. There was probably some understanding 
 on this point entered into between the father and
 
 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 mother, for in Sir Thomas Lodge's will the five other 
 children are provided for, but the poet is not mentioned. 
 It was perhaps recognised that Thomas had already 
 received his share of the family estate direct from 
 his mother. 
 
 The death of his mother seems to have been the 
 occasion of his first essay in publication. An Epitaph 
 of the Lady Anne Lodge was licensed on the 23rd of 
 December 1579, and the name of its author was 
 entered as " T. Lodge." This poem, which was pro- 
 babl3- an unbound pamphlet, has totally disappeared. 
 Lodge's next venture has shown more vitaht}', but 
 caused him at the time great disappointment and 
 vexation. In 1579 the Rev. Stephen Gosson, a young 
 divine of more eflfrontery than talent, published a 
 furious counterblast against poetry, music, and the 
 drama. This volume, which was named The School of 
 Abuse, was in fact a puritanical attempt to nip in the 
 bud the whole new blossom of English literature. It 
 was not inspired, as were the attacks of Jeremy Collier 
 a century- later, by the righteous anger of a not very 
 imaginative man who saw the wickedness of the stage 
 without noticing its poetry; it was merely the snarl 
 of a dull cleric who hated all that was urbane and 
 graceful for its own sake. What was perhaps the 
 strangest thing about it was that it abused poetry, 
 and music, and stage-plays before these things had 
 really begun to exist in England, so that its author 
 was forced, in the absence of actual foes, to fight with 
 such phantoms of literature as Webbe and Puttenham. 
 The School of Abuse had hardly been published when
 
 Thomas Lodge 
 
 the Shepherds Calendar appeared, and demonstrated 
 its absurdity. Young Thomas Lodge had the want 
 of wisdom to fly in defence of the fine art against this 
 lumbering opponent, and to pit his Oxford rhetoric 
 against the apparatus of a professed pedant. A much 
 greater honour, and a much more complete disaster, 
 awaited Gosson in the fact that Sir Phihp Sidney was 
 about to deign to answer his attack on the arts in his 
 final Apology for Poetry. This latter work, not printed 
 till 1595, was written in the autumn of 1 581. It was 
 probably about a year earlier that Lodge wrote and 
 hurried through the press his reply to Gosson. Of 
 this reply only two copies have come down to us, 
 each in a mutilated condition, without title-page or 
 introduction. There seems to have been a refusal of 
 publication, for Lodge himself says, in his preface to 
 the Alarum against Usurers, in 1584 : — 
 
 "About three years ago, one Stephen Gosson published a 
 book, intitled The School of Abuse, in which, having escaped 
 in many and sundry conclusions, I, as the occasion then fitted 
 me, shaped him such an answer as beseemed his discourse, 
 which by reason of the slendemess of the subject, because it 
 was in defence of plays and playmakers, the godly and reverend, 
 that had to deal in the cause, misliking it, forbade the publishing, 
 notwithstanding he, coming by a private imperfect copy, about 
 two years since, made a reply." 
 
 Lodge's Defence of Poetry need not detain us long. 
 It is a production of the old inflated t3'pe, without a 
 touch of modern freshness, full of pompous and only 
 too probably spurious allusions to the classics, vague, 
 wordy, and, in its temper, offensive. The author's
 
 8 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 opponent is " shameless Gosson," a " hypocrite," a 
 "monstrous chiclcen without head," and is addressed 
 throughout with unmeasured and voluble contempt. 
 The whole tract consists, as we possess it, of only 
 twenty-four leaves, and within this small compass all 
 the arts are defended from their clerical assailant. It 
 is illustrative of the poverty of native literature in 
 I579> that not a single poem or play in the English 
 language is quoted or referred to. That the little 
 tract should have been suppressed is unaccountable, 
 yet not more so than such an act of purposeless 
 tyranny as the extinction of Drayton's Harmony of 
 the Church ten years later. We know too little of 
 the circumstances attending the censorship of the 
 press under Elizabeth to hazard a conjecture regarding 
 its mode of operation. 
 
 During the next few years we have great difficulty 
 in following Lodge's fortunes. According to our sup- 
 position that he was born in 1557, he must have 
 inherited his mother's fortune in 1582, since it was to 
 pass to him when he reached the age of twenty-five. 
 It is possible that before this he had become alienated 
 from his family, and had even suffered poverty. In 
 1 581 Lodge revised for the press, and issued with 
 a commendatory poem of his own, Barnaby Rich's 
 romance of Don Sinionides. In this poem he speaks 
 of his muse as dulled by his "long distress," and 
 remarks that "a doleful dump pulls back my pleasant 
 vein." I confess that these phrases seem to me to 
 suggest illness rather than material ill-fortune, and I 
 think that this view is justified by the famous phrase
 
 Thomas Lodge 
 
 of Stephen Gosson, who, returning to the attack in 
 1582, spoke of Lodge as "hunted by the heavy hand 
 of God, and become Httle better than a vagrant, looser 
 than liberty, lighter than vanity itself." Here, I think, 
 we may perceive a mixture of fact and supposition. 
 Gosson had doubtless heard of that " distress " under 
 which Lodge was labouring, and at once proceeded, in 
 the cowardly manner of disputants in that age, to 
 exaggerate it to Lodge's confusion. Gosson knew so 
 little about his opponent that he calls him William, 
 some copies of Plays Confuted containing a slip, on 
 which is the word " Thomas," pasted over the 
 "William." Gosson's testimony is of little value, and 
 if we listen to his vague accusation, we are no less 
 bound to remember that, when Lodge found next 
 occasion to take up his pen, he refuted the charges of 
 Gosson in a manly and straightforward epistle to those 
 who knew him best, the Gentlemen of the Inns of 
 Court : — 
 
 "You that know me, Gentlemen, can testify that neither my 
 life hath been so lewd, as that my company was odious, nor my 
 behaviour so light, as that it should pass the limits of modesty : 
 this notwithstanding, a licentious Hipponax, neither regard- 
 ing the asperity of the laws touching slanderous libellers, nor 
 the offspring from whence I came, which is not contemptible, 
 attempted, not only in public and reproachful terms to condemn 
 me in his writings, but also to slander me." 
 
 Lodge was not so vagrant a person but that he had 
 married by this time, and in 1583 possessed property, 
 which he devised in his will to his wife Joan, and to his 
 daughter Mary. In December of the same year, his
 
 lo Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 father, Sir Thomas Lodge, died and was buried at St. 
 Mar3'-, Aldermary, with civic honours. 
 
 With this event the early career of the poet closes, 
 and it is at this point that we must refer once more to 
 the Alarum against Usuj'ers^ in which a number of 
 passages occur which have been supposed, and not 
 without a show of probability, to be autobiographical. 
 In that work, published in 1584, Lodge comes before 
 us as a writer possessing much more command over 
 language than he had displayed in his attack on 
 Gosson. The Alarum is a prose treatise against 
 "coney-catching," the first of a class in which Greene, 
 and afterwards Dekker, were to attain a great popu- 
 larity, in which the temptations and miseries of 
 London life were painted in gloomy colours, and the 
 results of dissolute living were traded on to produce a 
 literary effect. In Lodge's case it has been taken for 
 granted that the palinode was sincere and personal, 
 and that in this pamphlet he wore the white sheet 
 publicly for notorious offences of his own. Nothing is 
 more rash than a supposition of this sort, and nothing 
 more dangerous in biographical criticism than to 
 identify the literature with the man. Lodge describes 
 a young gentleman from the University, whose mother 
 tenderly cherished him, and whose wit was praised 
 and his preferment secured, until his father brought 
 him to the Inns of Court, where he fell among evil 
 companions, and sank into giddy and debauched habits. 
 His mother is now dead, his father's allowance to him 
 is insufficient to meet his expenses, and he is deeply 
 involved with usurers.
 
 Thomas Lodge ii 
 
 There is no doubt a great temptation to the bio- 
 grapher to distribute the incidents of this picturesque 
 study along the scanty lines of Lodge's own memoir, 
 but a more careful perusal of the Alarum shows the 
 extreme danger of this course. The tract is inspired, 
 probably, by some experience of the evils of which 
 it treats ; but it is not possible that, if the poet had 
 been notoriously an evil-liver of this boisterous kind, 
 he would have chosen to analyse his experience 
 in so full and open a manner, in a book which bore 
 his name, and which was elaborately dedicated to his 
 colleagues of Lincoln's Inn. It is much more likely 
 that his experience as a lawyer opened up to him the 
 abuses which he describes, and that the real object 
 of his tract was a purely philanthropic one, a desire 
 to bring the scandalous tyranny of the money-lenders 
 before the notice of Parliament. 
 
 Bound up with the Alarum against Usurers, in 
 1584, were two other works of a widely different 
 nature. The Delectable History of Forbonitis and 
 Prisccria is a romance in prose and verse, which 
 shows that Lodge responded with instant promptitude 
 to Greene's start-word in Mamillia the year before. 
 In these florid and cumbrous stories the English novel 
 put forth its first bud ; it is in these imitations of 
 Italian romance that our long series of fiction com- 
 mences. One or two writers, and particularly Whet- 
 stone in his Promos and Cassandra in 1578, had given 
 a kind of timid suggestion of a story ; but it is Greene 
 to whom the merit is due of first writing a book wholly 
 devoted to fictitious adventure in prose. Lodge, on
 
 12 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 his side, made an improvement on Greene by introduc- 
 ing into Forbonius and Prisceria poetical interludes 
 and a S3'stem of correspondence in sonnets, which 
 were immediately adopted by Greene, and bequeathed 
 by him to his imitators. 
 
 Hitherto Lodge's achievements in verse had been 
 slight and far from promising, but in this book he 
 begins to express himself with that mellifluous smooth- 
 ness which afterwards characterised his poems. The 
 prose style of the romance is founded on that of 
 Lyly's Euphues, of which Lodge was then, and re- 
 mained, by far the most successful adapter. His 
 memory was no less well stocked, and his fancy no 
 less graceful than those of Lyly himself, and he added 
 to Lyly's rather cold ethical abstraction of style a 
 southern glow of feeling. In Forbonius and Prisceria^ 
 however, we see rather a suggestion of this latter 
 quality than the presence of it, and the merits of the 
 romance are negative rather than positive. The third 
 division of the volume is the best ; it is a vigorous 
 satirical poem in rhyme royal entitled Trutli!s Complaint 
 over England. In accordance with prudence, no less 
 than with the fashion of the age, the exact meaning of 
 the satire is concealed under an allegorical narrative. 
 Britain is expostulated with for her unjust madness, 
 for her prejudice against truth, and for being " hard- 
 hearted, flinty-minded, and bent to abuse." In the 
 face of Lodge's later relations to the Catholic party, 
 it is difficult to understand these reproaches otherwise 
 than by supposing the satire to be a prudently con- 
 cealed protest against the Anti-Romanist action of
 
 Thomas Lodge 13 
 
 Parliament, and the new stringent laws against the 
 Jesuits. To have openi}'- attempted to stem the rapidly- 
 increasing flood of prejudice against the Papacy would 
 merely have been to endanger the poet's own head, 
 and we must suppose Truth's Complaint to have been 
 one more of those crj'ptic contributions to politics 
 which the Elizabethan poets loved to devise, and the 
 only satisfaction of which must have been the pleasure 
 of making an oral commentary to private friends. 
 
 As far as I am aware, there is no reason to suppose 
 that any earlier edition of Lodge's next work, Scillds 
 Metamorphosis, than that which we now possess of 
 1589, was ever published. Yet I confess I should be 
 httle surprised if it was found to belong rather to 1585 
 or 1586. It seems to me to be a product of the poet's 
 earl}^ London life, before the date of his wanderings, 
 and the tone of the preface, no less than the style of 
 the contents, bears out this supposition. It is dedi- 
 cated, like the Alartim. against Usurers, to the Gentle- 
 men of the Inns of Court, and the author styles himself 
 " of Lincoln's Inn, Gent." The preface, which is written 
 in a cumbrous and affected st3-le unworthy of Lodge 
 in 15S9, complains of the spread of poetic composition, 
 which enforces him to publish his verses and assert 
 his individuality. This petulance may either have 
 been provoked by the success of such miscellanies as 
 Clement Robinson's Handftd of Pleasant DeligJitSy or 
 may be the expression of a passing irritation at the 
 success of Lodge's personal friends, Lyly, Greene, 
 Watson, and Peele, all of whom had come before the 
 public with some prominence during the last few years.
 
 14 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 The rapidity with which Greene, in particular, had 
 poured forth his romances, might well have suggested 
 to Lodge that " our wits nowadays are waxed very fruit- 
 ful, and our pamphleteers more than prodigal ; " and the 
 ease and skill with which the same writer had adopted 
 and enriched that manner in poetry which Lodge had 
 invented, may have provoked the latter to irritation. 
 
 Glauais and Scilla, as the poem of ScillcHs Meta- 
 morphosis is more properly named, was, hov/ever, a 
 work in which its author owed little to his prede- 
 cessors, and had nothing to fear from his contem- 
 poraries. It is no small merit in Lodge that in this 
 work he was the inventor, or the introducer, into 
 English literature, of a class of poem which has thriven 
 amongst us, and which counts Shakespeare, Keats, and 
 even Wordsworth (in Laodainid) among its direct culti- 
 vators. This was the minor epic in which a classical 
 subject is treated in a romantic manner. Lodge sus- 
 tains his theme through nearly one hundred and fifty 
 stanzas, and if his narrative manner leaves much to 
 be desired, his style is fluent and coloured, and his 
 fancy is well supported. But the great interest of this 
 poem, and one which has never fully received the 
 attention it deserves, is the influence which it had 
 upon the mind of Shakespeare. It is not too much 
 to say that Venus and Adonis is a direct imitation of 
 Glanciis and Scilla — an imitation, indeed, which vastly 
 outshines its original, but none the less was distinctly 
 composed in emulation of the older poem. The stanza 
 in which the two poems are written is the same, and 
 the relation between the volumes of 1589 and 1593
 
 Thomas Lodge 15 
 
 becomes quite startling when we realise that these 
 verses occur in the earlier poem : — 
 
 " He that hath seen the sweet Arcadian boy 
 Wiping the purple from his forced wound, 
 His pretty tears iDetokening his annoy, 
 His sighs, his cries, his faUing on the ground, 
 The echoes ringing from the rocks his fall, 
 The trees with tears reporting of his thrall ; 
 
 "And Venus starting at her love-mate's cry, 
 Forcing her birds to haste her chariot on, 
 And full of grief at last with piteous eye, 
 Seen where all pale with death he lay alone, 
 
 Whose beauty quailed, as wont the lilies droop, 
 When wasteful winter winds do make them stoop. 
 
 " Her dainty hand addressed to daw her dear, 
 Her roseal lip allied to his pale cheek. 
 Her sighs, and then her looks and heavy cheer. 
 Her bitter threats, and then her passions meek ; 
 How on his senseless corpse she lay a-crying. 
 As if the boy were then but new a-dying." 
 
 This is very close to the earliest manner of Shake- 
 speare ; and, if we return from Glaucus and Scilla 
 to Venus and Adcmis, we shall be struck by the 
 resemblance in many points. There can be no doubt 
 that the young Shakespeare borrowed from Lodge his 
 tone, the mincing sweetness of his versification, and 
 the fantastical use of such words as "lily," "purple," 
 crystal," and " primrose." None of the predecessors 
 of the greatest of our poets had so direct an influence 
 upon his early style as Lodge, and this must certainly 
 be accounted not the least of the claims of the latter 
 to our attention.
 
 i6 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 The remaining poems in the volume of 1589 are 
 worthy of careful examination. A poem " In com- 
 mendation of a Solitary Life " is a very delicate and 
 refined composition, and one which might be taken 
 as a typical example of the poetry of reflection in 
 the age of Elizabeth. " A Beauty's Lullaby," on 
 the other hand, is confessedly a work of the author's 
 youth, and returns to the unwieldy versification and 
 confused volubility of a preceding generation, in which 
 rhetoric had taken the place of fancy. " Sundry sweet 
 Sonnets," with which the collection closes, contain a 
 variety of interesting lyrical experiments ; the little 
 madrigal, beginning "A very Phoenix, in her radiant 
 eyes," and the song of which this is a verse — 
 
 " The birds upon the trees 
 
 Do sing with pleasant voices, 
 And chant in their degrees 
 
 Their loves and lucky choices, 
 When I, whilst they are singing, 
 With sighs mine arms am wringing," 
 
 should be omitted from no anthology of Elizabethan 
 verse ; the sonnets are most of them written in that 
 spurious form of sixteen lines invented by Watson 
 in his Hekatompathia, but in a single instance Lodge 
 gives us here a sonnet of fourteen lines. He founds 
 it, evidently, upon French usage, for it is in alex- 
 andrines. The proper Elizabethan sonnet had not 
 yet been presented to the public, though Sidney's 
 had doubtless been widely circulated in manuscript. 
 
 The progress of poetical taste was so rapid in the 
 ninth decade of the sixteenth century that we may
 
 Thomas Lodge 17 
 
 trace it almost year by 3^ear. It seems to me im- 
 possible that so very intelligent and sensitive a poet 
 as Lodge could have written these " Sundry sweet 
 Sonnets" after Sidney's death in 15 86. He might 
 very well publish them later, indeed ; and yet 1 feel 
 much inclined to think that Scillas I^IctaviorpJiosis 
 was but reprinted in 1589. Of its author's adventures 
 and manner of life between 1584 and 1590 we know 
 only this, that he was engaged in at least one free- 
 booting expedition to Spanish waters. In the very 
 interesting preface to Rosalyfide he tells us that he 
 accompanied Captain Clarke in an attack upon the 
 Azores and the Canaries. His expressions are so 
 eloquent, and breathe so exactly the grandiose spirit 
 of the age of Elizabeth, that we ma}' quote them with 
 advantage. " Having," he says to his friend Lord 
 Hunsdon, " with Capt. Clarke made a voyage to the 
 Islands of Terceras and the Canaries, to beguile the 
 time with labour, I writ this book, rough, as hatched in 
 the storms of the ocean, and feathered in the surges 
 of many perilous seas." No account of this particular 
 expedition has been preserved, and we may believe 
 that it did not materially differ from many others of 
 which a record has been kept by Purchas or Hakluyt. 
 The vovci3.nct of Rosalynde : Euphues' Golden Legacy, 
 which appeared in 1590, is the next, and by far the most 
 important of Lodge's longer productions. " Room," 
 sa3's the author, " for a soldier and a sailor, that 
 gives you the fruits of his labours that he wrought 
 in the ocean, when every line was wet with a surge, 
 and every humorous passion counterchecked with a 
 
 B
 
 iS Seventeenth Centurv Studies 
 
 s:on-i." I: is very pleasant to imagine the young 
 jxr^t, in the same picturesque dress in which his 
 fellow-soldiers fought the Spanish Armada, stretched 
 on the deck of his ship while she sailed under a 
 tropical skv, and setting the amorous passions of the 
 Forest of Arden to the monotonous music of the ocean. 
 Bu: fcxr us the great interest of this, the best of Lodge's 
 works, consists in the fact that Shakespeare borrowed 
 firom it the plot of one of the most exquisite of his 
 comedies. As Vcu Lik€ It. With the exceptions of 
 Rosalj-nde hcrseh" of Phoebe, and of Adam, the trusty 
 servant, Shakespeare has altered all the names which 
 Lodge gives to his persons. Sir John of Bordeaux 
 (Sir Rowland de Bois) has two sons, Saladyne (Oliver) 
 and Rosader (Orlando) ; the younger of these departs 
 from his broiher's house in dudgeon, and arrives at 
 the court at Torrismond, king of France (Frederick), 
 who has banished his brother Gerismond (the Duke), 
 the rightful monarch, to be an outlaw in the forest of 
 Arden. At the usurper's court Rosader meets the 
 wrestler Norman (Charles), and challenges him to try 
 a fall in tbe presence of Rosalynde and her friend 
 AUena (Ceiia), the false king's daughter. It will be 
 remembered that Celia adopts the name Aliena in the 
 forest. AH thai foUows as in As You LiJu It, except 
 that there were in Lodge's story no equivalents to 
 Jacques, Touchstone, and Audrey. 
 
 We put Lodge at a great disadvantage when we com- 
 pare his crude invention with Shakespeare's magical 
 insight and perfect vision ; it is more fair to compare 
 tbe Rosalynde as a story with the tales of Lodge's
 
 Thomas Lodge 19 
 
 immeciate ccr.:er:poraries. In it, and in the 2-^-:*:z-:':on 
 of Greene, which was probably written about the same 
 time, though published in 1589, we find the two coty- 
 ledons between which sprang up the shoot which has 
 spread into the mighty tree of English fictioiu In 
 these languid and cumbrous stories it may be diScuIt 
 to trace any promise of the subtlety of Far from tfu 
 Madding Crozvd, or of the vivid realism of A Modem 
 Instance, but the process of evolution which has led 
 from Greene and Lodge to Mr. Hardy and ilr. Howells 
 has been consistent and direct. Already in these 
 Euphuistic romances we trace in embryo certain 
 qualities which have always been characteristic of 
 Anglo-Saxon fiction, a vigorous ideal of conduct, a 
 love of strength and adventure, an almost Quisctic 
 reverence for womanhood- Before their time anvthins 
 lite a coherent tale in prose had been unknown in 
 English; chronicle-history had been attempted with 
 occasional success, but purely imaginative invention 
 had not If we compare the Rosalynde of Lodge with 
 the Menaphon, which is Greene's masterpiece, we are 
 first struck with the strong similarity between the 
 methods of the two friends. They had acted and 
 reacted on each other, until it would be diScult, 
 without much reflection, to be sure whether one rich 
 dreamy page were the work of Greene or of Lod^e. 
 The verses would always help us to discriminate, and 
 by-and-bye we should perceive that in the conduct of 
 his story Lodge is more skilful and more business- 
 like than Greene, who becomes entangled in his own 
 garlands and arabesques.
 
 20 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 The Rosalynde is really very pleasant reading for 
 its own sake, and as the author appears to have in- 
 vented the plot, we may give him credit for having 
 conceived a series of romantic situations which Shake- 
 peare himself was content to accept. The life in the 
 forest of Arden is charmingly described. Shakespeare 
 gives us a sheepcot fenced about with olive-trees, 
 but in Lodge the banished king is found feasting with 
 the outlaws under a grove of lemons, and Rosader, 
 while he rests from hunting lions with a boar-spear, 
 inscribes his sonnets on the soft bark of a fig-tree. 
 
 These anachronisms cannot disturb those who enter 
 into the spirit of either romance. The light which 
 is blown down the deep glades of Arden, and falls 
 lovingly on the groups in their pastoral masquerade, 
 is that which never shone on sea or land, but which 
 has coloured the romantic vision of dreamers since 
 the world began. And it is very curious that the 
 generation which saw the whole of Europe plunged 
 into civil and international wars, when the roar of 
 cannon became a common sound in the ears of Chris- 
 tendom, and when the whole religious and social polity 
 of man was undergoing noisy revolution, should be 
 the one to turn with special fondness to the contem- 
 plation of Arcadias and Eldorados, out of space, out 
 of time; and that, on the very eve of the Armada, 
 Lodge should have sailed under the battlements of 
 Terceira with his brain full of Rosader's melancholy 
 amoret in praise of beauteous Rosalynde's perfection. 
 
 The verse in the Rosalynde demands particular 
 notice. It is as far superior to the prose in excellence
 
 Thomas Lodge 21 
 
 as Lodge himself was to Gosson or Gabriel Harvey. 
 Such a stanza as 
 
 " With orient pearl, with ruby red, 
 With marble white, with sapphire blue, 
 Her body every way is fed, 
 Yet soft in touch and sweet in view ; 
 Nature herself her shape admires, 
 The Gods are wounded in her sight, 
 And Love forsakes his heavenly fires 
 And at her eyes his brand doth light," 
 
 and the pieces beginning " First shall the heavens 
 want starry light," "Love in my bosom like a bee," 
 and " Turn I my looks unto the skies," are of the 
 first order of excellence. Nothing so fluent, so opu- 
 lent, so melodious had up to that time been known 
 in English lyrical verse, for we must never forget that 
 when these exquisite poems were given to the public, 
 the Faery Queen itself was not yet circulated. In 
 these love-songs a note of passion, a soaring and 
 shouting music of the lark at heaven's gate, was heard 
 for the first time above the scholastic voices of such 
 artificial poets as Watson, and for a moment, to an 
 observant eye, Lodge might have seemed, next after 
 Spenser, the foremost living poet of the English race. 
 Only, however, for a moment, since the vaster luminary 
 of Shakespeare was on the horizon, attended and 
 preceded by Hesper and Phosphor, Marlowe with the 
 pride of his youth, and Sidney with his posthumous 
 glory. And then the full morning broke, and Lodge 
 in his sweet colours of the sunrise was set aside, and 
 forgotten in a blaze of daylight.
 
 22 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Something of this must have been dimly felt by 
 Greene and Lodge. They did not confess that they 
 were superseded, and from Lodge at least we have no 
 word of petulance at the success of younger men. But 
 from this date there is less effort made to breast the 
 accomplishment of the age, and we find in both poets 
 a recurrence to the established forms of their art. 
 Greene, indeed, during the brief remainder of his life, 
 abandoned the pastoral romance in favour of those 
 treatises of " coney-catching " of which Lodge had set 
 him the example in his Alarum against Usu?'ers. That 
 the friendship between these eminent men had become 
 close we have many evidences. Lodge, who must 
 have been reading Ronsard or Baif, addressed an 
 octett in French to Greene in 1589, as an introduction 
 to the Spanish Masquerade of the latter poet, in which 
 he addresses him as "mon Greene" and "mon doux 
 ami." The success of Rosalynde in 1590 was instan- 
 taneous, and this romance continued to be printed for 
 nearly a century. Lodge was encouraged to take up 
 literature as a profession, and his publications during 
 the next five years were very numerous. On the 
 2nd of May 1591 he issued from "my chamber," pre- 
 sumably in London, a piece of hackwork, the Life of 
 Robin the Devil, a pseudo-historical account of the 
 vices, adventures, and penitent end of Robert le Diable, 
 second Duke of Normandy, whose brief career closed 
 on the 2nd of July 1035, and whose eccentric vigour 
 of character had collected a whole train of myths about 
 his memory. This pamphlet was evidently a profes- 
 sional piece of work, but it is very far from being one
 
 Thomas Lodo^e 23 
 
 't> 
 
 of Lodge's less successful pieces. The poems which 
 he scattered through its pages display, it is true, much 
 less originality and brilliance than those in Rosalynde, 
 but the story, such as it is, is well told, and there are 
 prose passages, such as the voluptuous description of 
 the " Bower of Editha," which are equal to the best 
 which Lodge has left us. It is perhaps not unworthy 
 of remark that it is in this book that we first detect 
 that sympathy with the Catholic creed, and with 
 Roman forms of penitence and ritual, which became 
 more and more marked in Lodge's writings, and which 
 have led to the shrewd conjecture that he was already 
 secretly a member of the Roman communion. 
 
 At the close of Rosalynde Lodge promised that if 
 the public encouraged his labours, he would next 
 prepare his Sailor's Calendar. This work, which, if 
 it ever appeared, has been hopelessly lost, was pro- 
 bably an account of the author's expedition to the 
 Azores with Captain Clarke, and would doubtless have 
 been rich in such autobiographical touches as we can 
 ill be content to miss. In October 1764 there was 
 sold from the librar^'^ of Mr. John Hutton, of St. Paul's 
 Churchyard, a black-letter volume by Lodge, entitled, 
 A Spider's Web, which has not turned up since. 
 Several of his existing works remain in unique exem- 
 plars, and there are, therefore, it is possible, other 
 lacunas in our list of his productions. The next book 
 which comes under our notice is one of the rarest of 
 all, and its entire disappearance would denude its 
 author of little of his glory. Before, however, we 
 consider the Catharos, which apparently was published
 
 24 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 late in 1591, and during its author's absence from 
 England, we must deal with the circumstances which 
 led him abroad. 
 
 Thomas Cavendish was a young squire of Suffolk, 
 who, upon attaining his majority, had fitted out a ship, 
 and had gone with Sir Richard Grenville on a privateer- 
 ing expedition to the West Indies. His courage was 
 extraordinary, his judgment above that of a boy ot 
 twenty-one, and his power over men almost magical. 
 In July of the following year he set out, at his own 
 cost, on an enterprise which greatly impressed the 
 imagination of the age, the circumnavigation of the 
 globe, and this he accomplished in September 15S8. 
 He ravaged the coasts of many peaceful and savage 
 nations, and returned to England with silken sails and 
 every ostentation of wealth. So brilliant had been 
 his success that he was encouraged, although his 
 constitution had suffered in his adventures, to under- 
 take a still more important piratical enterprise. On 
 the 26th of August 1591, "three tall ships and two 
 barks," with Thomas Cavendish at their head, set sail 
 from Plymouth, bound for the coast of China and the 
 Philippine Islands. Cavendish sailed on board the 
 Leycester^ and among the company of gentlemen who 
 manned the second ship, the Desire, a galleon of 140 
 tons, in which Cavendish had made his previous 
 voyage, was Thomas Lodge, the poet, who was now 
 about thirty-four years of age. There may have been 
 in him a hereditary love of this species of adventure, 
 for his father, the sober Maj^or of London city, had in 
 the poet's infancy taken part in a peculiarly infamous
 
 Thomas Lodge 25 
 
 expedition of the kind, the voyage of Robert Baker to 
 Guinea in 1562, with the Mmion and the Primrose. 
 It was in the course of this expedition, and of that 
 which followed it in 1563, that the traffic in negro 
 slaves was set in motion. 
 
 It was necessary for Cavendish to avoid those par- 
 ticular portions of the globe which he had ravaged 
 in his voyage of circumnavigation, and we hear of 
 his landing first on the coast of Brazil, which he 
 had formerly avoided. He ordered an attack on the 
 town of Santos, while the people were at mass ; the 
 surprise was accomplished, but no use was made of 
 the success, and the failure of Cavendish's judgment 
 was soon made apparent. From the 15 th of December 
 to the 22nd of January 1592, the little fleet remained 
 at Santos doing nothing ; the captain of the Roebuck, 
 the third galleon, was told off in command of those 
 who preferred to spend this time on shore, and Lodge 
 was among the latter. The Englishmen took up their 
 abode in the College of the Jesuits, and Lodge occu- 
 pied himself, as he tells us, among the books in the 
 library of the Fathers. He had by this time, per- 
 haps on one of his previous expeditions, made himself 
 master of the Spanish language. Something which 
 he met with in a book at Santos suggested to him 
 the idea which he proceeded to weave into a new 
 romance. 
 
 Meanwhile the English fleet were driven from their 
 position by want of food, and proceeded down the 
 coast of Brazil to the Straits of Magellan. " Here," 
 says Lodge, " I had rather will to get my dinner,
 
 26 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 than to win fame ; " and, indeed, a spirit of dissen- 
 sion and mutiny began to render life on board the 
 Enghsh ships almost unbearable. Cavendish, who 
 could bear his men through unruffled success, but 
 who was too young and too inexperienced for calm- 
 ness in misfortune, seems to have lost his head alto- 
 gether. The cold was extreme, the ships were 
 separated by violent storms, and at last Cavendish 
 left the Leycester and came on board the Desire, where 
 Lodge was, bitterly denouncing his own men, and 
 refusing to sail with them any longer. The officers 
 of the Desire held parley accordingly with those of 
 the Leycester, and Cavendish was persuaded to go 
 back to the latter. Lodge seems to have shared the 
 common dislike of Cavendish, for in 1596 he speaks 
 of him as one "whose memory, if I repent not, I 
 lament not." 
 
 In the midst, however, of these sufferings and dis- 
 turbances, while they lay storm-bound among the icy 
 cliffs of Patagonia, Lodge occupied himself by writing 
 his Arcadian romance of the Margarite of America, 
 which he printed four years later. In the preface 
 to that book he says : ** Touching the place where 
 I wrote this, it was in those Straits christened by 
 Magellan ; in which place to the southward many 
 wondrous Isles, many strange fishes, many monstrous 
 Patagones, withdrew my senses : briefly, many bitter 
 and extreme frosts at midsummer continually clothe 
 and clad the discomfortable mountains ; so that there 
 was great wonder in the place wherein I writ this, 
 so Hkewise might it be marvelled that in such scanty
 
 Thomas Lodge 27 
 
 fare, such causes of fear, so mighty discouragements, 
 and so many crosses, I should deserve to eternise 
 anything." The weary months spent to no purpose 
 within the Antarctic seas must have fretted the spirits 
 of all the companions of Cavendish. At last it seems 
 to have become plain to them that autumn was coming 
 on, and that they would not get through to the Pacific 
 at all. The Desire set off alone on her return voyage, 
 and Lodge, if he was still on board of her, landed, 
 after disappointment, suffering, and almost starvation, 
 on the coast of Ireland, on the lith of June 1593. 
 The crew of the ship had been reduced to sixteen, 
 and of these only five were in tolerable health. Caven- 
 dish himself died of a broken heart, at the age of 
 twenty-nine, before he completed what Purchas calls 
 " that dismal and fated voyage, in which he consum- 
 mated his earthly peregrinations." 
 
 This voyage appears to have cured Lodge of all his 
 youthful vivacity, although his wandering spirit soon 
 broke out again. During his absence of twenty-two 
 months great changes had occurred. Three of those 
 poets with whose names his had been most closely 
 united had died during that interval ; these were 
 Watson, Greene, and Marlowe. But he found that 
 his memory had been supported during his absence, 
 in one case, certainly, by a friend whom he should 
 never see again. In 1591, immediately after his 
 departure, had been published his Catharos, or, as the 
 sub-title names it, A Nettle for Nice Noses. This has 
 become one of the rarest, and must always have been 
 one of the most insignificant of his productions.
 
 28 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Three friends, Diogenes, Philoplutos, and Cosmosophos, 
 whose names betray their didactic purpose, carry on 
 a dreary dialogue on the subject of the seven deadly 
 sins as they are practised in Athens, or rather London. 
 Diogenes is a cynic moralist, who claims that his own 
 life is Kadap6<i, pure, and who bitterly reflects on the 
 conduct of his fellow-citizens. The Nettle for Nice 
 Noses has no literary merit ; it is an early example of 
 the rabid and pedantic prose satire of the Elizabethan 
 age, a style of cheap literature which pandered to the 
 respectable lower middle class, and fostered its pre- 
 judices. Here and there we find a touch of Lodge's 
 eloquent Euphuism, but as a whole this is among the 
 tamest of his books. 
 
 Infinitely better and more characteristic is the 
 romance of Euphues' Shadow, which appeared the 
 following year, and the editing of which was one of 
 the last performances on earth of Robert Greene. 
 Lodge, as appears from the preface, wrote from 
 America to Greene, begging him to see this book 
 through the press and to select a patron. The title 
 of the romance directly recalls the famous work of 
 Lyly, and it is in Euphues' Shadow that Lodge comes 
 nearest to his great precursor. Those far-fetched 
 references to the classics, those applications to man's 
 estate of a fabulous zoology and botany, those involved 
 and sonorous sentences, each a very microcosm in 
 itself, all the features of Lyly's extraordinary style are 
 reproduced by Lodge with the most startling precision. 
 We have the beast Varius, with his rich skin but rank 
 flesh, the bird Struchio, the populous and pompous
 
 Thomas Lodge 29 
 
 city of Pasan, the horn of the serpent Cerastes, the 
 virtues of the herb Abrotamum, almost before we 
 have fairly started in the story ; and the manner of 
 Lyly is caught with singular art and precision. Pro- 
 bably this was done on pilrpose, for it is certain that 
 after a few pages the author becomes weary of this 
 antithetical apparatus and panoply of examples, and 
 sinks to the rich, easy style that was native to him. 
 The lyrics, which are more sparsely than usual 
 scattered over the pages of this romance, are not in 
 Lodge's brightest vein, and no one of them would be 
 selected as among his most characteristic pieces. 
 
 It is probable that both of Lodge's surviving plays 
 were first acted during his absence from England. We 
 know that this was the case with A Looking Glass for 
 London and Engla7id, in which Greene had been his 
 collaborator. This drama was performed by Lord 
 Strange's servants on the 8th and 27th of March 1592, 
 and again on the 19th of April and the 7th of June of 
 the same year. A passage of Greene's posthumous 
 Groafs Worth of Wit has been rashly considered 
 to refer unquestionably to Lodge. After exhorting 
 Marlowe, Greene proceeds : " With thee I join young 
 Juvenal, that biting satirist, that lastly with me 
 together writ a comedy." It is perhaps not much to 
 the point that the Looking Glass is not a comedy at 
 all, but a tragedy; but it is almost certain that when 
 Juvenal is mentioned Nash is always meant. Nash 
 had made himself many enemies by his pasquils, and 
 was widely known, which Lodge was not, as a " biting 
 satirist." It is possible that Nash may have assisted
 
 30 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Greene in writing his George a Greene, or in composing 
 some other comedy which no longer exists. At all 
 events, our desire to clutch at every shred of bio- 
 graphical allusion must not blind us to the fact that 
 by Juvenal Greene can hardly have intended Lodge, 
 or any one but Nash. 
 
 In a tract printed in 1867, Dr. C. M. Ingleby care- 
 fully sifted and collated all the evidence for the popular 
 assumption that Lodge was himself a player, and he 
 showed it to rest upon absolutely no basis at all. That 
 somebody called Lodge failed to pay his tailor's bill, 
 and left Henslowe responsible for the debt, is one of 
 those tantalising little facts which may mean every- 
 thing or nothing, and upon which it is exceedingly 
 dangerous to dogmatise. Lodge had certainly very 
 little dramatic faculty, and there is no evidence to 
 show that at any period of his life he tried to eke out 
 this talent by actual stage experience. Of his two 
 plays, the Looking Glass for London and England is by 
 far the more interesting. It is very primitive in form ; 
 the serious part of the plot deals with the arrogance 
 and license of Rasni, king of Assyria. Neither in 
 manner nor in metrical peculiarity are these descrip- 
 tions of the pride of Nineveh like anything else to be 
 found in the works of Greene or Lodge. Whichever 
 of them wrote the opening scenes of the Looking Glass 
 was fresh from witnessing the performance of Marlowe's 
 Tamburlaine the Great, and was anxious to outdo the 
 young master himself in the "swelling bombast of 
 bragging blank verse," It is probably Lodge to whom 
 we owe the rant of these "drumming decasyllabons,"
 
 Thomas Lodge 31 
 
 which occasionally soften to a richness that reminds 
 us of the lyrics in Rosalynde. This is the language 
 in which the King of Cicilia thinks fit to describe King 
 Rasni : — 
 
 " If lovely shape, feature by nature's skill 
 Passing in beauty fair Endymion's, 
 That Luna wrapped within her snowy breasts, 
 Or that sweet boy that wrought bright Venus' bane, 
 Transformed into a purple hyacinth, 
 If beauty nonpareil in excellence 
 May make a king match with the God in gree, 
 Rasni is God on earth, and none but he." 
 
 Unfortunately, although the authors of the Looking 
 Glass borrowed from Marlowe something of his boister- 
 ous music and his high key of passion, they possessed 
 none of his sounder dramatic qualities. The piece is 
 a strange old-fashioned farrago of bombast and satire ; 
 when Rasni and the Ninevites are not mouthing, low 
 comic personages in the streets of London are talking 
 Elizabethan slang. A certain Osias serves as chorus, 
 and shifts the clumsy scenes. Jonas is thrown straight 
 out of the mouth of the whale on to the stage, and the 
 vengeance of Heaven falls on Nineveh with a grotesque 
 attempt at realism. Yet poor as is the Looking Glass, 
 it is a better play than Lodge's sole unassisted effort 
 at dramatic composition, The Wotmds of Civil War, 
 first printed in 1594. The dull and tame scenes of 
 this historical drama, in which there is hardly an 
 attempt at action, and where there is even a melancholy 
 absence of rant, hardly allow themselves to be read. 
 At one point Lodge remembers who he is, and Marius,
 
 32 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 in exile on the Numidian mountains, recites with great 
 satisfaction a sonnet and a long madrigal, like those 
 carved on the trees of Arden by Rosader and Montanus. 
 It may be said that there is no female character in The 
 Wounds of Civil War, for though Cornelia and Fulvia 
 cross the stage, and then at the close recross it, they 
 have no further business to perform. The play con- 
 tains its sole historical interest in the fact that it was 
 the precursor of those tragedies of Roman history 
 which form so splendid a part of the works of Shake- 
 speare and Ben Jonson. 
 
 During 1593, the year of his return from South 
 America, Lodge's pen was particularly active. It is 
 probable that he resumed his legal connection, for, 
 on the title-page of his Life and Death of William 
 Longbeard, he once more styles himself "of Lincoln's 
 Inn." This tract is a pseudo-historical romance of the 
 same kind as Lodge's previous Robin the Devil, but 
 more hastily put together, and eked out with a variety 
 of short stories about famous pirates, and the melan- 
 choly fates of learned men. The tale which gives its 
 name to the volume is adorned by a variety of odes 
 and sonnets, which are pretty in themselves, but pre- 
 posterously out of place in such a prosaic narrative of 
 crime and its reward. Lodge was better occupied 
 during the same year by contributing lyrics to the 
 miscellany called The Phoejiix Nest, which was printed 
 by John Jackson, and nominally edited by a certain 
 R. S. In the induction to his next publication, Phillis, 
 Lodge seems to claim for himself the responsibility 
 of the Phoenix Nest, in which we find no fewer than
 
 Thomas Lodge 33 
 
 thirteen of his pieces which occur nowhere else. 
 Phillis itself, however, is a far more important publi- 
 cation than either of these. It is, in fact, from a critical 
 point of view, the best of all Lodge's works, Rosalynde 
 excepted. Among the cycles of Elizabethan sonnets 
 it takes an early place, being preceded by Sidney's 
 Stella^ Daniel's Delia, and Constable's Diana, and 
 accompanied by Barnaby Barnes' Parthenope, and 
 Watson's posthumous Tears of Fancy. Lodge's son- 
 nets are particularly rich in single lines, such as : — 
 
 " The falling fountains from the mountains falling," 
 
 and in short passages of extraordinary felicity, such 
 as : — 
 
 "The rumour runs that here in Isis swim 
 
 Such stately swans, so confident in dying, 
 That when they feel themselves near Lethe's brim 
 
 They sing their fatal dirge when death is nighing ; 
 And I, like these, that feel my wounds are mortal, 
 
 Contented die for her whom I adore, 
 And in my joyful hymns do still exhort all 
 
 To die for such a saint, or love no more." 
 
 But it is rare to find a sonnet which preserves this 
 level of excellence throughout. That beginning 
 
 " How languisheth the primrose of Love's garden," 
 
 has found its way into the anthologies, and 
 
 " I wrote in Myrrha's bark, and as I wrote," 
 
 with its beautiful pine-wood scenery, is almost as 
 worthy of popularity. The use of the double rhyme 
 gives a unique sweetness to many of Lodge's sonnets,
 
 34 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 and in almost all of them, even where the construction 
 is most lax and the sense most obscure, the diction 
 is particularly rich. The volume contains, besides 
 sonnets, some of Lodge's best songs and lyrics, in 
 particular " Love guides the roses of thy lips," " My 
 Phillis hath the morning sun," and " My matchless 
 mistress, whose delicious eyes," each of which might 
 be quoted as a type of the erotic poetry of the age. 
 The whole book was dedicated to Lady Shrewsbury. 
 It closes with a long, dreary, and excessively obscure 
 elegiac poem called The Complaint of Elstred, which 
 may have given Shakespeare a faint suggestion of the 
 form of his Lover's Complaint, and which tells those 
 histories of Locrine and Sabrina, which were drama- 
 tised two years after with the assumption of Shake- 
 speare's name, and in a subsequent generation occupied 
 the attention of Milton. 
 
 When Joseph Hall brought out his Virgidemiaruni 
 in 1597, and boasted with youthful braggadocio — 
 
 "follow me who list 
 And be the second English satirist," 
 
 he forgot or neglected to remind his readers that Lodge 
 had, in 1595, published in his FigforMomus four or 
 five satires which led the way for future essays in this 
 vein so distinctly that to overlook them was an act of 
 bad faith or of bad history. This was another case in 
 w^iich Lodge set a fashion which has been followed by 
 every English writer of the same kind. The satire in 
 heroic couplets has passed from Lodge through Hall, 
 Donne, Dryden, Pope, Churchill, Crabbe, and Byron,
 
 Thomas Lodge 35 
 
 to such rare later efforts as have been essayed, without 
 any change of outward form, and Lodge deserves the 
 credit of his discovery. His satires seem to have 
 attracted no notice in his own age, for he was never 
 encouraged to print that "whole centon of them," 
 which, he says, were in his possession. 
 
 The Fig for Momus, which was sent out to the 
 world on the 6th of May 1595, was in several ways a 
 tentative volume. Lodge proved himself an innovator 
 again by publishing in it, for the first time in English, 
 epistles in verse to private persons, founded in form 
 upon those of Horace. Of these epistles several ad- 
 dress eminent men in terms of friendship. One to 
 Michael Drayton, to whom an eclogue in the same 
 volume is inscribed under the pseudonym of Rowland, 
 shows the existence of an intimiate affection between 
 Lodge and the young author of Idea, and is an early 
 testimony to the dignified esteem with which Drayton 
 was regarded by his contemporaries. An eclogue in 
 the Fig for Momus is dedicated to Samuel Daniel, an 
 Oxford man who had gone up to Magdalen after 
 Lodge's time, and who had lately made himself notice- 
 able for a very pure and intelligent vein of reflective 
 poetry. Daniel and Drayton were men of the best 
 class, gentlemen who held themselves aloof from the 
 vulgar struggle of the wits, and it is significant that 
 they, and no longer the rough sort of professional 
 pamphleteers, should appear as Lodge's friends and 
 associates. 
 
 He was now approaching the age of forty; the new 
 canons of literary taste which he had been among the
 
 36 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 first to institute, were now being adopted by authors 
 of far greater power and freshness than he. Shake- 
 speare was in motion ; the riotous crew of the dramatists 
 were lifting up their voices, and Lodge breathed along 
 his oaten flute with less confidence, and betrayed a 
 certain growing agitation 3'ear by year. The Fig for 
 Moinus marks his latest appearance as a poet, since 
 the sonnets of the Margarite of America certainly, and 
 those published in England's Helicon probably, were 
 the work of several years prior to their publication. 
 Lodge's satires, eclogues, and epistles are very mono- 
 tonous in stj^e, and do not command attention by 
 their vigour and concision. The thought is rarely 
 bright enough or the expression nervous enough to 
 demand definite praise. The best that can be said of 
 them is that they are lucid and Horatian, escaping the 
 faults of those succeeding satirists who thought them- 
 selves tame unless they took Persius, or even, perhaps, 
 the Alexandra of Lycophron, as the model of their 
 obscurity. 
 
 In 1596 Lodge's activity as an original writer cul- 
 minated, and practically closed. We possess no fewer 
 than four distinct volumes published by him in that 
 year. On the 15th of April he gave to the world his 
 prose disquisition of The Devil Conjured. It is a 
 tedious soliloquy on virtue, put into the mouth of a 
 "virtuous and solitary Hermit called Anthony," and 
 bears a sort of whimsical resemblance in its concep- 
 tion, though certainly none in its execution, to the 
 Teiitation de St. Antoine of Flaubert. The author 
 himself thought highly of this performance, and even
 
 Thomas Lodge 2)7 
 
 went so far as contemptuously to describe his former 
 poems and romances as mere corncockles, while this 
 was the real wheat of his brain. The preface, indeed, 
 is a palinode; there can be little doubt that he had 
 now "got religion," and that his early amorous writings, 
 though always innocent, seemed to him to call for 
 penitence. It appears from the dedication to Sir John 
 Fortescue, that Lodge was now suffering from reports, 
 and it is probable that he was already suspected of 
 being a Catholic. 
 
 This element in his nature is still more apparent, 
 though yet not openly avowed, in Wifs Misery and 
 the World's Madness, another prose disquisition, of 
 a pseudo-philosophical kind, which he issued from his 
 house at Low Leyton, on the 5th of November of the 
 same year, 1596. The Lodge family had always been 
 associated, more or less vaguely, with this village, 
 which lies in the Hundred of Becontree, in Essex, 
 about six miles to the north-east of London. The 
 messuage or farm of Malmaynes, in the same hundred, 
 was originally given by Lady Lodge in her will to her 
 son Thomas, but the gift is set aside in a codicil, and 
 certain lands on the borders of Suffolk and Essex, at 
 or near Nayland, are bequeathed to the poet instead. 
 Sir Thomas Lodge's house, however, had been at or 
 near Low Leyton, and it may be conjectured that by 
 some means or other his second son had come into 
 possession of it. By this time, it would seem. Lodge's 
 first wife was dead, and he had married Mrs. Jane 
 Albridge (or Aldred), a widow lady, a Catholic, whose 
 first husband had been a dependent of Lodge's early 
 
 431898
 
 38 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 patron, Sir Francis Walsingham, and who had herself 
 been useful to the Catholics at Rome and other places 
 in the days of their darkest persecution. This Mrs. 
 Lodge has retained a minute niche in history as a 
 cat's-paw in the hands of the detractors of the Earl 
 of Arundel during his imprisonment in the Tower in 
 1586. 
 
 Bearing these circumstances in mind, it is by no 
 means extraordinary that a leaning towards Catholic 
 psychology of the more obvious kind, such as we find 
 it expressed in the Devil Conjured and in Wifs Misery 
 and the World's Madness, should have taken the form 
 of direct Romanism in the ^^ Prosopopeia, or Tears of 
 the Holy, Blessed, and Sanctified Mary, the Mother of 
 God." It has been doubted, I cannot conceive upon 
 what grounds, whether this little treatise, although 
 signed with the famihar letters T. L., is actually by 
 our Thomas Lodge. It is true that in two copies 
 these initials have been reversed by the printer, but, 
 in my opinion the style of the text is sufficient to 
 demonstrate that this is one of Lodge's genuine tracts, 
 and the open profession of Catholic doctrine is no 
 more than what we have been gradually prepared for 
 by the whole tenor of the poet's career. If there is 
 any cause for astonishment, it is that Lodge should 
 have ventured to come forward under so thin a dis- 
 guise, at a time when it was still dangerous to avow 
 dissent from the Church of England. 
 
 In the midst of this busy year, 1596, and in spite 
 of all his denunciation of his early amatory writings, 
 Lodge bethought him of the romance which he had
 
 Thomas Lodge 
 
 composed in the Straits of Magellan in the winter of 
 1592, and he published it on the 4th of May under the 
 title of A Margarite of America. This is one of the 
 prettiest of his stories. It has absolutely nothing to 
 do with America, save the accident of its composition 
 there ; it is a tragical narrative of the loves of Arsa- 
 dachas, son and heir to the Emperor of Cusco, and 
 Margarita, whose father was king of Muscovy, and 
 who dwelt in a fortress "situate by a gracious and 
 silver-floating river, environed with curious planted 
 trees to minister shade, and sweet-smelling flowers," 
 Lodge has expended his richest fancy on this work ; 
 the heroine's father cannot be murdered in his bed, 
 but that this article of furniture is described as of 
 black ebony, set about with rubies and carbuncles; 
 the lady herself, summoned to her fate, pauses that 
 she may decently array herself in a grass-green robe, 
 embroidered with daisies; and if a political meeting 
 is to be held by the nobles of Cusco, it has to be 
 arranged in "a fair arbour, covered with roses and 
 honeysuckles, paved with camomile, pinks, and violets, 
 and guarded with two pretty crystal fountains on 
 every side." The passages of verse, sonnets, and 
 canzonets are of the same sweet and mellifluous order, 
 and recall the interludes of the Rosalynde. It does 
 not seem to have been observed that the elaborate 
 piece beginning — 
 
 % 
 
 "With Ganymede now joins the shining sun," 
 
 is an example, the earliest in English literature, of a 
 sestina formed on the exact plan of that form of verse,
 
 40 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 as invented by Arnaut Daniel and employed by Dante. 
 An examination of the length of the lines and of the 
 arrangement of the tornada shows that Lodge was 
 following an Italian, and not a Proven9al model. The 
 latter, indeed, he could scarcely be expected to meet 
 with. When we except the Rosalynde and the PJiillis, 
 A Margarite of America is perhaps the work of 
 Lodge's which will best reward the ordinary reader. 
 
 Lodge now retired from the profession of poetry, 
 and adopted that of medicine. According to Anthony 
 4 Wood, he took his degree of Doctor of Physic at 
 Avignon. This must have been at least as early as 
 1600, for in that year certain passages from his known 
 poems were quoted in England's Parnassus with the 
 attribution " Doctor Lodge." He also contributed 
 original poems to England'' s Hel^co7^, a miscellany of 
 the same year. As a physician, he rapidly attained 
 a great reputation, and was ranked among the lead- 
 ing Englishmen in the profession. On the 25th of 
 October 1602, "Thomas Lodge, Doctor of Physic, of 
 the University of Avenion," was incorporated in the 
 University of Oxford. In the same year he produced 
 a version of the works of Josephus, which was so 
 popular that between 1 602 and 1670 it passed through 
 no fewer than seven editions. In 1603 Lodge appeared 
 for the last time before the public as an original author, 
 with a Treatise of the Plague, dedicated to the Lord 
 Mayor and Corporation of London, and applicable to 
 the epidemic at that moment raging in the city. Con- 
 temporary allusions to him are not rare in the occasional 
 literature of the early part of the seventeenth century.
 
 Thomas Lodge 41 
 
 In the first act of that curious play The Return from 
 Parnassus, which, though not printed until 1606, was 
 acted in 1602, Lodge is thus referred to as a physician 
 and as a Euphuist : — 
 
 " For Lodge and Watson, men of some desert, 
 Yet subject to a critic's marginal ; 
 Lodge for his oar in ev'ry paper boat, 
 He that turns over Galen ev'ry day. 
 To sit and simper ' Euphues' Legacy.' " 
 
 In a manuscript "Poetical Common Place Book of 
 a Cambridge Student," which was perhaps begun in 
 161 1, there is a coarse satirical piece against "London 
 Physicians," in which Lodge is thus mentioned : — 
 
 "And old Doctor Lodge, 
 That leaues of to doge. 
 
 Will you neuer leaue?* 
 
 This not very intelligible apostrophe possibly points 
 to the fact that, in spite of his reputation — and in his 
 Troia Britanica, in 1609, Heywood had given him a 
 place among the six most famous English doctors — 
 Lodge was occasionally put to great straits for a liveli- 
 hood. In the meantime I may be allowed to print 
 for the first time a letter which exists among the 
 Domestic State Papers, and which reveals something 
 of the intrigues in which Lodge and his Catholic wife 
 were unquestionably engaged : — 
 
 " S', havinge mett w"* so convenient a messenger I canno 
 but congratulate yo' departure hence to Hue in such content- 
 ment as their I heare you doe. w"^** as I wish more and more to 
 increase so doubt I not but that you will alwayes be mindefull 
 of y^ well wisshinge frendes you have left behinde yo". In my
 
 42 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 last lettre to you, I requested that M" Lodge might haue con- 
 tinued heare at leaste for some six or seaven monethes, but 
 sithence that tyme havinge bin at the Moscovia house and not 
 findinge that her stay heare might doe me the good I expected» 
 and that I hould it no reasonable request so longe to disjoyne 
 man and wief, I leave the orderinge of y' busines to yo"^ owne 
 further consideracon. Wisshinge that Mr. Griffin for that my 
 selfe shall be often absent from hence wer fully authorized by a 
 lettre of Attorney from you, to haue the managinge of that 
 busines from tyme to tyme. And that further you will write 
 yo'' lettres as occason shall be offered to the M' of the company 
 and yo"" lettres of particular direction to M"' Griffin or others to 
 such effect as I shall from tyme to tyme require it. The 
 shippkige w'='' went forth two yeare sithence is not yet all re- 
 turned and theirfore no accoumpt past as yet of that viage, yet 
 it is proffered that the fiftye pounde may goe in adventure this 
 yeare againe w^*^ argueth that the principall remayneth whole, 
 but yet cannot be gotten out, and theirfore I hould it best againe 
 to adventure it, and so M''^ Lodge in yo' absence hath under- 
 taken to doe. And some bodye must from tyme to tyme be 
 heare to let the company what they will adventure or els the 
 stocke for y' yeare lieth deade. Notw^'standinge all the dififi- 
 cultyes this age seemeth for this p'^sent to inviron us w"" all, 
 y' we shall still be hable to drawe breath in England, and I 
 hope ere it be longe to see you willinge and desirous to looke 
 homewarde, for though much hath bin attempted against us in 
 parliament yet, hitherto nothinge is done harder then of oulde, 
 nor as I hope will be. I pray you S' advertize me howe I 
 might place Robin their, and v/hat the charge would be to kepe 
 him at his booke or what you thinke of it, if I could gett him 
 placed w^'' S'' Willm Standley, and lett me heare sometymes from 
 you I pray yo" we lye still at o' oulde lodginge. And thus 
 w"* my hartye commendacons & my wiues to you w* yo" servants 
 dutye I ende London this ix"" of March 1605. 
 
 " Yo"^ lovinge frende 
 
 "W. JENISON. 
 ** To the worshipful! his louinge frende 
 
 " M' Thomas Lodge, Doctor in Phisicke."
 
 Thomas Lodge 
 
 Our next glimpse of the poet-physician shows him 
 to us once more setting out upon his travels. A 
 memorandum on the Privy Council Registers, dated 
 January loth, i6i6, mentions "A passe for Tho. 
 Lodge, Doctor of Physic, and Henry Sewell, gent., 
 to travel into the Arch-Duke's Country, to recover 
 such debts as are due unto them there, taking with 
 them two servants, and to return agayne in five 
 moneths." It has been suggested that the real object 
 of this journey was to avoid process on the part of 
 Alleyn, who arrested Lodge immediately upon his 
 return. Lodge seems to have left England again as 
 soon as this trouble was over, and to have remained 
 abroad, probably practising in the Low Countries, 
 until 1619. In his treatise called The Poor Man's 
 Talent, first printed in 1881, he describes a remedy 
 " which," he says, " I have often tried in the Royal 
 Hospital at Mecklin upon soldiers that grew lame by 
 cold." But inquiries made at Malines have unfor- 
 tunately resulted in the discovery of no record of his 
 name or functions. 
 
 Of Lodge's remaining years few memorials are in 
 existence. That he was in easy circumstances may 
 be gathered from the fact that in 16 12 he raised a 
 monument in the Church of Rolleston, Notts, to the 
 memory of his younger brother, Nicholas Lodge, lord 
 of that manor, in whose will a legacy of two gold 
 bracelets is made to the wife of the poet. In 16 14 
 Lodge published a translation of the works of Seneca, 
 and a copy of this book is in existence, given by Lodge 
 to Thomas Dekker in the year of publication. About
 
 44 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 1623 he compiled TJie Poor Man's Talent^ a medical 
 text-book for the use of his wife's old patroness, Anne, 
 Countess of Arundel. In this work Lodge uses ex- 
 pressions which could only proceed from the mouth of 
 a Catholic, and such a phrase as " I will set down a 
 remedy which St. Dominic revealed to a poor devout 
 woman," leave us no room to doubt that by this time, 
 at all events, he had definitely joined that communion 
 to which he had all his life been leaning. 
 
 Lodge became a very prominent practitioner during 
 the last years of his life. His private house was still 
 at Low Leyton, but he saw his London patients origi- 
 nally in Warwick Lane, afterwards in Lambert Hill, 
 and finally, shortly before his death, in Old Fish 
 Street. He died, it is said, of the plague, in 1625, 
 being then in his sixty-seventh or sixty-eighth year, 
 and on the 12th of October of that year administra- 
 tion of his effects was granted to his widow, Jane 
 Lodge, who must herself have been an elderly woman 
 at the time, her name having come forward in con- 
 nection with the Arundel family just forty years 
 before. 
 
 Thomas Lodge was a strange compound of strength 
 and weakness, of imitation and originality. His in- 
 telligence and activity gave him a prominence in the 
 literature of the time which his mind was hardly 
 vigorous enough to sustain. He would have, as his 
 satirist says, "his oar in every paper boat," and could 
 not conceive the possibility of failing in any depart- 
 ment of literature. As a fact, however, he is a signal 
 failure in drama, in satire, and in philosophy, and his
 
 Thomas Lodge 45 
 
 unsuccessful efforts in these directions occupy a large 
 section of his entire works. His almost servile attitude 
 towards the bold affectations of Lyly would make us 
 at one moment deny Lodge all true originality, if we 
 were not immediately confronted by the fact that he 
 was himself a pioneer in half-a-dozen fields of poetical 
 invention. The introducer into English of the romantic 
 epic, of the heroic satire, and of the heroic epistle, cannot 
 be overlooked in any historical summary of our litera- 
 ture. But Lodge's real excellence is as a lyrical poet, 
 and in the richness of his fancy as a prose romancer. 
 
 His prose style, judged by severe modern canons, 
 or even compared with the poetical style of his own 
 age, is not less intolerable than that of most of his 
 contemporaries. English prose, as an instrument for 
 the clear expression of unaffected thought, had hardly 
 begun to exist. Lodge's best romances are as lucidly 
 and gracefully written as was at that time possible. 
 They never can, however, take again a living place in 
 literature ; but this honour must not be denied to the 
 best of their author's songs and sonnets. In that 
 glowing age no one could express the jubilant exu- 
 berance of love with a fuller note, with a more 
 luxurious music, with more affluent and redundant 
 imagery. His intellectual languor prevents the com- 
 plete, or rather the continuous expression of this 
 golden ecstasy, and we are often left to wonder that 
 a lyrist who was so thrilling a moment ago can now 
 be so insipid. But in a few of his best songs he 
 sustains his flight till the music is perfect, and in these 
 he reaches the topmost level of success. The author
 
 46 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 of " Like to the clear in highest sphere," was as 
 genuine a poet as ever breathed, and whether in these 
 moments of great inspiration, or in his hours of lassi- 
 tude and extravagance, Lodge is always the very type 
 and exemplar of a man of letters in the irregular and 
 romantic age of Elizabeth. 
 
 1882.
 
 JOHN WEBSTER 
 
 Among those shrouded figures of the Elizabethan 
 poets, to whom present popularity was a doubtful 
 thing, and future fame scarcely dreamed of, who had 
 no Vasari to perpetuate the humours and adventures 
 of their lives, those who defied the world most have 
 left the most definite personal impression behind them. 
 Robert Greene, the dissolute bully, the remorseful 
 rake, whose red beard flares in his own graceless 
 stories, would hardly have been suspected as the out- 
 ward man of that lyric spirit that wrote "Ah! were 
 she pitiful as she is fair," and that dreamed the strange 
 pure Utopia of the Menaphon. If Greene, and Dekker, 
 and Marlowe, the three scapegraces of the period, 
 present such violent and unexpected features in their 
 private lives, what eccentricities may not have charac- 
 terised those other men, whose deeds cried out less 
 loudly against them, and whose works have now no 
 setting of biographical fact? Among these latter 
 figures, perhaps the most shadowy and indefinable is 
 the one that bears the good English name of John 
 Webster. When was he born ? No one has recorded. 
 When did he die ? It is not known. His presence 
 seems to hover about London, and is doubtfully con- 
 nected in some gloomy fashion with the Church of St.
 
 48 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Andrew's, Holborn. One miserable satirist has per- 
 petuated his own obscure name by vilifying our poet 
 with coarse and ridiculous abuse ; and this summary, 
 with the dates of his productions, comprises the entire 
 biography of a man who ranks as one of the most 
 illustrious dramatists of modern Europe. Meagre 
 enough, truly, is this life-history, so meagre, indeed, 
 that editors have distended it with babbling discus- 
 sions as to the authorship of certain tracts, violently 
 Puritanic, and published when the poet must have 
 been extremely aged ; of which controversy we need 
 say nothing here, merely remembering that it is not 
 very long since Mr. Sheridan Knowles, a dramatist of 
 no mean talent, surprised us in his old age by a like 
 change of opinion. All we can profitably do in the 
 absence of characteristic anecdotes is to examine the 
 priceless legacy of verse that this phantom-bard has 
 left us, and seek there for the lineaments we cannot 
 find elsewhere. 
 
 A most unfortunate practice among many of the 
 dramatic authors of the Elizabethan age, and one 
 ensuing on their carelessness of posterity, was to unite 
 together in the composition of single plays, a course 
 still pursued by some playwrights in France. In most 
 instances this destroys all possibility of studying the 
 individual style of each poet ; in the case of Dekker, 
 who carried the system of poetic partnership to excess, 
 it has seriously impaired the reputation of a writer 
 who, if we could only be sure that we had him in our 
 grasp, was probably inferior to few of his time in certain 
 great qualities. Happily Shakespeare, Ben Jonson,
 
 John Webster 49 
 
 and Webster, the three brightest stars in the galaxy, 
 usually avoided the practice, and hence the study of 
 their style is easy. Webster, for instance, besides all 
 combined work, has left four perfect dramas in which 
 there is not a suspicion of any hand but his own. 
 These four, all diverse in their detail, but uniform in 
 the salient characteristics of style, are a tragedy of 
 intrigue, a tragedy of the fatalist or iEschylean type, 
 a tragi-comedy and an historical play. So strongly 
 marked is the style in all these productions, that 
 coming fresh from the study of them, I felt able unhesi- 
 tatingly to identify and separate from the rubbish of a 
 minor author a complete idyll of pure comedy. It is 
 embedded in a play by Rowley, called A Cure for 
 a Cuckold, which has always been printed as a joint 
 work of the two dramatists. So clumsily are the two 
 plays united, that they can be separated scene by 
 scene, without there being any doubt of the authorship 
 of either. Webster's little drama, a thoroughly charac- 
 teristic and very lovely work, has nothing v/hatever 
 to do with the vulgar under-plot which suggested, 
 properly enough, the existing title, and I cannot bear 
 that a piece so pure and refined should be stigmatised 
 by so repulsive and unmeaning a name. If some 
 editor would but adopt my discovery, and reprint this 
 little comedy without any dross of Rowley, a new 
 name might be thought of to distinguish it by. But I 
 hope presently to return to this point. 
 
 After Shakespeare, Jonson comes, and after Jonson, 
 Webster. We acknowledge no claimants to a share 
 of their peculiar honour. In spite of the sweetness 
 
 D
 
 50 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 and wit of Beaumont and Fletcher, their want of 
 originaHty, individuahty, and sustained power places 
 them in the second rank of dramatists, though they 
 are honourably pre-eminent there. No one else, save 
 Marlowe, who belongs to an earlier epoch, and stands 
 alone, dares pretend to the foremost rank. Webster 
 is far beneath Ben Jonson in scope and freshness of 
 invention, in learning, and in the more obvious forms 
 of comedy ; in versatility and in natural ease of dia- 
 logue we must confess him also inferior to that great 
 master. But, like Shakespeare, he is transcendental ; 
 his strong muse wings itself out of the common world, 
 and sees things with the eye of a visionary. His 
 scenes force us to a great solemnity ; the very jesting 
 is bitter and of a sad echo ; without rousing any of 
 the meaner passions, unalloyed by fear or any weak 
 insistance on the forms of death, he yet leads through 
 his sterner works such a mournful masque of cumu- 
 lative anguish, that nothing but the great destiny on 
 which all is seen to hang can reconcile us to the 
 unutterable sorrow. The soft moderns of whom Theo- 
 phile Gautier said in his scorn, " lis n'admettaient que 
 deux couleurs dramatiques, le bleu de ciel ou le vert 
 pomme," will do well to fly with averted faces from 
 John Webster, whose canvas is lurid with the colour 
 of a thunder-cloud, and red with blood and flame. 
 Those whose nervous systems still permit them to 
 meditate on great physical and psychical crises will 
 discover in him a tragical writer second only to Shake- 
 speare, and in his Duchess of Malfy a masterpiece 
 excelled, we venture to say, only by King Lear.
 
 John Webster 51 
 
 Twice Webster has placed before us the sublime 
 spectacle of a human soul, delicately organised, full 
 of power and splendour, ruthlessly followed by a 
 silent, dogged, remorseless fate to the inevitable close. 
 Of most of his characters, we can say from the first, 
 that they are "fey;" their doom is inscribed on their 
 own faces. In the White Devil, Vittoria, like Faust, 
 by renouncing principle for pleasure, gives up her 
 soul to demons, who thenceforth never leave hold of 
 their prey, but suggest and tempt, draw the gilded 
 chains tighter and tighter, and at last drag her down- 
 ward, with her last cry ringing in our ears — 
 
 " I am lost for ever ! " 
 
 In the Duchess of Malfy, on the contrary, we have 
 a soul of exquisite virtue snared in a network of 
 adverse influences, and by them overpowered, and to 
 outward appearance miserably vanquished. But out 
 of these adversities comes health, not indeed to the 
 heroic victim, but to those around, who see, in the 
 words of our poet, that — 
 
 " Man, like to cassia, is proved best, being bruised." 
 
 Though the most obvious, this insight into the true 
 heart of tragedy is not the only excellence prominent 
 in Webster. Strange indeed would it be if to this 
 grandeur of invention were added no gifts of graceful 
 and witty expression. Over the inevitable rosemary 
 and yew he binds at first the vine-leaf and the laurel, 
 and the conceptions of pleasure and a suave courtly 
 life are fulfilled with a success only forgotten when
 
 52 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 we are fearfully face to face with the realities of grief 
 and death. In one play he has continued the happier 
 strain to the close, and in another, after leading us to 
 the brink of doom, he has relented and given back the 
 lives half-forfeited. In this, as in so much else, he 
 has shown himself a delicate as well as a sublime 
 artist, one who "can breathe through silver" as well 
 as blow through bronze, and one must seek his parallel 
 rather in such later masters as Goethe and Hugo, 
 than in such contemporaries as Ford and Tourneur, 
 whose force makes us forgive, though it cannot con- 
 ceal, their crudeness. 
 
 Where Webster fails is not in crudeness. He was 
 the most literary among the Elizabethans after Jonson, 
 and he carried into his art some of the affectations of the 
 purely literary spirit. The infinite tact of Shakespeare 
 he vainly endeavoured to equal by study and art, as 
 did Jonson, but Webster's source of failure was dia- 
 metrically opposite to his rival's. Ben Jonson's plays 
 stand or fall according to the success or the reverse 
 of the principal character in each. At most, one or 
 two personcB are modelled with care and completeness ; 
 the rest are shadows and stage-puppets. Webster 
 erred in the other extreme; in the eager effort to 
 elaborate all parts of his production, he lost in general 
 effect. In the Devil's Law Case, the attention becomes 
 completely exhausted in following the development of 
 a dozen characters, any one of whom would have been 
 decisive enough to serve a minor playwright for hero 
 or heroine. So Lionardo is said to have been held 
 in constant check by the desire to work out an ideal
 
 John Webster 53 
 
 of perfect beauty, not being willing to acknowledge 
 that to inferior portions of a great work inferior atten- 
 tion must needs be given. Hence Webster, in his 
 turn weighted with the desire to give an impossible 
 perfection to his studies of human nature, paused and 
 loitered till life went by, and left less work of his to 
 be garnered than any of his contemporaries. It is 
 indeed little that we possess, but who shall overvalue 
 its unique preciousness, or consent to lose one of the 
 weighty lines ? This is the reward of careful writing; 
 we should all consent without much sorrow to the 
 loss of many lines of Heywood and Middleton. There 
 is no possibility of estimating what we have lost of 
 Webster. The Guise may or may not have been a 
 rifaccimento of Marlowe's Massacre at Paris, but there 
 are other plays of Webster's mentioned in the diary 
 of Henslowe that could hardly have failed to be char- 
 acteristic. The Two Harpies, for instance, has a fas- 
 cinatingly weird sound about it, and may have been 
 something very wild and ^schylean. 
 
 The versification of Webster is vigorous and often 
 musical. It strikes a golden mean between the stiff 
 march of Marlowe's serried lines and Fletcher's languid 
 excess of laxity. Before Shakespeare the dramatists 
 were all buckled up in plate-armour; after him they 
 lounged about ungirdled and loose-shod. Webster 
 and Jonson were permitted to walk abreast of their 
 divine rival. It is noticeable that Webster some- 
 what persistently eschews soliloquy, the department 
 of the drama best adapted for the display of musi- 
 cal blank verse. How much wild melody he could
 
 54 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 throw into his hnes, the celebrated speech of Francisco 
 shows : — 
 
 " I left them winding of Marcello's corse," &c. 
 
 And sentences full of a peculiar delicate music surprise 
 one in each of Webster's works. His earliest known 
 lines, those prefixed to a work of Anthony Munday's, are 
 very striking for a power of versification at that time 
 rare. We have it on Webster's own declaration that he 
 was a very slow and careful composer, and it is evident 
 that he studied the effect of sound in his dramas. 
 
 It cannot possibly be needful in these days, when 
 whoever will may buy Webster's entire works for a 
 few shillings, to tell the stories of his plays. That is 
 quite beside our purpose. It will be better as briefly 
 as possible to show what are the prominent character- 
 istics, the main successes, the most obvious beauties 
 of each of the dramas, and to interpret as far as lies in 
 our power a great artist whose masterpieces remain 
 comparatively unknown and misapprehended. In i6i2, 
 when, as far as we can guess, Webster was about 
 thirty-five years of age, the White Devil, the earliest 
 of his dramas, was printed. It is to be regretted that 
 either his exceeding slowness of composition, or the 
 evil reception this play met with from the public, did 
 not permit Webster to carry out what we like to think 
 was his original project. The play, as it at present 
 stands, is not divided into acts and scenes, slurs over 
 incidents, and even represents prominent crises by 
 dumb show. It reads like the first draft of a trilogy, 
 and it may be held that the poet's original intention
 
 John Webster 55 
 
 was to treat the subject in a trilogical manner, ending 
 the first two dramas at the murders of Isabella and 
 Marcello respectively. Expanded thus by the masterly 
 hand of its inventor, the tragedy would have possessed 
 an immense power over every careful reader; an influ- 
 ence weakened at present by the thinness of execution. 
 The death of Isabella, now almost comic in the conjuror's 
 description, would have brought a world of grand ideas 
 to the poet's mind, when he had to wind up a solemn 
 drama with it, and the elaboration of minor characters, 
 in which he so delighted, would then have been appro- 
 priate and needful. As it is, there is more in this great 
 sketch than we can ever hope to fathom. 
 
 The scene is laid, where our old dramatists love to 
 lay it, in Italy, and the characters are all true to their 
 Italian birthright. Vittoria herself, the White Devil, 
 with all her grace and subtlety, her implacable warm 
 passions, her never-failing wit and splendid dupli- 
 city, is a woman not to be found out of sight of the 
 Apennines. What passes through those bright rosy 
 lips can never be trusted ; sift every word by fact and 
 effect, if you would guess the truth. If we had not 
 heard her charnel-house dream, horribly suggestive 
 of robbery and murder, no storming of Monticelso, no 
 reproaches of Brachiano, would induce us to condemn 
 one so overpoweringly frank and brave. We are 
 reminded of Shelley and his Beatrice Cenci, and the 
 old poet is no whit put out of countenance by the 
 comparison. The trial-scene has been the admiration 
 of every critic. Charles Lamb's quaint praise of it is 
 known to every one, but we hold he exaggerates the
 
 56 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 effect of Vittoria's " innocence-resembling boldness " 
 upon our minds ; surely Monticelso's altogether extra- 
 vagant abuse has as much to do with the favour we 
 feel for her as her own rather brazen confidence. 
 
 The character of Flamineo is one of the cleverest 
 creations of Webster ; he is a thorough rascal, yet he 
 interests us exceedingly, and is consistent throughout. 
 Less cruel than lago, he is almost as base, and equally 
 heartless, but there is a slight flavour of loyalty about 
 him ; the regard he bears in his mean way for his 
 sister prevents our absolute disgust. He is the very 
 incarnation of sordid prosiness ; nothing awes, nothing 
 checks him, except positive danger to himself When 
 Cornelia breaks in like a ghost upon the scheming trio, 
 with her prophetic denunciation and bitter reproach : 
 
 " Never dropped mildew on a flower here 
 Till now!" 
 
 the effect on Vittoria is sudden though brief repent- 
 ance, on Brachiano a pang of accusing conscience, but 
 on Flamineo nothing whatever save surprise at his 
 colleague's weakness and annoyance at his mother's 
 interruption. This marvellous serenity is thoroughly 
 characteristic of him : when the murders are completed, 
 and his accomplices agitated and doubtful, Flamineo's 
 activity and frivolity are as amazing as ever : he puts 
 Marcello, his virtuous young brother, out of the way 
 with the most cheerful alacrity. When Brachiano is 
 poisoned, he becomes slightly alarmed, but is soon 
 cracking his bitter jests over the corpse. Brachiano's 
 ghost, following the exhibitions of his mother's frenzied
 
 John Webster 57 
 
 grief, awes him for a little while, and then how grandly 
 does he address the ghost, pointing to heaven, "yon 
 starry gallery," and hell, " that cursed dungeon ! " 
 Brachiano having gone back to his own place, which- 
 ever that was, Flamineo relapses again into callous 
 frivolity, and resumes his avaricious designs. 
 
 The scene with his sister at last is very masterly. 
 She is the only creature on earth whom he hesitates 
 to put out of his way by murder. Vittoria's calmness 
 and presence of mind do not leave her when her 
 brother threatens her with the horrible private slay- 
 ing. Her repartees are as shrewd as ever, only a little 
 sadder. When she supposes that she has shot her 
 brother, and is undeceived by his suddenly leaping at 
 her, for the first time she quails. She is weak, and her 
 weakness is discovered. But when Ludovico bursts in 
 with his rabble, all her courage returns, and she is a 
 queen again. Pale and stern and beautiful she dies, 
 with the words of wonderful despair on her lips : 
 
 " My soul, like to a ship in a black storm, 
 Is driven, I know not whither !" 
 
 Very different is Flamineo's death ; he, too, has no 
 cowardly shrinking, he is stolid as ever, and how bitter 
 are his words of dying mockery ! This final scene is 
 the very acme of depravity ; the blossom of sin fully 
 ripened into the fruit of punishment, but with infinite 
 grace and sweet underlying pathos the poet has made 
 a streak of dawning light break out in the east. From 
 the utter darkness of the finale, we can for a moment 
 before the curtain falls glance at the young Giovanni,
 
 58 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 virtuous and brave, rising like the morning star, to 
 
 herald peace and good-will to men. 
 
 Monticelso, the Cardinal, who afterwards becomes 
 
 Pope, is strikingly drawn. In the trial, with truly 
 
 clerical want of tact, he lets his indignation at the 
 
 sin of the fair culprit overstep all bounds, and create 
 
 a sympathy for her. However wicked she was, our 
 
 sympathies arraign themselves at once on the side 
 
 of a lady attacked with such intolerable coarseness. 
 
 Francesco, who is not half so honest as Monticelso, is 
 
 able to seem a more righteous judge. Yet we cannot 
 
 but admire the impulsive Cardinal; his speech to 
 
 Ludovico in earnest reprimand of his intended crime, 
 
 is a masterpiece in Webster's moral manner. When 
 
 he perceives that his warning produces no impression 
 
 on this inveterate ruffian, how fine is his sudden 
 
 impatience : 
 
 " Instruction to thee 
 Comes like sweet showers to overhardened ground, 
 They wet, but pierce not deep. And so I leave thee. 
 With all the Furies hanging round thy neck ! " 
 
 Brachiano is too hardened a reprobate to excite any 
 sympathy, and he lacks the intellectual interest that is 
 excited by Flamineo's vagaries. His death is frightful 
 and shrieking; he is mocked and tormented to the last, 
 Vittoria alone showing any regard for him. For her 
 his death is a prophetic warning; from that moment 
 she is doomed. 
 
 " I am lost for ever ! " 
 
 is her cry of despair and remorseful agony. 
 
 The episode of Marcello's death and funeral is the
 
 John Webster 59 
 
 most poetical passage in the play, rendered with some- 
 thing of the lyrical sweetness of Dekker in his best 
 moments. We are made to feel it to be necessary for 
 the fulfilment of the tragic idea, that he, the one good 
 fruit among these apples of Sodom, should be removed, 
 so that the family, the salt of virtue thus taken from 
 them, might perfect their moral putrefaction. The 
 dirge sung over him by Cornelia is universally admired, 
 and more widely known perhaps than any part of the 
 works of John Webster. 
 
 The play is full of fine lines and scattered images. 
 We shall not find many more striking than this an- 
 nouncement to Francesco of the murder of Isabella : 
 
 " My lord, untie your folded thoughts, 
 And let them dangle loose as a bride's hair : 
 Your sister's poisoned !" 
 
 The best words with which to sum up the scope and 
 destination of the play are those of Brachiano, when 
 for the first time he catches sight of the baleful in- 
 fluence on himself and others which Vittoria has, and 
 addressing her says : 
 
 " Thou hast led me like a heathen sacrifice, 
 With music and with fatal yokes of flowers, 
 
 To my eternal ruin ! " 
 
 The Duchess of Alalfy has been, without question, 
 the most popular work of Webster, the one most 
 often read and praised, and even laid open to the 
 general public in elegant extracts and the like, a 
 delicate form of semi-literary luxury altogether foreign 
 to the genius of this man, yet not perhaps quite
 
 6o Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 unknown to him in the shape of Miscellanies and 
 England's Parnassus. Not in any of these lyrical 
 hodge- podges, where Sylvester's sonnets elbow 
 Sidney's, and the most laboured dulness is mingled 
 with the most refined wit, does the name of John 
 Webster flourish. For him was reserved till a later 
 age the honour of genteel mutilation in Collections 
 for the Young, and even here little appears but the 
 death-scene of the Duchess, The true lover of his 
 fame regrets even this exhibition. The scene we 
 refer to no more represents the play than a single 
 joint represents a man. It is a fragment, horribly 
 edged and repulsive, in elaborate incompleteness. It 
 is necessary that w^e be fully aware of the previous 
 character of all parties, and the strokes of fortune 
 or crime that have gradually placed them in so 
 critical a position. Only when such a knowledge 
 is complete, and it can become so only after long 
 and thoughtful study, do we perceive the aim of the 
 drama, and the great lesson running through the 
 whole of it. 
 
 This, surely, may be summed up thus : men are 
 placed by God in varied positions, dependent one 
 on another, and usually so hemmed in by the con- 
 ventions of society, that they act with sameness, 
 and more by fashion than by principle. But now 
 and then one and another are called out to take an 
 individual position, and act in ways altogether novel 
 and startling. Then it is that the real nobility of 
 character or the reverse makes itself apparent. A 
 knob of cassia may lie quiet in a box beside a lump
 
 John Webster 6i 
 
 of gum-arabic, and no ditference or slight be per- 
 ceived between them. Let them then be taken out 
 and crushed, " bruised," as Webster has it ; the cassia 
 fills the air with aromatic fragrance, the other has 
 lost the little comeliness it possessed. This refine- 
 ment of a noble mind by suffering is the keynote 
 to the Duchess of Malfy, and the wretchedness that 
 comes upon her only illuminates and purifies her 
 lovely character. 
 
 Where Webster found the story appears to be 
 uncertain. There exists a dramatic version of it. El 
 Mayerdomo de la Duquessa de Ainalfi, among the 
 works of Lope de Vega, and it forms the subject of 
 one of the Novelle of Bandello. In Webster's version 
 the Duchess is presented before us as a woman of 
 supreme rank and high spirit, whose power of mind 
 and healthiness of purpose have kept her uncon- 
 taminated by the frivolous conventionality of a court- 
 life. She dares to act for herself; though a sovereign, 
 she does not forget she is a woman, and sees nothing 
 ignoble in the faithful love of a subject. She loves 
 Antonio, a lord of her court, a man of the utmost 
 integrity and as high-minded as herself. As Mr. 
 Dyce has pointed out, this is a position of great peril 
 for the author, but he triumphs in the difficulty. The 
 scene in which the Duchess declares her passion is 
 one of the most wonderful in the works of any drama- 
 tist. Her fine flutterings when she has dismissed 
 her maid, Cariola, and is awaiting her treasurer, the 
 amusing and yet touching way in which they each 
 manoeuvre, and hint and probe their mutual desires,
 
 62 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Antonio's modesty and intelligence, his brave little 
 justification of his true-heartedness — 
 
 " Were there nor heaven nor hell 
 I should be honest. I have long served Virtue, 
 And never taken wages of her — " 
 
 her exquisite delicacy of condescension, his just but 
 not abject expressions of unworthiness, unite to form 
 one of the most beautiful pictures a dramatist ever 
 painted. 
 
 It is difficult to admit that Antonio deserves the 
 charge of dulness and poorness which some critics 
 have brought against him ; his mind is of a fine 
 calibre, if not very deep, yet very serious and honest ; 
 his sententiousness may be somewhat in the vein of 
 Polonius, but is very consistent with his general 
 character, thus forming another instance of the scrupu- 
 lous care with which Webster worked up even his 
 minor personcs. All through we cannot but feel that 
 the Duchess is at all points his superior; in the 
 intensely pathetic parting (close of Act III.) she is 
 loftier than he, even in her despair : 
 
 " My laurel is all withered !" 
 
 After this Antonio becomes a nonentity; his appear- 
 ances are unaccountable and useless, and his death a 
 burlesque. Yet in his dying speech the old Antonio 
 accent is audible again, sententious to the last. 
 
 Bosola is, no doubt, the cleverest male invention of 
 Webster. He is the peculiar of the author; his 
 speeches, humours, turns of thought, are Websterian
 
 John Webster 6^ 
 
 J 
 
 exclusively. How strange are his pungent bitter- 
 ness and sombre railing ! Did the Clerk of St. An- 
 drew's, Holborn, talk so among his contemporaries, and 
 mystify them, we wonder? Some of Bosola's acrid 
 sayings are unfathomable. We must not think be- 
 cause he is the bane of every one, that he is a thorough 
 rogue. His better nature constantly peeps out. He 
 knows and cares nothing for the Duchess ; he thinks 
 no great harm can come of Ferdinand's spy system ; 
 he is that prince's liege servant, and to be paid well 
 for these inscrutable services. So he proceeds to 
 watch the Duchess, and informs accordingly. We 
 listen with wonder to his lashing tongue, but soon 
 perceive that his fantastic conceits perplex more than 
 offend the victims of his sarcasm. 
 
 In Act IV., when the blow has fallen, melted at last, 
 Bosola lays aside his cynicism, and speaks out boldly 
 to Ferdinand. At the death-scene, he is executioner, 
 but evidently hates his cruel work, and to carry off 
 his part, he is obliged to return more extravagantly 
 than ever to his fantasies. In the brutal butchering 
 in Act v., Bosola is nothing, and his dying remorse and 
 regret vapid and worthless. Never did grand play end 
 so wretchedly, unless Hamlet be similarly condemned. 
 
 In all that pertains to the unnamed Duchess, Webster 
 stands out among his later tragic rivals as Chopin did 
 among the Romantic poets and painters of his time. 
 It is as though he interpreted the thoughts of the others 
 in an art more subtle and refined than theirs. The 
 character of the heroine is revealed with splendid effect 
 in one scene in Act III. A happy bride, gay and witty,
 
 64 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 she sits in her chamber braiding her hair ; falling into 
 a fit of musing, and left unconsciously alone by her 
 playful companions, her thought is turned from the 
 joyous present to the dim future. Before her pass 
 the images of Eld and Death, and she sees her own 
 bright head whitened with the orris-powder of grey 
 hairs. Such a moment is chosen for the horrible in- 
 rushing of her implacable brother. She is discovered; 
 the die is cast; calmly she accepts her fate, but all 
 dreams of life and love are done with ; she can never 
 smile again. From this moment her character grows 
 broader and more spiritual, till at last she seems 
 physically dead. Her natural vivacity is all gone, 
 and her replies have a hollow and passionless accent, 
 as if they came from another world, and as though 
 the sweet lips that utter them were dust laid out of 
 sight. How queenly she dies, in contrast with poor 
 Cariola's screaming and scratching ! 
 
 Nowhere does the subtle magician, the painstaking 
 analyst of obscure humanity, triumph more than when 
 he depicts the brother of the Duchess. Never could 
 there be more temptation for a dramatist not fully 
 master of his work to present a puppet rather than a 
 man to a not too critical audience. Yet Webster, bent 
 upon the perfection of his work, has expended on these 
 detestable persons the most careful skill. Throughout 
 the plot we are reminded of a later, and yet more pro- 
 foundly moving tragedy, the Clarissa of Richardson, 
 and the resemblance is increased by the likeness of 
 the Duke and Cardinal to the insolent brother and 
 aggravating sister of the peerless " Clary." In both
 
 John Webster 65 
 
 cases a willing blindness and a stupid regard for the 
 supposed family honour unite with avarice in urging 
 the persecution of one who blooms in a barren family 
 like a lily among thorns. It is somewhat astonishing 
 that during the two years between Acts II. and III. 
 the Duke, notwithstanding his knowledge of the 
 Duchess's marriage, does not act against her. At last 
 his weak brain dissolves into frenzy, and this is really 
 the only true feature in the fifth act. His death is 
 confounded in the final general butchery. 
 
 In considering this strange drama as a whole, its 
 marvellous originality must strike us at once. The 
 treatment adopted for this wild story by Webster is 
 such as would have occurred to no other mind. Three 
 men of that period assimilate more or less closely with 
 our poet, and form a group whose members revelled 
 in the sombre and the violent. But how differently 
 would this story have been treated by each of them ; 
 The southern imagination of Marlowe would have ex- 
 pended a wealth of voluptuous colour on so passionate 
 a subject, but we should have missed much tenderness 
 and subdued grace, much conceited wit, and hardly have 
 gained, perhaps, in general impressiveness. Marlowe 
 was strongly imbued with the sense of the glory of 
 colour that served to render deathless the great Vene- 
 tians of a century before ; Webster, on the other hand, 
 had little feeling for it. He views hope and love and 
 beauty from their purely emotional side; he is ex- 
 quisitely human, and in his sadness, remorseful and 
 unupbraiding. We find no traces in Webster of such 
 personal swayings of passion as surge in the pages of 
 
 E
 
 6^ Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Marlowe; but neither can be found in him the utter 
 weight of woe that characterises the other two members 
 of the *' Satanic School." Cyril Tourneur, in his two 
 remarkable and unworthily neglected plays, exhibits 
 an unfathomable grief, suggestive of the despair of a 
 lost soul. His lines linger as if falling from burdened 
 lips. Life seems to him a mere stage for sorrows ; he 
 knows not joy even by hearsay ; actual physical enjoy- 
 ments are to him mere gall and ashes, even in desire. 
 What weight of horror must have lain on the mind of 
 this remarkable and obscure person ! We picture him 
 to ourselves as a masculine Emily Bronte, afflicted with 
 an incurable malady of the soul. We shudder to think 
 with what blackness of plumes, with what darkness of 
 congealed and mysterious blood, he would have illus- 
 trated the story of our Duchess. Last of the gloomy 
 quartette comes Ford, a soul in a different mould still — 
 delicate, passionate, weak, worn out with the yearning 
 of obstinate desire — puling for the moon like a child, 
 and refusing in morbid feebleness of appetite the 
 ordinary diet of men — the Charles Baudelaire of his 
 age. With him, too, our mighty Webster has little 
 in common but the superficial colour ; and it is doubtful 
 whether Ford would have even cared to accept the 
 story as it now stands for the illustration of his ideas. 
 In theatrical arrangement, in study and clearness of 
 character, it is not needful to point out by how very 
 much both Ford and Tourneur are the inferiors of the 
 subject of this essay. 
 
 The Duchess of Malfy is full of faults; and it would 
 need but a shallow wit to point them out. Webster
 
 John Webster 6^] 
 
 erred, as we have said, in attempting an altogether 
 impossible perfection, and in consequence worked 
 some portions up with the minute accuracy of a 
 miniature, and left some mere gaps of crude colour. 
 But it is not with his faults, but with his excellences, 
 that we are engaged. We can hardly account for the 
 want of taste and art shown in the fifth act, unless on 
 the not unplausible assumption that the poet, having 
 destroyed the lovely Duchess, in whom all his in- 
 tellectual interest had centred, found his energies 
 droop and his vivacity decline when she no longer 
 formed the heart of the action. 
 
 The DevWs Law Case, which seems to contain a 
 reference to the Massacre at Amboyna in 1623, and 
 which nevertheless bears that date on its title-page, 
 follows the Duchess of Malfy by about six years. In 
 some respects it is an exceedingly faulty production ; 
 there is no great central idea on which the plot wheels 
 as on an axis ; there are no characters whose personal 
 charm constrains our admiration ; the structure of the 
 piece is as bad as it well could be ; the d/nouevzent is 
 vague and unsatisfactory ; the spirit running through 
 it is a mixture of spurious tragedy, and comedy which 
 arouses no glimmer of a smile. On the other hand, 
 it abounds above all the works of its author in lines 
 and passages of unique and peculiar beauty, and some 
 of \\s, personcB are drawn with a consummate art and 
 consistency. 
 
 Before we can enter on any disquisition on the 
 DeviVs Law Case, it is necessary to blot from our 
 memories the irritating presence of the lawyers, who
 
 68 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 are introduced with such a waste of subtlety. The 
 fatiguing loquacity and intrigues of Crispiano and 
 Ariosto must be forgotten ; and before our eyes we 
 must place the five prime movers in the play — namely, 
 the members of Romelio's family : himself, mother and 
 sister, and the two suitors. The plot, which at first 
 merely dazes and confounds, stripped of its accessories, 
 is simply this : Jolenta, secretly plighted to Contarino, 
 is in vain required to marry Ercole by her brother 
 Romelio, a merchant. The mother of Jolenta and 
 Romelio, Leonora, secretly loves Contarino, and there- 
 fore urges Ercole upon her daughter. The rivals fight 
 a duel, in which both are seriously wounded ; and 
 Romelio, finding that Contarino has left his property 
 to Jolenta, thinks to make sure by stabbing him in 
 his sick-bed. Leonora, to revenge her lover, brings a 
 charge of illegitimacy against her son. The charge 
 is overthrown ; and she is about to suffer for libel, 
 when Ercole and Contarino, who have recovered, 
 appear in succession, and all the persons form a 
 tableau. 
 
 What is the upshot of it all is not clear. A dull 
 and repulsive plot this must certainly be confessed 
 to be, but yet, in the hands of Webster, it admits of 
 no little talent in character painting. The family of 
 Romelio resemble one another in many points — they 
 are all passionate, perverse, and reserved. They all 
 combine in deceiving one another ; from the beginning 
 they bring this coil of trouble on themselves by being 
 so very crafty towards one another. Leonora hints 
 her love to Contarino in so mystical a way that he
 
 John Webster 69 
 
 never suspects her aim. He, on the other hand, 
 thinks himself wondrously clever in asking for her 
 picture — meaning her daughter. Thus they outwit 
 each other. The mother and children are amusingly 
 self-willed. The scene in which RomeUo tries to 
 force Ercole on Jolenta is a masterly one. Jolenta is 
 quite calm and decided; she uses the exact phrases 
 that are most suited to irritate Romelio; the latter 
 blusters, threatens, embarrasses modest Ercole, but 
 gains little by it all. Leonora's little selfish by-play 
 is cleverly brought in. At last poor Jolenta is over- 
 whelmed, but she is still inflexible; she merely 
 yields to the physical oppression of the moment, 
 and is peculiarly gracious to Contarino in sheer 
 wilfulness. 
 
 So these precious relatives quietly flout one another, 
 and consequently upon their schemings a difference 
 arises between the suitors, and Contarino challenges 
 Ercole to fight a duel. This quarrel has been highly 
 lauded by Charles Lamb, as being " well arranged 
 and gentlemanlike." It has additional interest in the 
 play because the two rivals who thus engage are by 
 far the most pleasing characters introduced. Ercole, 
 especially, is a man 
 
 " Whose word is still led by a noble thought, 
 And that thought followed by as fair a deed." 
 
 Romelio is a very different being, "a glorious devil, 
 large in heart and brain, that did love " money only. 
 He is almost invariably made to speak in a poetical 
 strain ; he is a voluble theorist in virtue. It is there-
 
 yo Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 fore quite consistently that the exquisite passage on 
 honourable activity flows from his lips : — 
 
 "Virtue is ever sowing of her seeds 
 In the trenches for the soldier ; in the wakeful study 
 For the scholar ; in the furrows of the sea 
 For men of our profession ; of all which 
 Arise and spring up honour." 
 
 With such flowrets of morality does the glib merchant 
 adorn his conversation. No wonder poor Contarino 
 is lost in admiraion, and even the reader is startled to 
 find what a very different sort of person Romelio is 
 behind the scenes. His avarice is grasping and pitiless, 
 his lust of gold akin to Barnabas in iho. Jew of Malta. 
 The same man who could with fluent solemnity preach 
 the cause of virtue to Contarino, says to his sister 
 presently, of the same gentleman and Ercole : — 
 
 " I have a plot shall breed 
 Out of the death of these two noblemen 
 The advancement of our house ! " 
 
 He is a magnificent Pecksniff, who has so long per- 
 suaded the world to believe in him that at last he 
 believes in himself. Even murder has no terror for 
 him, and as "an Italianated Jew" he plays the rogue 
 finely. 
 
 Poor Leonora in the frenzy of her irrepressible love 
 is very pitiable, and her grief makes her eloquent. 
 When she is lying, worn out, on the floor, and answers 
 the questioning priest by saying, 
 
 " I am whispering to a dead friend ! " 
 she rises to sublimity of that subdued kind character-
 
 John Webster 71 
 
 istic of the Elizabethan dramatists. Her sudden and 
 unnatural rage against her son is very fantastic, and 
 treated in a most repulsive way. Indeed, the last two 
 acts of the DeviVs Lazu Case, describing Leonora's 
 suit, which is devilish enough in all conscience, are 
 unredeemed by any beauty of plot or character. But 
 although the persons lose all hold over our attention, 
 the passages of pure poetry are more numerous than 
 ever; Romelio turns ballad-monger and becomes 
 Skeltonian in his lyric cynicism. This Satanic play 
 is one from which the reader is inclined to draw 
 copious extracts for frequent pleasurable reference, 
 but hardly to toil through its obscure labyrinth again. 
 It is not a long work, fortunately; as Romelio re- 
 marks, with his usual acumen, 
 
 *' Bad plays are the worse for their length !" 
 
 As if desirous that posterity might judge of his skill 
 in every branch of the higher drama, Webster's next 
 effort was an historical one, Apphis and Virginia 
 was the most popular of his works on the stage of 
 that day, and was the only one that seems to have 
 been resuscitated after the Restoration. Still later it 
 was rewritten in the popular style of the day by the 
 illustrious John Dennis, while another critic of the 
 times of Charles II., who had all the lofty disdain 
 of a Gallomaniac for the rough polish of Webster, 
 informs us that " the ingenious Mr. Betterton altered 
 and bettered this piece." We may forgive the pun 
 and eschew the elegant emendations of these later 
 wits. The subject so eloquently told by Livy was a
 
 72 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 favourite one with the English public. One of those 
 curious interludes which form the connecting link 
 between the old moralities and the regular drama, had 
 treated the story in a jingling way, but Webster did 
 not draw his inspiration from that trickling fountain, 
 nor apply to the ever-bubbling well of his own inven- 
 tion, but kept very close to Livy, and was only saved 
 by his strong impersonifying habit of mind from falling 
 into the mere historic dulness of such plays as Perkin 
 War beck or Sejanus. 
 
 It is difficult to imbue the most pathetic history 
 with poetic life; the rigidity of fact leaves too little 
 room for the play of imagination. Even in Shake- 
 speare, Falstaff and Pistol and Bardolph have for 
 us more living reality by far than the once actually 
 breathing Worcester and Hotspur, and the poet is 
 more easy in painting them. One of the sweetest 
 singers of our century, speaking to Love, the sove- 
 reign Power, says : — 
 
 " All records, saving thine, come cool and calm. 
 And shadowy, through the mist of passM years ; 
 For others, good or bad, hatred and tears 
 Have become indolent." 
 
 And all the life and worth left in such a record as this 
 Roman tale consist in the light of immortal passion 
 gleaming around the men and women, whose hopes 
 and fears and tremulous pleasures were identical with 
 those we daily experience. 
 
 It is manifest that to produce a really lasting drama, 
 founded on an historical basis, the dramatist must 
 remember this fact, and insist most prominently on
 
 John Webster 
 
 the emotions of his personcB. Webster in writing 
 Appius and Virginia either pandered to the popular 
 taste of the hour, or failed to attain his own high 
 standard. This play is classical and cold; to say it 
 is illuminated by no flashes of pathos and originality 
 would be to deny its authorship, but the general effect 
 is frigid. The love of Icilius and Virginia, with which 
 might have been inwoven much fervid colour and 
 passionate fancy, has been coolly passed over. The 
 character of the heroine is sketched with so light a 
 pencil that we are left in uncertainty as to the features 
 of her soul. The interest of the play centres around 
 the good and the bad heroes, Virginius and Appius 
 Claudius. The former is on all occasions displayed 
 as a mirror of virtue; the latter, with much novelty 
 and freshness of treatment, as a worldly-wise rogue. 
 The crafty decemvir, with his Janus-head of virtue 
 in word and vice in action, is a creation worthy of 
 Webster's subtle intellect. A word or hint shows us 
 the laborious course of plottings which have placed 
 him at last on the curule chair. He is no novice, but 
 a perfect adept, in the art of cozening. Yet having 
 attained the full height of his ambition, his care 
 slackens and the first and fatal error is made from 
 this pinnacle. The faithful accompHce of his crimes, 
 the execrable Marcus, starts at the discovery of his 
 patron's weakness. He sees the danger which Appius 
 is too much dazzled by success to see. All this intri- 
 cate imagining we owe to Webster and not to the 
 unvarnished tale of Livy. We can only swiftly indi- 
 cate the power and beauty which are expended on the
 
 74 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 character of Virginius, but even he is too declamatory 
 and cold. There is a vein of languor running through 
 Appius and Virginia which is quite foreign to its 
 author's stalwart and active genius; and it is impos- 
 sible to put away from one the conviction that its 
 composition was a labour forced upon him by personal 
 need or the entreaty of a manager. " It is far more 
 " correct," in an Augustan and Drydenic sense, than 
 his other dramas, and was accordingly, as we have 
 seen, the only one successfully revived at the Resto- 
 ration. 
 
 The play brought out by Kirkman in i66l, under 
 the title of ** A Cure for a Cuckold, by John Webster 
 and William Rowley," has never hitherto obtained the 
 attention it deserves. Mr. Dyce is sceptical, as well 
 he may be, of Kirkman's probity, but thinks there are 
 traces of Webster in it ; Mr. W. C. Hazlitt does not 
 hazard any opinion save that " it is not a White Devil 
 or a Duchess of Malfy^^ which is self-evident. No 
 one has yet pointed out, what we claim as a discovery, 
 that, far from the obscurity of mingled authorship 
 which usually attends a compound play, the respective 
 scenes of this may, with a little care, be labelled 
 "Webster," "Rowley," without a shadow of reason- 
 able doubt. We take it that the matter stood thus : 
 William Rowley, the passably clever author of A 
 Shoemaker^ s a Gentleman, a dramatist who never rose 
 to any eminence in serious composition, had on his 
 hands a short town-comedy, suited to the vicious taste 
 of the day, to which he had given the appropriate 
 name on Kirkman's title-page. But this not being
 
 John Webster 75 
 
 long enough for representation, and from its nature 
 not being capable of much expansion, Rowley asked 
 Webster, as a dramatist in high repute, for a comedy 
 whose plot might be interwoven with his own. Webster 
 glanced at his friend's little play, found its subject 
 uncongenial to him, but consented to write a short 
 high comedy, which Rowley might join with his own 
 low comedy as well as he could. 
 
 The consequence is that the spirit of the two dramas 
 clashes continually; consistent alone, viewed together 
 they are most inconsistent. Webster's characters are 
 noble, sententious, gentleman-like ; Rowley's are ribald, 
 vulgar, ignoble. This is seen to perfection in the cases 
 of Woodroff, Luce, and Franckford, who are supposed 
 to bear the mutual relationship of brother, sister, and 
 husband. Woodroflf, whose action is confined to the 
 upper section of the play, is a serene and virtuous 
 figure in Webster's finest style. His sister Luce and 
 her husband, whose station is almost wholly in the 
 lower section, are coarse and vulgar, with a vulgarity 
 wholly foreign to our poet. Not to enter wearisomely 
 into this matter, we will merely beg the reader to 
 judge for himself whether the bridal party in A Cure 
 for a Cicckold and the various incidents that follow 
 upon it are not obviously the exclusive property of 
 Webster. They may be judged as a complete work 
 by themselves, and to release us from the offensive 
 existing title, correct enough as far as regards Rowley's 
 section, we would suggest the adoption of a new title 
 for this play. Perhaps, in the absence of authority, 
 we may be allowed to suggest provisionally that of
 
 76 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Lovers Gradtiate, a name justified by a speech of Clare's 
 in the opening scene, and by the general succession of 
 events with regard to her. 
 
 The purity and stateliness of the verse impress one 
 from the first. No such musical lines fell from the 
 pen of William Rowley ; the blank verse of that author 
 is extremely tame, and has a tendency to fall into 
 rhyme at the most inappropriate moments, as if the 
 shadow of the decadence had already fallen on him, 
 and he prophesied of Dryden. He confines himself 
 to prose in his share of the present work. To return 
 to Love's Graduate. The first act is occupied with a 
 bridal party, convened to the marriage of Annabel and 
 Bonville. The guests converse with all the suavity 
 and florid grace appropriate to the occasion ; as we 
 always notice in Webster's work, there is a lack of 
 passionate utterance, but there is a quiet joyousness 
 and golden indolence akin to the hazy beauty of a 
 summer afternoon, which atone for the characteristic 
 lack of amorous fervour. 
 
 This little idyll, so long and so completely neglected 
 that it seems like some Pompeian jar, faultless and 
 fragile, suddenly revealed uninjured, with its bright 
 frieze of dancers as fresh as when they were painted, 
 has a special claim to respectful consideration. In it, 
 while detecting everywhere those peculiarities of style 
 and feeling which we have learned to look for in 
 Webster's work, we also discover traits nowhere else 
 discernible. This sense of quiet enjoyment, which we 
 have pointed out as characterising the opening act, is 
 hardly to be found, in so full a measure at least, in any
 
 John Webster "]*] 
 
 of the plays we have already examined. If, as we 
 believe, Lovers Graduate is the product of his later years, 
 it would give us some ground for supposing that ease 
 and competence mellowed the gloomy spirit of his 
 youth, and developed to more perfection the graceful 
 and reflective instincts of his imagination. 
 
 The interest mainly centres round the quartette, 
 Annabel and her newly-married consort, and the un- 
 linked lovers, Lessingham and Clare. The last of 
 these is very cleverly contrasted with Annabel ; if two 
 words nowadays misused ad nauseam may be brought 
 into legitimate service, Annabel's mind is of an objec- 
 tive type, Clare's subjective. The bride is clear-headed 
 and joyous, untroubled by doubts or anxieties, sociable, 
 merry, and without reserve ; her friend is tortuous and 
 melancholy, dealing in symbols and conceits, reserved, 
 inscrutable, introspective. Lessingham is more inte- 
 resting than agreeable ; he is very honest and well- 
 meaning, but weak in will and purpose ; we find him 
 too passionate to be really generous, and at last, led 
 away by his tempestuous emotions, he becomes mali- 
 cious and cruel. To work out all this with success 
 needed a master's hand ; Webster delighted in deve- 
 loping such fantastic and wayward characters as these. 
 Bonville, again, stands as much in contrast to Lessing- 
 ham as Annabel does to Clare. He is very virtuous 
 and noble, but less subtle of intellect than his friend, 
 and capable of the injustice that is the child of im- 
 perfect mental sympathy. 
 
 The third act contains a scene, in our estimation, 
 finer than any out of the two great tragedies, and
 
 78 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 second to few in them. The quarrel on Calais sands 
 between Lessingham and Bonville is one of the most 
 complete triumphs of Webster's subtle genius. It bears 
 just sufficient likeness to the well-known duel in the 
 DeviFs Law Case to prove their common paternity, 
 but in pathos and stately power it far excels it. The 
 occasion is peculiar. Lessingham is commanded by the 
 mysterious Clare to kill his best friend if he would win 
 her love, so he induces Bonville on the very day of his 
 marriage to come to Calais, where only English duels 
 could be fought, to be his second. When they get 
 there, no one is in sight, and Lessingham has to ex- 
 plain to his astonished and indignant friend that he is 
 himself the antagonist. The situation is a most thrill- 
 ing one. The long stretch of ribbed and barren sand ; 
 the unbroken solitude of sea, shore, and sky ; the two 
 men fearlessly standing face to face before they bury the 
 love of years in a feud where the passion of anger has no 
 place. The only sound in all the wide expanse is the 
 long wash " of the cruel and inconstant sea, that beats 
 upon this beach." While they prepare to fight for life 
 and death, their words, bold and solemn as the dying 
 speech of a good man, wake the echoes of that un- 
 peopled place. What they say, with what a sad and 
 noble compromise they rescue their lives from that 
 fratricide, it is not my part to tell. Let the reader 
 search out for himself, and store up this strange duel 
 in his memory. 
 
 The finale is more happily managed than is usual in 
 Webster's plays. In the beginning of the last act a 
 general misunderstanding has involved every one in
 
 John Webster 79 
 
 confusion. The reputation of the excellent Annabel 
 has to be cleared, and her father, Woodroff, defends 
 her in a noble little speech. The final quarrel, 
 after which all the threads are unravelled, is most 
 natural and animated, and on the stage would be 
 extremely effective. This little drama would be well 
 worthy of reproduction on the boards of one of our 
 theatres.^ 
 
 In that high garden of the gods of song where the 
 Muses walk among the statues of the dead poets they 
 have loved, there is one delicious terrace that looks 
 over the western sea. Here, when the grass is still 
 dewy, and the shadow of the eastern mountains still 
 upon the garden, Melpomene comes daily to lay a 
 fresh garland on the bland brows of Shakespeare. All 
 the unfamiliar faces of the Elizabethans gaze out of 
 the shade of the laurels, reposing in marble after their 
 stormy life on earth. But before she reaches the great 
 Master, the Muse steps aside to lay vervain on a head 
 whose outlines, in the extreme shadow, are quite in- 
 visible to us; it is to the author of the Duchess of 
 Malfy that she pays this gracious homage, and we 
 long to stand where she does, and see what face and 
 form, what lips and hair and eyes clothed the godhead 
 of this poet of poets. This we shall never see ; the 
 laurels will for ever hide this singer's throat and fore- 
 head. The more let us devoutly examine what he has 
 
 1 A reprint of Webster's share in this play, edited by the Hon. S. 
 E. Spring-Rice, was issued in 1884 from the private press of the Rev. 
 C. H. Daniel, of Worcester College, Oxford. Mr. Spring-Rice has 
 paid me the compliment of adopting my title of Lovers Graduate.
 
 8o Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 left behind him, and write on the blank slab that hides 
 his dust some such words as these, which some one 
 has used regarding him : — 
 
 " His was a soul whose calm intensity 
 
 Glared, shadeless, at the passion-sun that blinds, 
 Unblinded, till the storm of song arose ; 
 Even as the patient and Promethean sea 
 Tosses in sleep, until the vulture-winds 
 
 Swoop down, and tear the breast of its repose I" 
 
 1874-
 
 SAMUEL ROWLANDS 
 
 IN an age when the newly-awakened taste for letters 
 had suddenly thrown open to men who could wield 
 a pen every door that led to the arena of literary pub- 
 licity, Samuel Rowlands made less effort than most of 
 his contemporaries to gain the plaudits of the cultivated, 
 or to secure the garland of lasting fame. His name 
 appears in no list of honoured poets in his own genera- 
 tion ; in the next, his writings found no editor, and his 
 life no biographer. He comes down to us merely as 
 a voluble pamphleteer, of whose numerous works some 
 are altogether lost, and others, become nearly unique, 
 are purchased by the curious at such prices for a single 
 copy as the author never made by a whole edition. 
 Of the minor masters of the Greek stage, of Ion or of 
 lophon, we have plentiful record, though their works 
 are gone ; but in the case of the lesser stars of the 
 Elizabethan galaxy the work of oblivion has been 
 reversed — we have their works, but not the record of 
 their lives. In no case has history been more per- 
 sistent in silence than when summoned to give us 
 news of Samuel Rowlands. Of almost every other 
 WTiter we have succeeded in discovering something; 
 but of him nothing. We do not know when he was 
 born, or when he died, whether he was a scholar of 
 
 8i F
 
 82 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 either university, whether he had taken orders, or 
 whether he had married a wife. It is left to us, there- 
 fore, as to those who map the heavens, to draw an 
 approximate outhne of his Hfe by the conjunction of 
 those works or stars that form his constellation. They 
 are very numerous, they extend over a period of thirty 
 years, and they give some, but very slight, internal 
 evidence of their author's personality. 
 
 In all probability Samuel Rowlands was born soon 
 after 1570. We may roughly conjecture that 1573, 
 the year that saw the birth of Donne and of Ben 
 Jonson, saw his also. Should this, be correct, he was 
 from six to eighteen years 3'ounger than the five 
 famous friends in whose steps he was to walk, with a 
 gentler, tamer tread than theirs. When he was about 
 ten years old. Lodge, Peele, and Greene began to 
 write, and it was not long before Nash and Marlowe 
 joined the company of the penners of love-pamphlets. 
 These men, united rather by their boisterous friend- 
 ship than any innate similarity of genius, were among 
 the first professional men of letters in England. Lodge 
 and Greene began as Euphuists at the feet of Lyiy; 
 they were drawn by the example of Nash into the 
 practice of satire, and into the compilation of catch- 
 penny pamphlets on passing events. They very 
 quickly ran through their brief careers, and had already 
 died or retired from public life before Rowlands began 
 to write. But their influence had been immense; they 
 had inaugurated a new epoch in popular literature; 
 and though the main current of such writing pro- 
 ceeded to flow in the channel of the drama, they still
 
 Samuel Rowlands 83 
 
 counted their followers in the younger generation. Of 
 these followers Rowlands, and fifteen years later 
 Braithwait, were the most important, and to both of 
 these authors, entirely neglected for more than two 
 centuries, public interest has of late returned. That 
 either the one or the other was a writer of much merit, 
 or deserved in any strict sense the name of poet, may 
 easily and safely be denied, but neither lacks that 
 quality of force that renders an author worthy of more 
 than mere antiquarian attention. 
 
 Like Drayton, and other secular poets of that age, 
 Rowlands commenced his career with a volume of 
 devotional pieces. The Betraying of Christ, which 
 bore the more apt sub-title of Poems on the Passion, 
 appeared in 1598, and went through two editions 
 within that year. We have guessed the age of the 
 author at twenty-five, and certainly the style of his 
 verses gives us no sign of precocity or extreme youth. 
 The poems are indeed remarkably smooth, with the 
 even grace and monotonous polish of a writer to 
 whom the art of verse presents no difficulties and 
 contains no surprises. They are composed in an 
 heroic stanza of six lines, rhyme royal with the fifth line 
 omitted, and this form, one of the simplest that can 
 be devised, remained a favourite with Rowlands until 
 he ceased to publish. 
 
 But it was not with nerveless paraphrases of the 
 New Testament that he was destined to catch the 
 popular ear. In 1 600 he produced two works which 
 greatly extended his reputation, and made him, if 
 not famous, at least widely notorious. The first of
 
 84 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 these, entitled A Merry Meeting, or 'Tis Merry when 
 Knaves Meet, was successfully suppressed by the 
 authorities, and has only come down to us in an ex- 
 purgated edition of 1609. It was so offensive in its 
 personality, so acrid in its satire, that it was ordered 
 to be burned publicly, and in the Hall Kitchen of the 
 Stationers' Company. A month later the poet hurried 
 through the press another collection. The Letting of 
 Humour's Blood in the Head Vein, and this has fortu- 
 nately survived in at least four copies. It is a very 
 creditable production, full of the animation of the time, 
 with none of its pedantry, and a little of its genius. 
 The greater part of the book is occupied with small 
 satirical pieces, called Epigrams, describing, mainly in 
 the six-line stanza, those fantastic figures of the day 
 which the poets delighted to caricature. These are 
 very well written, clear, pointed, and even, never rising 
 to the incisive melody of a great poet, but never sink- 
 ing below a fairly admirable level, while for the student 
 of manners they abound in picturesque detail and 
 realistic painting. The following lines from an address 
 to the poet's contemporaries, stripped of their antique 
 spelling, give a fair notion of the modern tone of the 
 book, and its easy elegance : — 
 
 " Will you stand spending your invention's treasure 
 To teach stage parrots speak for penny pleasure, 
 While you yourselves, like music-sounding lutes, 
 Fretted and strange, gain them their silken fruits ? 
 Leave Cupid's cuts, women's face-flattering praise, 
 Love's subject grows too threadbare nowadays, 
 Change Venus' swans to write of Vulcan's geese, 
 And you shall merit golden pens apiece."
 
 Samuel Rowlands 85 
 
 The dislike of the theatre here so strongly expressed 
 continued to the last, and Rowlands seems never to 
 have been tempted to try his skill in the lucrative field 
 of the stage. It is not improbable that his facile pen 
 and experience in the humours of low life would have 
 enabled him to develop a comic talent which might 
 have ranged between that of Dekker and that of Hey- 
 wood ; but he would have missed the tenderness of 
 the former, and the flowery fancy of the latter. The 
 end of the volume called TJie Letting of Humour s Blood 
 is composed of satires in the Roman style, in heroic 
 couplets. Here again Rowlands shows rather his 
 quickness in seizing an idea than his faculty for 
 originating one, since the trick of writing these pieces 
 had been invented by Lodge in 1595, and had been 
 imitated by Hall, Guilpin, and Marston before Row- 
 lands adopted it. He is, however, in some respects 
 the superior of these preceding writers. In all pro- 
 bability he was not, as they were, men of any classic 
 learning, and he was seduced by no desire of emulating 
 Persius into those harsh and involved constructions 
 which make the satires of Donne and Marston the 
 wonder of grammarians. 
 
 The early works of Rowlands gave promise of 
 much greater attainment than their author ultimately 
 achieved. His fourth book, ^Tis Merry when Gossips 
 Meet, published in 1602, is an admirable piece of 
 comedy, bright, fresh, and limpid, and composed in a 
 style only too dangerously smooth and rapid. It opens 
 with a fine tribute to Chaucer, " our famous reverend 
 English Poet," and proceeds to give a valuable piece
 
 86 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 of contemporary manners in a conversation between a 
 gentleman and a bookseller, in prose. The gentleman 
 has no taste for new books ; he prefers the old ones. 
 He says, ** Canst help me to all Greene's books in one 
 volume ? But I will have them every one, not any 
 wanting." The modern book-hunter starts at the idea 
 of a volume containing all Greene's works in the 
 original quartos; even the bookseller of 1602 finds 
 that he has some half-a-dozen lacking. Then the 
 gentleman is urged to buy a book of Nash's, but he 
 has it already ; at last he is persuaded to buy the very 
 poem to which this conversation is a preface, and we 
 are interested to learn that he pays sixpence for it, less 
 than one-thousandth part of the sum that would be 
 asked to-day for a clean copy. 
 
 The poem is in Rowlands' usual six-Hne stanza, but 
 it is singular among his works as being in a dramatic 
 form. It is, in fact, a dialogue between a Widow, a 
 Wife, a Maid, and a Vintner. The Widow meets the 
 Wife, whom she has not seen for a long time, outside 
 a tavern, and while they stand talking the Maid goes 
 by. The Widow stops her, and vows that they must 
 all three drink a glass together before they part. The 
 Wife and the Maid object, but their objections are 
 overruled by the boisterous joviality of the Widow, 
 who drags them into the tavern. They are shown 
 upstairs into a private room, and the Vintner brings 
 them claret. Over their wine they discuss old times and 
 their present fortunes in a very humorous and natural 
 way. The Widow is a coarse, good-humoured woman, 
 full of animal spirits, and still rebelHous with the
 
 Samuel Rowlands 87 
 
 memoiy of her red-haired husband, who used her ill ; 
 the Wife, on the other hand, praises her husband, an 
 easy soul who lets her have her way ; the Maid talks 
 very little at first, but as she warms with the wine, she 
 describes the sort of husband she means to have. 
 Presently they finish the claret, and the Wife and the 
 Maid wish to go, but the Widow will not hear of it, 
 bidding the Vintner rather burn some sack and fry 
 some sausages. Over this feast they linger a long 
 while gossiping, till the Maid has burning cheeks and 
 the Widow becomes indisputably drunk. She talks so 
 broadly that the Vintner's boy laughs, and then she 
 becomes extremely dignified, demanding an apology. 
 In the end she patronises the Vintner, and makes 
 him drink with them ; and when at last her friends 
 rise to go, she insists on paying the whole reckoning. 
 It will be seen that the poem has no plot, and that 
 the contents are very slight ; but the workmanship is 
 admirable, and the little realistic touches combine to 
 form an interior as warm and full in colour as any 
 painted by Brouwer or Ostade. It is one of the best 
 studies oi gefire we possess in all Elizabethan literature. 
 *Tis Merry whm Gossips Meet went through at least 
 seven editions before the end of the century. 
 
 Simultaneously with this humorous poem, Rowlands 
 published, in 1602, a collection of prose stories of 
 smart cheating and cozening under the title of Greeners 
 Ghost Haunting Coney catchers, adopting this popular 
 name to attract public notice. As a catcher of rabbits, 
 or conies, trades upon the stupidity of his victims, so 
 it was represented by the pamphleteers of the day that
 
 88 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 knaves took advantage of the credulity of simple 
 citizens, and hence the popularity of a title that Greene 
 had invented, but which found a score of imitators. 
 Rowlands' tales are lively, but for us the main interest 
 of the book centres in its preface and in its address to 
 the reader, in which Rowlands comes forward distinctly 
 as a pamphleteer, disclaiming any pretension to learn- 
 ing or an ambitious style. From this time forth he 
 appears solely as a caterer for the frivolous and casual 
 reader, and demands notice rather as a journalist than 
 as an author. His little books are what we should 
 now term social articles; they answer exactly to the 
 " middles " of our best weekly newspapers. 
 
 Our curiosity is excited by the lapses in his com- 
 position, and we wonder how such a man subsisted in 
 the intervals between the publication of his works. 
 His familiarity with the book-trade, and his cunning 
 way of adapting his titles and subjects to the exact 
 taste of the moment, suggest that he may have found 
 employment in one of the booksellers' shops. In this 
 connection we turn in hope of confirmation to the 
 imprints of his volumes, but in vain. He published 
 with a great variety of booksellers, and rarely more 
 than twice with the same. From 1600 to 1605 he was, 
 however, in business with William White, in Pope's 
 Head Alley, near the Exchange, and for ten years his 
 tracts were sold by George Loftus, in Bishopsgate 
 Street, near the Angel. As Loftus would seem to 
 have succeeded White, or to have removed from his 
 employment into a separate business, it is within the 
 bounds of legitimate speculation to guess that Row-
 
 Samuel Rowlands 89 
 
 lands spent fifteen of his busiest years in the employ- 
 ment of these city booksellers. 
 
 In 1604 he published, under the sensational title of 
 Look to It, or ril Stab You, a fresh collection of 
 satirical characters in verse, in form and substance 
 precisely like the epigrams in his Letting of Humour's 
 Blood. His style had by this time reached its highest 
 refinement and purity, without the slightest trace of 
 elevation. The character of the Curious Divine forms 
 a good example of his fluent and prosaic verse : — 
 
 " Divines, that are together by the ears, 
 
 Puffed up, high-minded, seedsmen of dissension, 
 Striking until Christ's seamless garment tears, 
 Making the Scripture follow your invention, 
 Neglecting that whereon the soul should feed, 
 Employed in that whereof souls have no need ; 
 
 " Curious in things you need not stir about. 
 Such as concern not matter of salvation, 
 Giving offence to them that are without, 
 
 Upon whose weakness you should have compassion, 
 Causing the good to grieve, the bad rejoice, — 
 Yet you, with Martha, make the worser choice, — 
 
 I'll stab you ! " 
 
 From this time forward every year saw one, at least, 
 of his facile productions. In 1605 it was HelPs Br'oke 
 Loose, one of the poorest things he ever wrote, a mean 
 kind of epic poem in his favourite six-line stanza, on 
 the life and death of John of Le^'den. In the same 
 year he returned to his first love, and published A 
 Theatre of Divine Recreation, a collection of religious 
 poems, founded on the Old Testament. This book,
 
 90 Seventeenth Cehtury Studies 
 
 which was in existence as late as 1812, has dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 The best of all Rowlands' works, from a literary 
 point of view, is the rarest also. A Terrible Battle 
 between Time and Death exists only in a single copy, 
 which has been bound in such a way that the imprint 
 and date are lost. There is little doubt, however, that 
 the latter was 1606. The dedication is odd ; Rowlands 
 inscribes his book to a Mr. George Gaywood, whom 
 he does not personally know, but who has shown more 
 than fatherly kindness to a friend of the author's. We 
 wonder if the "friend" may have been the author's 
 wife, by a concealment not unprecedented in that age, 
 and Mr. Gaywood her godfather or patron. At any 
 rate, some singular chain of circumstances seems hinted 
 at in this very cryptic dedication. The poem itself 
 contains the best things that Rowlands has left behind 
 him. It opens in a most solemn and noble strain, 
 with a closer echo of the august music of the tragic 
 Elizabethans than Rowlands attains anywhere else : — 
 
 " Dread potent Monster, mighty from thy birth, 
 Giant of strength against all mortal power, 
 God's great Earl Marshal over all the earth. 
 Taking account of each man's dying hour, 
 Landlord of graves and tombs of marble stones, 
 Lord Treasurer of rotten dead men's bones." 
 
 Thus Time addresses Death, whom he has met wander- 
 ing over the world on his dread mission. But Death 
 cannot stay to talk with him ; he has to mow down 
 proud kings and tender women, gluttons and atheists 
 and swaggering bullies, all who live without God, and
 
 Samuel Rowlands 91 
 
 take no thought of the morrow. Yet Time beguiles 
 him to stay awhile, since, without Time, Death has no 
 lawful right or power, and so they agree to converse 
 together while half the sand runs through the hour- 
 glass of Time. Their conversation deals with the 
 obvious moralities, the frivolity of man, the solemnity 
 of eternity, the various modes in which persons of 
 different casts of character meet the advent of death. 
 The dialogue is dignified, even where it is most quaint, 
 and the reader is reminded of the devotional poetry 
 of a later time, sometimes of Herbert, more often of 
 Quarles. But Rowlands has not the strength of wing 
 needed for these moral flights ; his poem becomes 
 tedious and then grotesque. At the close of Time's 
 pleasant conversation with Death, they fall out, and 
 the latter, who prides himself on his personal beauty, 
 is extremely disconcerted at the rudeness with which 
 Time compares his arm and hand to a gardener's rake, 
 and his head to a dry empty oil-jar. After these 
 amenities the reader prepares for that " terrible bloody 
 battle" promised on the title-page, but he is disap- 
 pointed, for the pair make up their quarrel immediately, 
 and proceed together to their mortuary labours. 
 
 The year 1607 was one of great literary activity with 
 Rowlands. He published no fewer than three books, 
 though, singularly enough, we possess the first edition 
 of but one of these. A work of 1607, of which the first 
 edition has been lost, is Doctor Merrjman, a series 
 of bright sallies in verse, describing and ridicuHng the 
 popular aff"ectations or "humours" of the day. In 
 this book a slight change of tone is apparent ; the fun
 
 92 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 becomes broader, tlie style more liquid, and Rowlands 
 reminds us of a writer the very opposite of an ordinary 
 Elizabethan, namely, Peter Pindar, and sometimes of 
 the younger Colman. That the smartness and voluble 
 wit have not entirely evaporated yet accounts for the 
 immense popularity enjoyed by such a work as this 
 when it was new ; yet such writing can hardly be 
 admitted to a place in literature. Another humorous 
 volume of 1607, ^^^ London Gossips, has absolutely 
 disappeared, and the only first edition of that prolific 
 year which we still possess is Diogenes^ Lanthorn. 
 In 1 59 1 Lodge had used the name of Diogenes for the 
 title of a prose satire, and Rowlands' is but a feeble 
 copy of that quaint and witty book. Lodge brings out 
 the venom of Diogenes in a dialogue; Rowlands makes 
 him soliloquise, and after his cynical monologue in the 
 streets of Athens, abruptly drops his hero, and closes 
 the volume with a series of fables, put into easy popular 
 verse with his customary facility. 
 
 In The Famous History of Guy^ Earl of Warwick, 
 he showed very plainly the limitation of his powers. 
 This poem, printed in 1608, as if in heroic couplets, 
 but really in the six-line stanza, was spoken of by Mr. 
 Utterson as a travesty, intended to bring chivalric 
 literature into ridicule ; but this was entirely a mistake. 
 Nothing could be more serious than the twelve heavy 
 cantos of Rowlands' tedious romance, which seems to 
 have been written in imitation or emulation of Fairfax's 
 Tasso, published a few years earlier. 
 
 The year 1608 also saw the publication of Humour^ s 
 Looking- Glass, a collection precisely similar in char-
 
 Samuel Rowlands 93 
 
 acter to The Letting of Humour' s Blood. As before, we 
 find no spark of poetic fancy, but plenty of rhetorical 
 skill, a picturesque and direct style, and much descrip- 
 tive verve. The boastful traveller was a frequent and 
 favourite subject with the poets of Elizabeth; he was 
 a product of their showy and grandiloquent age, and, 
 while they laughed at his bravado, they were half in- 
 clined to like him for his impudence. But not one of 
 them has drawn his portrait better than Rowlands has 
 in Humour's Looking-Glass : — 
 
 " Come, my brave Gallant, come, uncase, uncase ! 
 Ne'er shall oblivion your great acts deface : 
 He has been there where never man came yet, 
 An unknown country, ay, I'll warrant it ; 
 Whence he could ballast a good ship in hold 
 With rubies, sapphires, diamonds and gold. 
 Great orient pearls esteemed no more than notes, 
 Sold by the peck, as chandlers measure oats ; 
 I mars-el, then, we have no trade from thence? 
 ' Oh ! 'tis too far, it will not bear expense.' 
 'Twere far, indeed, a good way from our main, 
 If charges eat up such excessive gain. 
 
 I heard him swear that he, — 'twas in his mirth, — 
 Had been in all the corners of the earth ; 
 Let all his wonders be together stitched ; 
 He threw the bar that great Alcides pitched ; 
 Yet he that saw the Ocean's farthest strands, 
 You pose him if you ask where Dover stands." 
 
 It would be difficult to quote a more favourable example 
 of Rowlands' versification, and there are couplets in 
 this passage which Waller would not have disdained 
 to use. The instances of such smoothness of heroic 
 verse early in the century are commoner than has
 
 94 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 been supposed, although they were rarely sustained. 
 This, as well as all other branches of the universal art 
 of poetry, was understood by the great Elizabethan 
 masters; and if they did not frequently employ it, 
 it was because they left to such humbler writers 
 as Rowlands an instrument incapable of those noble 
 and audacious harmonies on which they chiefly prided 
 themselves. 
 
 In 1609, unless I am wrong in my conjecture that 
 the Whole Crew of Kind Gossips of that year was but 
 a new edition of the Six London Gossips of 1607, 
 Rowlands confined himself to the reprinting of several 
 of his tracts, and to this fact we owe the possession 
 of one or two of the earlier books already described. 
 His first book of satires, which had been condemned 
 to be burned in 1600, he now brought out anew, under 
 the title of The Knave of Clubs, and as in this later 
 form it contains nothing which could reasonably give 
 offence, it is to be supposed that the peccant passages 
 had been expunged. It is not a very clever perfor- 
 mance, rather dull and ribald, and inferior in vivacity 
 to the fables at the close of Diogenes^ Lanthorn. 
 
 The Whole Crew of Kind Gossips is a fairly divert- 
 ing description of six citizens' wives, who meet in 
 council to denounce their husbands, the latter presently 
 entering to address the public, and turn the tables on 
 their wives. This humble sort of Ecdesiasuscs has 
 nothing very Aristophanic about it ; it is, indeed, one 
 of Rowlands' failures. Seldom has he secured a 
 subject so well suited to his genius for low humour, 
 and never has he more completely missed the point of
 
 Samuel Rowlands 95 
 
 the situation. The writing shows traces of rapid and 
 careless composition, the speeches of the wives are 
 wanting in variety and character, and those of the 
 husbands are dragged on without rhyme or reason, 
 unannounced and unexplained. The language, how- 
 ever, is admirably clear and modern. It is to be 
 feared that our poet had fallen upon troublous days, 
 for his works about this time are the merest catch- 
 penny things, thrown off without care or self-respect. 
 Martin Mark-all, his contribution to l6iO, is an arrant 
 piece of book-making. It professes to be an historical 
 account of the rise and progress of roguery up to the 
 reign of Henry VIII., as stated to the Bellman of 
 London by the Beadle of Bridewell. It has this special 
 interest to modern students, that it contains a very 
 curious dictionary of canting terms, preceding by 
 more than half a century that in the English Rogue. 
 Moreover, buried in a great deal of trash, it includes 
 some valuable biographical notes about famous high- 
 waymen and thieves of the sixteenth century. It is 
 entirely in prose, except some queer Gipsy songs. 
 The wrath of Dekker, it is supposed, was roused by 
 a charge of plagiarism brought against some author 
 unknown in this book, and he appears to attack 
 Rowlands in his Lanthorn and Candlelight. This very 
 slight encounter is the only incident that associates 
 Rowlands with any of his contemporaries, and even 
 this might fairly be disputed on the ground of dates. 
 
 The success of the Knave of Chibs induced Rowlands 
 to repeat his venture with the Knave of Hearts in 
 l6i2, and The Knaves of Spades and Diamonds in
 
 96 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 1613. These works are in no way to be distinguished 
 from those that preceded them ; their author was 
 perhaps growing a little coarser, a little heavier, but 
 for the rest there is the same low and trivial view of 
 life, the same easy satire, the same fluency and lucidity 
 of language. The increasing heaviness of his style is 
 still more plainly seen in his next work, A Fool's Bolt 
 is soon Shot, though this is far from being the worst of 
 his productions. In this volume, sure of a large body 
 of readers, he disdains the artifice of a dedication, and 
 simply inscribes his poem "To Rash Judgment, Tom 
 Fool and his fellows." It consists of a series of tales, 
 in heroic verse, concerning the practical blunders of 
 all sorts of foolish people, and these stories happen to 
 be particularly rich in those personal details that make 
 the works of Rowlands so valuable to antiquaries. 
 
 By far the best written and most important of his late 
 works is the Melancholy Knight of 1 6 1 5. The title-page 
 of this pamphlet is adorned by a most curious wood- 
 cut, faithfully rendered in facsimile in the reprint of 
 the Hunterian Club. This represents a gentleman, 
 apparelled in the richest gala-dress of that period, 
 with his hat pulled over his eyes, and his head deeply 
 sunken in his capacious ruff of point-lace. His arms 
 are folded before him, and he lounges on, lost in melan- 
 choly reverie. It is he who is supposed to indite the 
 poems. He says : 
 
 " I have a melancholy skull, 
 That's almost fractured, 'tis so full ! 
 To ease the same these lines I write ; 
 Tobacco, boy ! a pipe ! some light ! '
 
 Samuel Rowlands 97 
 
 His reflections upon the follies and knaveries of the 
 age, its vices, its affectations, and its impertinencies, 
 are full of bright and delightful reading, but especially 
 when it is found that the Knight is a bookworm, 
 and spends his time in devouring old folio romances 
 and chivalric tales " of ladies fair and lovely knights,' 
 like any Don Quixote; and most of all when he 
 ventures to recite a very touching ballad of his own 
 about Sir Eglamour and the Dragon. No doubt the 
 fame of Cervantes' masterpiece, published just ten 
 years before, had reached the English pamphleteer, 
 and he had certainly seen The Knight of the Burn- 
 ing Pestle performed in 161 1. Rowlands was never 
 original, but he was very quick in adopting a new 
 idea. In some of the descriptions of oddity in the 
 Melancholy Knight he shows a greater richness in 
 expression than in his early works. He had probably 
 read the satires of Donne. 
 
 The remaining works of Rowlands need not detain 
 us very long. In 16 17 he published a poem called 
 The Bride, but it is lost. In 161 8 he brought out yi 
 Sacred Memory of the Miracles of Christ, remarkable 
 only for the preface, in which he exhorts " all faithful 
 Christians," with such confident unction as to suggest 
 that he may possibly by this time have found a sphere 
 for his energies within the Church of England. In 
 the poems themselves there is nothing important; they 
 present all the features of conventionality and effete 
 piety which are to be met with in English poems on 
 sacred narrative subjects before the days of Quarles. 
 With The Night Raven, in 1620, and Good News and 
 
 6
 
 98 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Bad News, in 1622, the long series of Rowlands' 
 humoristic studies closes. These two books, exactly 
 like one another in style, consist of the usual chain of 
 stories, less ably told than before, but still occupied, 
 as ever, with knavery and simplicity, the endless joke, 
 now repeated to satiety, at the ease with which dul- 
 ness is gulled by roguery. According to all probable 
 computation, Rowlands by this time was at least fifty 
 years of age ; and after producing this sort of homely 
 poetry for more than a quarter of a century, he 
 possibly found that the public he once addressed had 
 abandoned him. At all events, Good News and Bad 
 News is the last of his comic writings. 
 
 Six years later there appeared a little duodecimo 
 volume of sacred verse and prose, entitled Heaveii!s 
 Glory, Seek it; Earth's Vanity, Fly it ; Heirs Horror, 
 Fear it. Under this affected title a writer who signs 
 himself Samuel Rowland issues a collection of suffi- 
 ciently tedious homilies, interspersed with divine poems. 
 That this book was written by Samuel Rowlands has 
 been freely affirmed, and as freely denied ; but I do 
 not think that any doubt on the subject can remain on 
 the mind of any one who carefully reads it. The prose 
 pages, it is true, have all the dogged insipidity and 
 absolute colourlessness of style which mark the minor 
 theological literature of the seventeenth century, but 
 the poems are not so undecipherable. They are 
 printed in a delusive way, so as to seem to be in a 
 short ballad metre ; but they are really, in all cases, 
 composed in that identical six-line stanza which Row- 
 lands affected throughout his life. Nor is there more
 
 Samuel Rowlands 99 
 
 similarity to his authentic poems in the form than in 
 the style of these religious pieces. There is precisely 
 the same fluid versification, the same easy and sensible 
 mediocrity, and the same want of elevation and origin- 
 ality. At the end of this hortatory work there is found 
 a collection of Prayers for use in Godly Families, and 
 appended to these latter a collection of poems entitled 
 Common Calls, Cries and Sounds of the Bellman, con- 
 sisting of religious posies and epigrams, very poorly 
 written, but still distinctly recognisable as the work of 
 Rowlands. I do not think there can be the slightest 
 doubt that this miscellaneous volume is rightly included 
 among his veritable works. 
 
 From this year (1628) he passes out of our sight, 
 having kept the booksellers busily engaged for exactly 
 thirty years. His books continued to find a sale for 
 another half-century, and were reprinted at least as 
 late as 1675. But they were considered as scarcely 
 above the rank of chapbooks, and Rowlands is in- 
 cluded among the English poets in not one of the lists 
 of contemporary or former authors. In 1630 he wrote 
 a few verses of congratulation to his loving friend John 
 Taylor, the Water Poet, and in earlier life he had paid 
 the same compHment to two still more obscure writers. 
 In 16 1 2, W. Parkes, of whom absolutely nothing is 
 known, quoted a short poem by Rowlands in his 
 Ctirtain - Drawer of the World. Such, and such 
 alone, are the minute points of connection with his 
 contemporaries which the most patient scholarship has 
 succeeded in discovering, and they show a literary 
 isolation which would be astounding in so fertile an
 
 loo Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 author if we were not to consider the undignified and 
 ephemeral nature of Rowlands' writings, which the 
 passage of time has made interesting to us, but which 
 to his cultivated contemporaries must have scarcely 
 seemed to belong to literature at all. 
 
 In an age when newspapers were unknown and 
 when poetry was still the favourite channel for popular 
 thought, such pamphlets as those of Samuel Rowlands 
 formed the chief intellectual pabulum of the apprentice 
 and of his master's wife, of the city shopkeeper and of 
 his less genteel customers. When we consider the 
 class addressed, and the general license of those times, 
 we shall be rather inclined to admire the reticence of 
 the author than to blame his occasional coarseness. 
 Rowlands is never immoral, he is rarely indecent ; his 
 attitude towards vice of all sorts is rather indifferent, 
 and he assumes the judicial air of a satirist with 
 small success. He has neither the integrity nor the 
 savagery that is required to write satire ; he neither 
 indulges in the sensual rage of Donne, nor the clerical 
 indignation of Hall ; he is always too much amused 
 at vice to be thoroughly angry wnth it. His favourite 
 subject of contemplation is a sharper ; to his essentially 
 bourgeois mind nothing seems so irresistibly funny as 
 the trick by which a shrewd rascal becomes possessed 
 of the purse or the good name of an honest fool ; and 
 no doubt it was this that peculiarly endeared his muse 
 to the apprentice and to the serving-maid. 
 
 As a purely literary figure Rowlands has little im- 
 portance save what he owes to those details which 
 were commonplace in his own time, but which are of
 
 Samuel Rowlands loi 
 
 antiquarian importance to us. Yet however accidental 
 the merit may be, we cannot refuse to him the praise 
 of having made the London of Shakespeare more vivid 
 to us than almost any other author has done. In 
 his earlier works, and especially in his ^Tis Merry 
 when Gossips Meet, he has displayed the existence 
 in him of a comic vein which he neglected to work, 
 but which would have assured him a brilliant success 
 if he had had the happy thought of writing for the 
 stage. In comedy those bright and facile qualities of 
 style which are wasted in the frivolous repetitions of 
 his later tales and satires, might have ripened into 
 a veritable dramatic talent. As it is, he is a kind 
 of small non-political Defoe, a pamphleteer in verse 
 whose talents were never put into exercise except when 
 their possessor was pressed for means, and a poet of 
 considerable talent without one spark or glimmer of 
 genius. 
 
 1880. 
 
 In 1880 I had the privilege of editing for the first 
 time the complete works of Rowlands, in three 
 volumes, for the Hunterian Club. At that time my 
 attention had not been drawn to a quarto pamphlet 
 existing in a unique example in the library of Mr. 
 Henry Huth. This was the poem of Ave Ccssar: 
 God Save the King, an address of welcome to James 
 I., printed in 1603, but not entered at Stationers' Hall. 
 Although this tract is anonymous, I am convinced that 
 it was written by Samuel Rowlands, and in 1888 the
 
 I02 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Hunterian Club was persuaded to issue a separate 
 reprint of it. There is inserted in the text of the 
 original an elegy on Queen Elizabeth, signed S. R., 
 but the whole is obviously by the same hand. The 
 poem was sold by George Loftus, whom we have seen 
 to have acted as Rowlands' publisher at that date, and, 
 in short, both internal and external evidence unite in 
 pointing to his certain authorship.
 
 CAPTAIN DOVER'S COTSWOLD 
 
 GAMES 
 
 IN the extreme north of Gloucestershire there li-^s a 
 district which, even now, in these hurrying days 
 when the romance of geography has almost disap- 
 peared, preserves a certain isolation of speech and 
 custom. The Cotswold Hills, running north-west 
 through the length of the county from one Avon to 
 another, culminate in their broadest and loftiest form 
 just as they are about to disappear in the great central 
 plain. The elevated plateau they form is bounded on 
 one side by the Stour and the Vale of Evesham, on the 
 other by the Evenlode and the Windrush — rivers of 
 melodious name that hurry past Woodstock and past 
 Witney to feed the waters of the still crystal Thames. 
 The inhabitants of the Cotswold, if we may believe the 
 late Mr. R. W. Huntley, who employed his immense 
 experience of the district in forming a glossary of the 
 dialect, still speak an idiom so full of pure Saxon 
 forms that an acquaintance with their daily speech 
 greatly facilitates the study of old Robert of Gloucester, 
 many passages in whose long-winded chronicle are to 
 be recognised as good Cotswold of to-day. Even now 
 no railway traverses a district which is one of the 
 
 most isolated in England, though near the heart of 
 
 103
 
 I04 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 our populous country. From time immemorial the 
 rounded hills and open wolds of this grassy desolation 
 were perceived to be specially adapted for athletic 
 and public games. On such an expanse of upland a 
 vast concourse of persons might be massed without 
 confusion and without disturbance to public business. 
 It is not certain when first Cotswold became celebrated 
 for its public sports ; but certainly in the middle of the 
 sixteenth century we find John Heywood, the epi- 
 grammatist, talking familiarly of one who was as fierce 
 " as a lion of Cotswold," and it is understood that this 
 allusion is to the leonine youths who fought and raced 
 in the fine bracing air of North Gloucestershire. But, 
 however this may be, in the early manhood of Shake- 
 speare these irregular sports were publicly recognised 
 and formulated in a very curious way ; and this for- 
 gotten chapter in old English life provides a curious 
 little passage in the history of seventeenth century 
 poetry. 
 
 Captain Robert Dover, born in Norfolk towards the 
 end of the sixteenth century, was, at the time of the 
 accession of James I., an attorney at Barton-on-the- 
 Heath in Warwickshire. It is amusing to consider 
 that he was within an easy walk of Stratford, but not 
 very instructive, since there is not the shghtest reason 
 to suppose that Shakespeare ever took advantage of 
 the fact to visit his neighbour. This is, perhaps, un- 
 fortunate ; for Dover was a man of charming presence, 
 full of those qualities which attract the friendship of 
 great minds — easy and genial, stirring, yet without 
 ambition. There exists in the British Museum a
 
 Captain Dover's Cotswold Games 105 
 
 unique copy of verses in his honour, which, after 
 celebrating the virtues of — 
 
 " Dover, that his knowledge not employs 
 To increase his neighbours' quarrels but their joys," 
 
 adds, in a prose note, " he was bred an attorney, who 
 never tried but two causes, always made up the differ- 
 ence." All the contemporary notices of him agree in 
 giving him credit for a generous and pubHc spirit and 
 great personal geniahty. We seem to see before us, 
 in contemplating him, a fine type of the manly English 
 burgher of the period, an independent but loyal subject, 
 ready to take his own part, but easily convinced and 
 appeased, a stalwart person coloured with the brisk 
 air of the wolds, nimble in all physical exercises, and 
 most at home in the saddle. It would seem that he 
 possessed a fortune at least sufficient to allow him to 
 use his legal experience simply for the benefit of his 
 townsfolk, and that he had plenty of leisure for the 
 out-of-door employments that he loved. We do not 
 know whether his revival of the Cotswold Games pre- 
 ceded or followed his change of residence, but it seems 
 certain that early in the seventeenth century he left 
 Barton and settled at " Wickham," by which is probably 
 meant Winchcombe. He seems to have built himself 
 a house at Stanway, near the latter town, in the heart 
 of Cotswold, and here he lived and here he died. 
 
 We all know that no sooner had James ascended the 
 vacant throne of Elizabeth than Puritans of every type, 
 depending upon the new king's Presbyterian ante- 
 cedents, buzzed round him demanding every species
 
 io6 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 of privilege. We know also that the wily serpent 
 turned a deaf ear to all their charming. A few 
 trumpery concessions from the House of Commons 
 were all they obtained, and these were made the 
 excuse for granting no more. It became clear to James 
 that kingly prerogative, and his other darling doctrines, 
 ran much less fear of opposition from easy-going 
 gentlemen loyal to the Establishment than from feverish 
 devotees of religious fanaticism. The comfortable 
 classes were on the side of the King, and though him- 
 self so neurotic and morbid, he was a mighty hunter, 
 and always prepared to encourage genial enjoyments 
 that helped to prop up royalism and the English 
 Church. It is not likely that Captain Robert Dover 
 entered at all into the stirring politics of the hour; 
 he was not the man to perceive the budding liberty 
 of England under the harsh husk of a truculent Puri- 
 tanism. But he disliked, in the true spirit of a cheer- 
 ful English gentleman, the fretful suspicion of athletic 
 sports which has always been a symptom of a gravely 
 theological habit of mind, and he determined to have 
 none of it in the Cotswold. 
 
 Anthony a Wood, engaged long afterwards in the 
 tiresome biography of Clement Barksdale, turned aside 
 to gossip with his readers about a much more enter- 
 taining Cotswold personage; and it is to this happy 
 accident that we learn what follows. Dover deter- 
 mined to give an official character to the games he 
 proposed to celebrate, and consequently, about the 
 year 1604 we may conjecture, he obtained leave from 
 the King to select a place on the Cotswold Hills on
 
 Captain Dover's Cotswold Games 107 
 
 which to act these sports. The spot he ultimately 
 fixed upon was some distance eastward from his house 
 at Stanway, and close to Chipping Campden, a little 
 Itahanated borough, now quite decayed, that lies on the 
 open country-side almost midway between Evesham 
 and Stow-in-the-Wold. From the scene of the games 
 a brook runs through Campden into the Stour, and so 
 at last into the Avon a mile below Stratford. Here on 
 the wide downs, around a little acclivity that has ever 
 since borne the title of Dover's Hill, the genial Captain 
 inaugurated his sports in solemn state. 
 
 There were other places celebrated for public races 
 and games in the reign of Elizabeth. Young sparks 
 from Cambridge, with a taste for horseflesh, divided 
 their patronage between Royston and Newmarket; at 
 Brackley, in Northamptonshire, and at Banstead, in 
 Surrey, there were public games, famous in their kind 
 and day; on Salisbury Plain sports had long been 
 instituted. But Captain Dover determined that the 
 fame of all these should be as nothing beside the glory 
 of Cotswold. In this scheme he received practical 
 help from a romantic friend at court. Endymion 
 Porter, afterwards Groom of the Bed-Chamber to his 
 Majesty Charles I., was one of those successful men 
 of the world, who, with a taste for art and letters, are 
 conscious of being themselves without the power to 
 excel; and who give themselves the pleasure, not 
 being the rose, of cultivating and patronising that 
 flower wherever they have the good fortune to find it. 
 Endymion Porter enjoyed the title of " Patron of 
 Poets," and by his uniform good nature went far to
 
 io8 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 deserve it. He found them positions, honours, gifts, 
 and they in return immortalised him in encomiums and 
 parcneticons, where the known passion of the Moon for 
 an individual of his name was always ingeniously and 
 monotonously dwelt upon. Porter was precisely the 
 person most fitted to help Dover in his games, and we 
 find that he entered into the scheme with alacrity. 
 
 It is not stated, but we may well imagine, that it 
 was the florid fancy of Endymion which suggested 
 what would hardly have occurred to plain Captain 
 Dover, that the games should be dubbed ** Olympick," 
 and an antique dignity to be lent to the trials of skill 
 upon Cotswold. Whoever it was to whom the hint 
 was due, it was extremely successful. The faded 
 humanism of the taste of the day was charmed to 
 think that England was to possess its classic play- 
 ground for heroes, with Stour for its Alpheus and 
 little Chipping Campden for its Pisa. It gave literary 
 importance to the proceedings, and in the course 
 of time — as the poetasters strove to outdo one an- 
 other — honest Captain Dover became finally styled, by 
 the most gushing of them all, " the great Inventor 
 and Champion of the English Olympicks, Pythycks, 
 Nemicks, and Isthmicks." These be brave words for 
 a little merriment in Whitsun-week, but the poets must 
 always be allowed their grain of salt. It is rather to 
 be wondered at that no pedantic rhymster of them all 
 remembered the special patronage of "Pythycks" by 
 Phoebus Apollo, or 
 
 " Prima Jovi magno celebrantur Olympia Pisae, 
 Parnassus Clario sacravit Pythia Phoebo,"
 
 Captain Dover's Cotswold Games 109 
 
 hexameters in which Ausonius lifted up a voice worthy 
 of their own Alabaster. 
 
 Endymion Porter was himself a native of Gloucester- 
 shire, and he carried his interest in Dover so far as 
 to beg for him some cast-off robes of the King's, with 
 the royal hat, feather, and ruff, in which to open the 
 ceremonies with great grace and dignity. A contem- 
 porary print gives us a rough picture of the brave 
 Captain thus adorned, his plump person arrayed in 
 what seems to be a slashed satin doublet, and with 
 the plumes of borrowed majesty in a wide-brimmed 
 Cavalier hat. On the hill that bore his name there was 
 set up a rather grotesque erection known as Dover 
 Castle, a portable fortress provided with ordnance and 
 artillery, and turning, apparently, on a huge pivot. It 
 had a little portcullis and two side bastions, each bastion 
 provided with two real guns, which fired away at proper 
 intervals to keep up the flagging spirit of the athletes. 
 These " cannons roaring on the wold, which from thy 
 castle rattle to the skies," impressed the contemporary 
 imagination very much, and Dover was pla3^fully ex- 
 horted to protect Cotswold against the King's enemies. 
 
 It was at Whitsuntide that the gentry assembled at 
 Campden to be present at the Cotswold revels. A 
 3'^ellow flag was unfurled on the battlements of the 
 portable castle, and a bugle was blown to summon the 
 quality to the games. Captain Dover himself rode out 
 on his palfrey to survey the scene, wearing a yellow 
 favour in his hunting-cap. He seems to have rivalled 
 the Chinese in his partiality for the colour yellow. At 
 the foot of the hill and along the courses there were
 
 no Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 arranged tents, where food and drink were served, and 
 where pubhc contests at chess were fought out. There 
 is some discrepancy in the accounts of the order of 
 the sports; there was, perhaps no very strict arrange- 
 ment maintained from year to year. According to a 
 certain Robert Griffin, however, it was usual, after the 
 bugle had blown, to open the ceremonies with horse- 
 racing. The country-side outdid itself in adorning the 
 animals which were to run with ribands and flowers. 
 A poet who met such a palfrey going to be run at Cots- 
 wold, declared that if Europa had seen him so gar- 
 landed and pranked, she would never have cast eyes 
 upon the Bull. The racecourse was some miles long, 
 and remained in existence until our own time, when 
 it was ploughed up by order of Lord Harrowby. 
 
 The horse-racing was not so original a sport as what 
 followed next, the coursing of " silver-footed grey- 
 hounds." For this pastime Cotswold became specially 
 famous, and it received the honour of mention from 
 Shakespeare. In the very opening scene of The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, Slander says to Page, 
 " How does your fallow greyhound, sir ? I heard say 
 he was outrun on Cotsall." The phrase, " I heard 
 say he was outrun," can obviously only refer to a 
 competitive coursing, in which Page's greyhound failed 
 to win the first prize. It is remarkable that this pas- 
 sage does not occur in the quartos, and rests on the 
 authority of the first folio ; but it would be very rash 
 to argue from this fact, as has been done, however, 
 that the Cotswold games began between 1619 and 
 1623. There can be no doubt that at the latter date
 
 Captain Dover's Cotswold Games 1 1 1 
 
 they had the notoriety which follows twenty years of 
 success. It was made a great point by the humane 
 Dover that not the killing of the hare, but the winning 
 of the prize, should be the aim men set before them in 
 competing. He desired to supersede hunting as much 
 as possible by instituting these games of skill. 
 
 The next exercise was so curious and so character- 
 istic of the times that I must give leave to the above- 
 named Robert Griffin to describe it in his own words : — 
 
 " This done, a virgin crew of matchless choice 
 Nimbly set forth, attended with a noise 
 Of music sweet, excelling that of spheres, 
 Whose well-kept diapason ravished their's," 
 
 meaning the spheres', 
 
 " Of all that's sensitive. These nymphs advance 
 Themselves with such a comely grace to dance. 
 Each with her gallant paired, that all who see 
 Their cunning motion and agility 
 Are struck with admiration." 
 
 We imagine such a classic dance of loose-robed girls, 
 girdled and garlanded with flowers, as Herrick was so 
 fond of fancying, but the engraving to which we have 
 referred destroys these fair illusions. There are no 
 soft outlines of drapery, such as the pupils of Raffaelle 
 loved — nothing antique or pseudo-antique. Three 
 substantial nymphs are represented dancing conscien- 
 tiously a country dance, in stiff gowns of unmistakable 
 print, rather high in the waist, and adorned by nothing 
 more fantastic than a large white apron and a ruff. 
 Their tresses may be luxuriant, but they are modestly 
 concealed beneath smooth muslin caps. The sweet
 
 112 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 music, excelling the diapason of the spheres, proceeds 
 from a person seated on the ground, who vigorously 
 blows the bagpipes. The gallants are not seen, the 
 particular dance being apparently a pas setil, under- 
 taken by each girl in competition with the others. 
 
 When the virgins had finished their elegant pastime, 
 the character of the sports became more general. In 
 one part of the course the indispensable quintain was 
 put up, in one of its many forms. It is curious that 
 what was at that time the most characteristic and uni- 
 versal English game should now require explanation ; 
 but quintain died in the days of the Commonwealth, 
 never to revive. The essence of the sport was to run 
 a tilt against an object so balanced, that if you failed to 
 hit it at the exact point, some punishment or other fell 
 upon you. The simple childish form of the game was 
 a tub of water poised in such a way that if the cower- 
 ing naked schoolboy who attacked it did not manage 
 to strike it in the centre, it gave him a sudden douche 
 of the most depressing kind. The most elaborate 
 form was an armed figure, turning on a pivot, against 
 which a man rode with a lance, and which, in case he 
 failed to hit a certain mark on the forehead of the 
 figure, swung round and banged him behind with a 
 swinging bag of sand. Between these extremes, there 
 existed many varieties of quintain, all of them rather 
 violent specimens of good old English horse-play; 
 Strutt's Sports and Pastimes may be referred to for 
 further particulars. 
 
 Another game in favour at Cotswold was balloon, 
 a kind of hand-ball played with a large leather ball
 
 Captain Dover's Cotswold Games ii 
 
 like the modern football, driven through the air from 
 person to person, struck by a bracer of wood, fastened 
 round the hand and wrist for protection, a game still 
 to be seen played b}' French boys in the gardens of 
 the Tuileries. In another part of the ground cudgel- 
 players strove to break in one another's heads. Men 
 ran races, variously bound or handicapped ; others 
 were wrestling, leaping, casting the sledge-hammer, 
 throwing the bar. Ever3^where athletic exercises of 
 all sorts were encouraged and developed, and all under 
 the personal guidance of Captain Robert Dover. Prizes 
 were abundantly given, to the number, it would seem, 
 of five hundred, since it is recorded that so many gen- 
 tlemen carried about with them for a twelvemonth 
 the Dover favour of yellow. 
 
 For nearly forty years these games were held every 
 3'ear in Whitsun-week, and at the same place, till they 
 became more famous than any sports of a similar kind 
 held elsewhere. The gentry crowded to them in a 
 vast concourse from a radius of sixty miles. Yet so 
 ephemeral is the memory of these events, that we 
 should know nothing about them but a faint rumour, 
 and absolutely nothing about their founder, if it 
 had not been for Captain Dover's personal charm of 
 character and his friendships with a variety of literary 
 men. In 1636 there was published a little volume 
 of verse, entitled Annalia Dubrensia, or CclebratioJi 
 of Captain Robert Dover s Cotszvold Games. This is 
 one of the rarest books of that period, and was long 
 practically inaccessible to students. The Rev. A. B. 
 Grosart, whose zeal for our early literature is un- 
 
 H
 
 114 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 bounded, has increased the heavy debt which lovers 
 of old English poetry already owe him, by reprinting 
 for a select number of subscribers this fascinating little 
 book, thereby preserving it from all chance of destruc- 
 tion. It is adorned with the rude frontispiece to which 
 I have referred. At the top of this woodcut we see 
 Dover Castle, with two of its cannon in the act of 
 " rattling to the skies ; " on the left of this the virgins 
 are dancing, while to the right cudgel-playing, leaping, 
 and wrestling are represented. Below this are the 
 tents, and a square plaque^ which I take to be a fac- 
 simile of Dover's yellow favour. In the centre of the 
 cut, persons of quality are feasting at a long table. 
 Then follow the horse-racing and the coursing, while the 
 foreground is occupied by Dover himself on his palfrey, 
 in all his borrowed glory, with some men throwing the 
 bar on his left, and the sledge-hammer on his right. 
 
 The letterpress of the volume has a mournful, half- 
 posthumous air. It was published a little too late, and 
 when the poets sing the glories of the games, we are 
 inclined to murmur " Ichabod." For the merry days of 
 royalism were over, and in the neighbouring county of 
 Buckinghamshire, a sturdy gentleman, Mr. Hampden, 
 was refusing that ship-money upon which rested so 
 vast a fabric in the future. King Charles had played 
 his game of quintain ; he had tilted recklessly and 
 missed, and now the creaking engine of the State was 
 swinging round to smite him ignominiously. The days 
 of hock-feasts and barley-breaks were over, and in the 
 very heart of the growing uneasiness and discontent 
 here appeared this cheerful little book of eulogies,
 
 Captain Dover's Cotswold Games 115 
 
 manifestly born after due time. But in another sense 
 it was late in appearing. It was the work, as far 
 as we can judge by those writers whose names are 
 familiar to us, of poets of the olden school, now 
 all dead or aged. To describe its contents more 
 exactly, the Annalia Dubrensia is an anthology of 
 original verses by thirty-three hands, all to the 
 honour and glory of Captain Robert Dover. In the 
 list of authors we find some names of the highest 
 eminence — Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, Thomas 
 Randolph, and Thomas Heywood; names of accom- 
 plished writers such as Owen Feltham, William Basse, 
 Sir John Mennis, and Shackerley Marmion. One 
 poem is anonymous, and another signed by initials; 
 the others bear the names of unknown persons mani- 
 festly amateurs. The whole is edited by a Mr, Mat. 
 Walbancke. 
 
 Drayton leads off with some thirty lines of good 
 sound verse, "to his noble friend Mr. Robert Dover 
 on his brave annual assemblies upon Cotswold." He 
 congratulates England on having succeeded to the 
 glories of Greece, compares the Cotswold with the 
 Olympic Games, and foretells that coming generations 
 will count their years from the former, just as Greece, 
 
 " Nurse of all arts and of all famous men," 
 
 counted hers by Olympiads. It is plain that these 
 lines had long circulated in MS. ; several of the other 
 writers refer to them, and besides, when the Annalia 
 Dubrensia was published, Drayton had been at rest in 
 Poet's Corner for nearly five years. It was natural
 
 ii6 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 that Dover should be specially delighted at a tribute 
 from the heroic muse of Drayton. The latter had not 
 been a popular or successful poet, in a worldly sense, 
 but the force and dignity of his writing, and his 
 position a little aloof from and above the warring of 
 the wits, gave him a sort of pre-eminence. The sweet 
 and courtly Daniel had held the same kind of poetical 
 kingship, but he had died soon, and Drayton seems 
 to have succeeded him in a sort of non-official laureate- 
 ship. From the character of the verse in this little 
 eulogy, I hazard the conjecture that it was written 
 in the last period of his life, when he was the honoured 
 guest of the Earl of Dorset. 
 
 A still greater man than Drayton contributes a brief 
 poem to this charming little "Amulet" or "Keepsake." 
 If we recollect the circumstances of Ben Jonson in the 
 year 1636, the melancholy significance of these bluff 
 lines, evidently written years before, will be very 
 apparent. He had ceased in 1636 to care about 
 Captain Dover or his Olympic games, and indeed a 
 hard life was fast drawing to its painful close. Stricken 
 with palsy, he had long struggled against poverty 
 by the painful composition of entertainments and 
 pageants, but now even his last labour of love. The 
 Sad Shepherd^ dropped unfinished from his hands. 
 In a few months England was to pause in the midst 
 of her civic troubles to discuss the news of the great 
 poet's death. Jonson's lines are brief, and have an 
 air of compulsion. Perhaps Captain Dover teased the 
 old man for a contribution to his "garland;" at all 
 events, the verses, the last production of the author's
 
 Captain Dover's Cotswold Games 117 
 
 printed in his lifetime, have more growling than singing 
 in them. He declines in the outset to follow Drayton 
 in his airy parallels between Chipping Campden and 
 Pisa in Elis : — 
 
 " I cannot bring my Muse to drop vies * 
 'Twixt Cotswold and the Olympic exercise," 
 
 but he hopes that Church and State may flourish and 
 be advanced, in spite of hypocrites, and that Dover 
 may have a share in this good work. 
 
 By far the most admirable poem in the collection, 
 from a literary point of view, is Randolph's contribu- 
 tion. This also had the melancholy fortune to be 
 posthumous, for the poet, cut off by we know not 
 what accident in the flower of his youth, had died at 
 the house of a friend a few months before. It was a 
 deplorable loss to English literature. The stars must 
 have erred in casting his horoscope, for Randolph had 
 none of that precocious ripeness which seems so often 
 to be the presage of, and the consolation for, an early 
 death. His genius, which had something resolute and 
 sturdy about it, was one that would certainly have 
 raised him, at least, to an honourable place in the 
 second rank of poets. His six plays and his thin 
 collection of lyrics were but the infant motions of a 
 wing that meant to strike hard and wide into the 
 empyrean of poetry. 
 
 * Great difficulty has been found in the measure and meaning of this 
 line. To me there seems to be none if we take " Muse " to be a dis- 
 syllable, as " statue" was a trisyllable (in Habington and elsewhere), 
 and if we understand " vie" to be a noun equivalent to " comparison."
 
 ii8 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 There is nothing hectic or hysterical in what remains 
 to us of Randolph ; no attractive weakness or dolphin 
 colour of approaching death. Had he lived he might 
 have bridged over, with a strong popular poetry, the 
 abyss between the old romantic and the new didactic 
 schools, for he had a little of the spirit of each. As it 
 is, he holds a better place in English literature than 
 Dryden, or Gray, or Massinger would have held had 
 they died before they were thirty. His '* Eclogue on 
 the Palilia and noble Assemblies revived on Cotswold 
 Hills" is charming. Two shepherds, Collen and 
 Thenot, converse about the degeneracy of the English 
 swains. Collen is exceedingly afflicted to find his 
 compeers so boorish, and Thenot replies that it cannot 
 be for want of ability, since nowhere in the world can 
 you find men so vast in stature, so sinewy and so 
 supple, as the swains of England. Collen explains 
 that the Puritans are to blame for this boorishness. 
 In early times there were joyous games, in which the 
 English athletes contended and grew skilful and grace- 
 ful. In those days, he continues, in a charming vein 
 of pastoral — 
 
 "Early in May up got the jolly rout, 
 Called by the lark, and spread the fields about ; 
 One, for to breathe himself, would coursing be 
 From this same beech to yonder mulberry ; 
 A second leaped, his supple nerves to try ; 
 A third was practising his melody ; 
 This a new foot was jigging ; others were 
 Busy at wrestling or to throw the bar. 
 Ambitious which should bear the bell away, 
 A?td kiss the nut-brown Lady of the May.
 
 Captain Dover's Cotswold Games 119 
 
 This stirred them up ! A jolly swain was he 
 
 Whom Peg and Susan, after victory, 
 
 Crowned with a garland they had made, beset 
 
 With daisies, pinks, and many a violet, 
 
 Cowslip, and gilliflower. Rewards, though small, 
 
 Encourage virtue ; but if none at all 
 
 Meet her, she languisheth and dies, as now, 
 
 Where worth's denied the honour of a bough." 
 
 Thenot deplores the decline of these merry sports, and 
 Collen informs him that it is the work of certain 
 splenetic persons, given up to extreme piety. 
 
 *' These teach that dancing is a Jezebel, 
 And barley-break the ready way to hell ; 
 The morrice, idols ; Whitsun-ales can be 
 But profane relics of a jubilee ; 
 These, in a zeal to express how much they do 
 The organs hate, have silenced bagpipes too ; 
 And harmless maypoles all are railed upon, 
 As if they were the towers of Babylon."^ 
 
 Thenot, crying out against these deluded bigots, longs 
 for the time to come when such innocent pleasures 
 may thrive again. Collen, at this, can no longer re- 
 frain from telling him that his prayer is heard, and 
 that " Pan hath approved dancing shall be this year 
 holy as is the motion of a sphere." Thenot cannot 
 believe this good news, and begs for an explanation. 
 He is told that Collen has just met a handsome fellow 
 spurring a spirited steed over the plain towards Cots- 
 wold ; and begging him to explain whither he went so 
 blythe and so gaily decked, he told him to the Hill, 
 where horses, fleet as sons of the wind, competed for
 
 I20 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 prizes, and where the hounds went coursing with such 
 musical, full cries, that Orion leaned out of heaven and 
 wished his dog might be there to join in the races. 
 Thenot rejoices again, and desires to know at whose 
 bidding these noble games have recommenced. He is 
 told that it is jovial Dover's deed, and Collen closes 
 by calling the nymphs around, and bidding them do 
 honour to that great man. 
 
 "Go, maids, and lilies get, 
 To make him up a glorious coronet ; 
 Swains, keep his holiday, and each man swear 
 To saint him in the Shepherd's Calendar. 
 
 It is a most ingenious, pretty poem, one of the best 
 eclogues we possess in English. 
 
 Thomas Heywood comes in at the end of the book 
 with a kind of appendix. After having read all the 
 eulogies by the thirty-three poets, he professes himself 
 at a loss to know what new thing to say. But the 
 veteran who had already had a main finger in more 
 than two hundred plays, and who was ready, as a 
 satire falsely attributed to Cowley assures us, to write 
 on any subject for the smallest pay, was not likely to 
 be really at a loss for words. At the most reasonable 
 computation, Heywood must at this time have been 
 nearly seventy 3^ears of age, and the chirruping cheer- 
 fulness of his lines is very consoling. The author of 
 the " Panegerick " may have been old and poor, but he 
 cannot have been very unhappy. His poem possesses 
 no other significance than its joviality. Ben Jonson 
 had declined to "drop vies" between Olympus and
 
 Captain Dover's Cotswold Games 121 
 
 Cotswold, but Heywood does not object to do, not 
 this only, but to compare Dover with Hercules. The 
 old poet being hard of hearing, we may whisper, 
 confidentially, that his poem is, in truth, very dull 
 and silly. 
 
 The second-rate poets need not detain us long. 
 Owen Feltham, so honourably known as the author of 
 the Resolves, was an exception to the general rule of 
 the book, for he was still young, and to live for forty 
 years more. His poem is in good supple verse, but 
 obscure and affected to the last degree, like his prose 
 in all but its best passages. Shackerley Marmion, 
 author of the graceful epic poem of Cupid and 
 Psyche and of several creditable plays, contributes 
 one of the most readable and sensible pieces in the 
 volume, congratulating Dover on his good work with- 
 out ridiculous extravagance. Marmion was soon 
 after to die miserably of ?. sickness brought on by 
 marching as a soldier in Sir John Suckling's troop on 
 the ill-starred expedition to Scotland. "A goodly, 
 proper gentleman," as Anthony a Wood calls him, 
 to whose merits posterity has scarcely been just. 
 Finally, in return for all the kind wishes expressed, 
 Robert Dover himself essays "A Congratulatory 
 Poem to my Poetical and Learned Friends, Com- 
 pilers of this Book," in which, with considerable 
 humour, he defends his love of athletic sports against 
 the Puritans, who are so ready to see " wicked, horrid 
 sin" in every kind of innocent pastime. Such are 
 the contents of a volume of unusual interest, adorned 
 with many illustrious names, and destined to pre-
 
 122 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 serve the memory of an interesting public movement, 
 which, but for the existence of these verses, we 
 should scarcely have heard of; for it was the accident 
 of Anthony d Wood's possession of the book in his 
 library that led him to turn aside into pleasant gossip 
 about the person celebrated in it. 
 
 Captain Robert Dover did not long survive the 
 apotheosis and the destruction of his games. The 
 one occurred in 1636, the other probably in 1638, 
 and in 164.1 he died at Stanway. He had a nephew 
 or a grandson, who became a small dramatist during 
 the Restoration. The scenes of the Cotswold games 
 were left intact, and, according to a manuscript in 
 the possession of the late Sir Thomas Winnington, 
 the sports themselves were revived in the reign of 
 Charles II. It was probably very soon after this 
 second revival that their neighbourhood was the scene 
 of a most lurid and mysterious event, which I may 
 be permitted to recount as a foil to the jovially or 
 the games themselves. Mr. William Harrison, the 
 steward of a wealthy lady of Chipping Campden, 
 riding out from home one day in 1676 to collect the 
 rents of his mistress at Charringworth, did not return 
 at night. A servant of the house, John Perry, was 
 sent to search for him in the morning, and when he 
 returned without any news, a general examination of 
 the neighbourhood began. In a lonely spot there 
 were found a hat, a band, and a comb, which were 
 recognised as having belonged to Mr. Harrison, and 
 which were covered with blood. The body itself was 
 not discovered, but the trial for murder began, and
 
 Captain Dover's Cotswold Games 12 
 
 suspicion fell upon John Perry. This was increased 
 by his confusion, and at last, cross-examined before 
 the magistrates, he confessed that his mother and his 
 brother had murdered Mr. Harrison, after robbing him 
 of his effects. Circumstantial evidence was so strong 
 against the prisoners, that, although the dead body had 
 not been discovered, the Perrys were found guilty of 
 the murder and all three were hanged, John Perry 
 protesting with his last breath that he had made a 
 mistake, or been deluded by his fancy. Every one in 
 the district, however, was satisfied with the justice of 
 the sentence, when, after two years were passed, one 
 day Mr. Harrison came quietly riding into Chipping 
 Campden, with the story that he had been met on the 
 wold by a party of men, who, after a violent struggle, 
 had secured him, had ridden hard with him to the sea, 
 had sailed to Turkey with him, and had sold him as 
 a slave to a Moslem physician. He declared that in 
 the course of time he had escaped and fled on board 
 a vessel bound for Portugal, whence he had found his 
 way home again. What part of this romantic tale 
 was true we know not ; the horrible circumstance is 
 the execution of the family of the Perrys on the 
 strength of an hallucination. 
 
 The Cotswold games, in a hueless and debased 
 form, continued to be celebrated during Whitsun-week 
 almost all through the last century; but they were 
 vulgarised, and all the charming air of distinction that 
 Captain Dover had given them vanished with his 
 death. Yet in their original form they were well 
 worthy to be remembered. These humane and inno-
 
 124 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 cent sports, with their graceful mingling of antique 
 revival with plain, homely English merriment, are 
 characteristic of the very best side of the Royalist 
 party in the seventeenth century, and they are not 
 unimportant in helping us to realise the every-day life 
 of gentry and peasantry in distant country places. 
 
 1881.
 
 ROBERT HERRICK 
 
 IT is told of Mahommed that when the pohtical econo- 
 mists of the day provoked him by the narrowness 
 of their utihtarian schemes, he was wont to silence 
 them with these words : " If a man has two loaves of 
 bread, let him exchange one for some flowers of the 
 narcissus; for bread only nourishes the body, but to 
 look on the narcissus feeds the soul." Robert Herrick 
 was one of the few who have been content to carry out 
 this precept, and to walk through life with a little bread 
 in the one hand, and in the other a bunch of golden 
 flowers. With an old serving- woman in a tumble-down 
 country parsonage, his life passed merrily among such 
 dreams as Oriental sultans wear themselves out to 
 realise, and his figure stands out in front of the shining 
 ranks of his contemporaries as that around which 
 most vividly of all there flashes the peculiar light of 
 imagination. He may be well contrasted with a man 
 whose native genius was probably exceedingly like his 
 own, but whose life was as brilliant and eventful as 
 Herrick's was retired, namely. Sir John Suckling. The 
 wit, fire, and exuberant imagination that interpene- 
 trated both found scope in the life of one and in the 
 works of the other. Suckling's poems are strangely 
 inadequate to represent his genius and fame ; Herrick, 
 
 125
 
 126 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 on the other hand, may be taken almost as the typical 
 poet, the man who, if not a lyrist, would be nothing 
 — the birdlike creature whose only function was to 
 sing in a cage of trammelling flesh. 
 
 There are many features in his career, besides the 
 actual excellence of his verse, which make him an 
 object of peculiar interest. Among the pure poets he 
 occupies the most prominent position in the school that 
 flourished after Ben Jonson and before Milton, and 
 though his life was of immense duration — he was 
 born before Marlowe died, and died after the birth of 
 Addison — his actual period of production covers the 
 comparatively small space occupied by the reign of 
 Charles I. This period was one of great lyrical ability; 
 the drama was declining under Cartwright and Shirley, 
 and all the young generation of poets, brought up at 
 the feet of Jonson and Fletcher, were much more cap- 
 able of writing songs than plays. Indeed, no one can 
 at this time determine what degree of technical per- 
 fection English literature might not have attained if the 
 Royalist lyrists had been allowed to sun themselves 
 unmolested about the fountains of Whitehall, and, un- 
 troubled by the grave questions of national welfare, had 
 been able to give their whole attention to the polishing 
 of their verses. In fact, however, it will be noticed 
 that only one of the whole school was undisturbed by 
 the political crisis. The weaker ones, like Lovelace, 
 were completely broken by it ; the stronger, like 
 Suckling, threw themselves into public affairs with a 
 zeal and intensity that supplied the place of the arti- 
 ficial excitements of poetry so completely as to put a
 
 Robert Herrick 127 
 
 stop to their writing altogether. Herrick alone, with 
 imperturbable serenity, continued to pipe out his 
 pastoral ditties, and crown his head with daffodils, 
 when England was torn to pieces with the most 
 momentous struggle for liberty in her annals. To the 
 poetic student he is, therefore, of especial interest, as a 
 genuine specimen of an artist pure and simple. Herrick 
 brought out the Hesperides a few months before the 
 King was beheaded, and people were invited to listen 
 to little madrigals upon Julia's stomacher at the singu- 
 larly inopportune moment when the eyes of the whole 
 nation were bent on the unprecedented phenomenon of 
 the proclamation of an English republic. To find a 
 parallel to such unconsciousness we must come down 
 to our own time, and recollect that Th^ophile Gautier 
 took occasion of the siege of Paris to revise and re- 
 publish his Einaux et Caniees. 
 
 Herrick was born in London, in " the golden Cheap- 
 side," and baptized on the 23rd of August 1591. His 
 father died in the course of the next year, from a 
 fall from an upper window, which was attributed to 
 suicide. All we can guess about the poet's childhood 
 is to be picked up in one of his own confidential pieces 
 about himself, where he speaks with intense delight 
 of his early life by the river-side, going to bathe in 
 the " summer's sweeter evenings " with crowds of 
 other youths, or gliding with pomp in a barge, with 
 the young ladies of the period, " soft-smooth virgins," 
 up as far as Richmond, Kingston, and Hampton Court. 
 In the same poem he speaks of his " beloved West- 
 minster," from which allusion it has been illogically
 
 128 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 imagined that he was at school there. The first 
 certain fact in his life is that in i6oy he was appren- 
 ticed to his uncle, the rich goldsmith of Wood Street, 
 with whom one may presume that he remained until 
 1615, when we find him entered as fellow-commoner 
 of St. John's College, Cambridge. His London life, 
 therefore, closed when his age was twenty-four, and 
 his acquaintance with literary life in the metropolis 
 must have come to rapid development within the eight 
 years of his apprenticeship. Speculation in this case 
 is not so vain as usual. If any fact about Herrick 
 be certain, it is that he sat at the feet of Ben Jonson ; 
 the poems of rapturous admiration and reverence that 
 abound in the Hcspcrides set this beyond question. 
 In one piece, it will be remembered, he speaks, with 
 passion unusual to him, of the old days when Ben 
 Jonson's plays were brought out at the London 
 theatres, and gives us an important date by describing 
 the unfavourable reception of the Alchemist^ much as 
 a poet of the Romanticism would have described the 
 reception of Hernani for the first time at the Theatre 
 Frangais. But the Alchemist was brought out in 
 16 10, when our poet was nineteen years old, and it 
 was received with great excitement as an innovation. 
 We may well believe that the young apprentice, fired 
 with enthusiasm for the great poet, distinguished him- 
 self by the loudness and truculence of his applause, 
 and claimed the privilege of laying his homage after- 
 wards at the author's feet. Nineteen years later 
 exactl}^ the same thing was done by a younger genera- 
 tion, when Carew, Randolph, and Cleaveland made a
 
 Robert Herrick 129 
 
 riot at the damning of the Neiv Inn, and then laid 
 their lyric worship at the grand old poet's feet. 
 
 Jonson loved to receive such homage, and to pose as 
 the poet of the age; in fact, we cannot be too often 
 reminded that to the intellectual public of that day he 
 took exactly the same regal position among his contem- 
 poraries that we now unanimously accord to Shake- 
 speare. Taking for granted that Herrick became a 
 familiar member of Jonson's circle about 1610, we must 
 suppose him to have witnessed in succession the first 
 performances of Catiline and of Bartholomew Fair^ and 
 to have known the poet of the "mountain belly and 
 the rocky face " at the very height of his creative power. 
 More important for us, however, as being far more in 
 unison with the tastes and genius of Herrick, are the 
 masques upon which Jonson was engaged at this time. 
 It is very strange that no writer upon the poetry of 
 that age has noticed what an extraordinary influence 
 the masques of Ben Jonson had upon Herrick. We 
 have seen that he must have become acquainted with 
 that poet in 16 10. It is more than remarkable to notice 
 that it was in this year that Jonson produced Oberon 
 the Fairy Prince, a beautiful masque that contains the 
 germs of many of Herrick's most fantastic fairy-fancies. 
 The Masque of Queens, brought out some months 
 earlier, is full of Herrick-hke passages about hags 
 and witches ; and we might pursue the parallel much 
 further, did space permit, showing how largely Jonson, 
 on the milder and more lyrical side of his genius, in- 
 spired the young enthusiast and pointed out to him 
 the poetic path that he should take. 
 
 I
 
 130 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 We cannot with equal certainty say that Herrick was 
 acquainted with any other of the great poets. Shake- 
 speare was settled at Stratford, and in London only 
 briefly and at distant intervals ; he died at the end of 
 Herrick's first year at Cambridge. Herrick writes of 
 Fletcher thirty years later as though he had known him 
 slightly, and speaks of the power of the Mazdas Tragedy 
 to make "young men swoon," as though he had seen 
 it at the first performance in 161 1. He must have 
 known Jonson's jolly friend Bishop Corbet, who was 
 also a lover of fairy-lore, and he may have known 
 Browne, whose poetry Jonson approved of, and who 
 was then studying in the Inner Temple, and beginning 
 to publish Britannids Pastorals. It was probably 
 at this time, and through Ben Jonson, that he became 
 acquainted with Selden, for whose prodigious learning 
 and wit he preserved an extravagant admiration through 
 life. This is as far as we dare to go in speculation. 
 If Herrick, so fond of writing about himself, had found 
 time for a few more words about his contemporaries, 
 we might discover that he had dealings with other in- 
 teresting men during this period of apprenticeship, but 
 probably his circle was pretty much limited to the 
 personal and intimate friends of Jonson. 
 
 In 161 5, as we have said, he took up his abode at 
 Cambridge as a fellow-commoner of St. John's, and here 
 and at Trinity Hall he seems to have remained till 1629, 
 when his mother died. How these fourteen years of 
 early manhood were spent it is now impossible to con- 
 jecture. That he became Master of Arts in 1620 is not 
 so important an item of history as that he was certainly
 
 Robert Herrick i."^! 
 
 very poor, and in the habit of making a piteous annual 
 appeal to his rich uncle for ten pounds to buy books 
 with. Fourteen of these appeals exist, written in a 
 florid, excited style, with a good many Latin quotations 
 and old-fashioned references to " Apelles ye painter," in 
 the manner of Etiphues. It is amusing to note that he 
 manages to spell his own surname in six different ways, 
 and not one of them that which is now adopted on the 
 authority of the title-page of the Hesperides. There 
 can be no doubt that he began writing in London ; it is 
 certain that he was known as a poet at Cambridge. One 
 of the few dates in the Hesperides is 1627, two years 
 before the exodus into Devonshire, and in "Lacrime" he 
 says that before he went into exile into the loathed west 
 
 "He could rehearse 
 A lyric verse, 
 And speak it with the best." 
 
 The Hesperides^ in its present state, offers no assistance 
 to us in trying to discover what was written early or 
 late, for nothing is more obvious than that the verses 
 were thrown together without the slightest regard to 
 the chronology of their composition. However, on 
 the 2nd of October 1629, he succeeded Potter, Bishop 
 of Carlisle, in the living of Dean Prior, under Dart- 
 moor, in South Devon, and there he remained in quiet 
 retirement until 1 648, when he was ejected by the 
 Puritans. 
 
 Such is the modest biography of this poet up to the 
 time of the publication of the two books which caused 
 and have retained his great reputation. Fortunately
 
 132 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 he has himself left copious materials for autobiography 
 in the gossipy pages of his own confidential poems. 
 Glancing down the index to the Hesperides, one is 
 constantly struck by such titles as "On Himself," 
 "To His Muse," and "His Farewell to Sack," and 
 one is not disappointed in turning to these to collect 
 an impression of the author's individuality. Indeed, 
 few writers of that age appear more vividly in relief 
 than Herrick ; the careful student of his poems learns 
 to know him at last as a familiar friend, and every 
 feature of body and mind stands out clearly before the 
 eye of the imagination. He was physically a some- 
 what gross person, as far as his portrait will enable 
 one to judge, with great quantities of waving or curling 
 black hair, and a slight black moustache; the eyebrows 
 distinct and well arched, the upper lip short, the nose 
 massive and Roman. In the weighty points of the 
 face, especially in the square and massive under-jaw, 
 there is much of the voluptuous force of the best type 
 among the Roman emperors; and bearing these features 
 well in mind, it becomes easy to understand how it was 
 that Herrick came to write so much that an Enghsh 
 gentleman, not to say clergyman, had better have left 
 unsaid. His temperament was scarcely clerical: — 
 
 " I fear no earthly powers, 
 Ikit care for crowns of flowers ; 
 And love to have my beard 
 With wine and oil besmeared. 
 This day I'll drown all sorrow ; 
 Who knows to live to-morrow ?" 
 
 This was his philosophy, and it is not to be dis-
 
 Robert Herrick i.'^.^ 
 
 JO 
 
 tinguished from that of Anacreon or Horace. One 
 knows not how the old pagan dared to be so outspoken 
 in his dreary Devonshire vicarage, with no wild friends 
 to egg him on or to applaud his fine frenzy. 
 
 His Epicureanism was plainly a matter of convic- 
 tion, and though he wrote Noble Numbers^ preached 
 sermons, and went through all the perfunctory duties 
 of his office, it is not in these that he lives and has his 
 pleasure, but in half-classical dreams about Favonius 
 and Isis, and in flowery mazes of sweet thoughts 
 about fair, half-imaginary women. It matters little 
 to him what divinity he worships, if he may wind 
 daffodils into the god's bright hair. In one hand he 
 brings a garland of yellow flowers for the amorous 
 head of Bacchus, with the other he decks the osier- 
 cradle of Jesus with roses and Lent-lilies. He has 
 no sense of irreverence in this rococo devotion. It 
 is the attribute, and not the deity he worships. There 
 is an airy frivolity, an easy-going callousness of soul, 
 ^hat makes it impossible for him to feel very deeply. 
 
 There is a total want of passion in Herrick's language 
 about women. The nearest approach to it, perhaps, 
 is in the wonderful song "To Anthea," where the 
 lark-like freshness of the ascending melody closely 
 simulates intense emotion. With all his warmth of 
 fancy and luxurious animalism, he thinks more of the 
 pretty eccentricities of dress than of the charms the 
 garments contain. He is enraptured with the way in 
 which the Countess of Carlisle wears a riband of black 
 silk twisted round her arm ; he palpitates with pleasure 
 when Mistress Katherine Bradshaw puts a crown of
 
 134 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 laurel on his head, falling on one knee, we may believe, 
 and clasping his hands as he receives it. He sees 
 his loves through the medium of shoe-strings and 
 pomander bracelets, and is alive, as no poet has been 
 before or since, to the picturesqueness of dress. 
 Everybody knows his exquisite lines about the "tem- 
 pestuous petticoat," and his poems are full of little 
 touches no less delicate than this. 
 
 Only two things make him really serious : one is 
 his desire of poetic fame. Every lyric he writes he 
 considers valuable enough to be left as a special legacy 
 to some prime friend. He is eager to die before the 
 world; to pass away, like Pindar, garlanded, and 
 clasped in the arms of love, while the theatre resounds 
 with plaudits. His thirst for fame is insatiable, and 
 his confidence of gaining it intense. His poesy is 
 "his hope and his pyramides," a living pillar "ne'er 
 to be thrown down by envious Time," and it shall be 
 the honour of great musicians to set his pieces to 
 music when he is dead. When he is dead ! That has 
 a saddening sound ! Life was meant to last for ever, 
 and it makes him angry to think of death. He rings 
 his head about with roses, clasps Julia to his arms, 
 and will defy death. Yet, if death should come, as 
 he sometimes feels it must, he is not unmindful of 
 what his end should be. No thoughts of a sad funeral 
 or the effrontery of a Christian burial oppress him; 
 he cannot even think of dismal plumes or of a hearse. 
 He will be wound in one white robe, and borne to a 
 quiet garden-corner, where the overblown roses may 
 shower petals on his head, and where, when the first
 
 Robert Herrick 135 
 
 primrose blossoms, Perilla may remember him, and 
 come to weep over his dust : — 
 
 " Then shall my ghost not walk about, but keep 
 Still in the cool and silent shades of sleep." 
 
 He was never married ; he explains over and over 
 again that he values his liberty far too highly to give 
 it into any woman's hands, and lived in the country, 
 as it would seem, with no com^pany save that of an 
 excellent old servant, Prudence Baldwin. 
 
 In many sweet and sincere verses he gives us a 
 charming picture of the quiet life he led in the Devon- 
 shire parsonage that he affected to loathe so much. 
 The village had its rural and semi-pagan customs, that 
 pleased him thoroughl}^ He loved to see the brown 
 lads and lovely girls, crowned with daffodils and 
 daisies, dancing in the summer evenings in a comely 
 country round ; he delighted in the maypole, ribanded 
 and garlanded like a thyrsus, reminding his florid 
 fancy of Bacchus and the garden god. There were 
 morris dances at Dean Prior, wakes and quintels ; 
 mummers, too, at Christmas, and quaint revellings 
 on Twelfth Night, with wassail bowls and nut-brown 
 mirth ; and we can imagine with what zeal the good 
 old pagan would encourage these rites against the 
 objections of any roundhead Puritan who might come 
 down with his newfangled Methodistical notions to 
 trouble the sylvan quiet of Dean Prior. For Herrick 
 the dignity of episcopal authorship had no charm, and 
 the thunders of Nonconformity no terror. Graver 
 minds were at this moment occupied with Holy Living
 
 136 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 and Holy Dying, and thrilled with the Sermons of 
 Calamy. It is delightful to think of Herrick, bliss- 
 fully unconscious of the tumult of tongues and all 
 the windy war, more occupied with morris dances 
 and barley-breaks than with prayer-book or psalter. 
 The Revolution must indeed have come upon him 
 unaware. 
 
 Herrick allowed himself to write a great deal of 
 nonsense about his many mistres§e.s. It was the false 
 Anacreontic spirit of the day ; and a worse offender 
 was in the field, even Abraham Cowley, who, never 
 having had the courage to speak of love to a single 
 woman, was about to publish, in 1648, a circumstantial 
 account of his affairs with more than one-and-twenty 
 mistresses. It is not easy to determine how much of 
 Herrick's gallantry is as imaginary as this. We may 
 dismiss Perilla, Silvia, Anthea, and the rest at once, 
 as airy nothings, whom the poet created for the sake 
 of hanging pretty amorous fancies on their names; 
 but Julia is not so ephemeral or so easily disposed of. 
 She may well be supposed to have died or passed 
 away before Herrick left Cambridge. All the poet's 
 commentators seem to have forgotten how old he was 
 before he retired to that country vicarage where they 
 rightly enough perceive that the presence of a Julia 
 was impossible. When we recollect that he did not 
 enter holy orders till he was thirty-eight, we may well 
 believe that Julia ruled his youth, and yet admit his 
 distinct statement with regard to his clerical life, that 
 
 " Jocund his muse was, but his life was chaste."
 
 Robert Herrick 137 
 
 We have a minute chronicle of Julia's looks and 
 ways in the Hesperides, and they bear a remarkable 
 air of truth about them. She is presented to us as 
 a buxom person, with black eyes, a double chin, 
 and a strawberry-cream complexion. Her attire, as 
 described by our milliner-poet, is in strict accord- 
 ance with the natural tastes of a woman of this 
 physical nature. She dehghts in rich silks and deep- 
 coloured satins; on one occasion she wears a dark 
 blue petticoat, starred with gold, on other she ravishes 
 her poet-lover by the glitter and vibration of her 
 silks as she takes her stately v/alks abroad. Her 
 hair, despite her dark eyes, is bright and dewy, and 
 the poet takes a fantastic pleasure in tiring and 
 braiding it. An easy, kindly woman, we picture her 
 ready to submit to the fancies of her lyric lover; 
 pleased to have roses on her head, still more 
 pleased to perfume herself with storax, spikenard, 
 galbanum, and all the other rich gums he loved to 
 smell; dowered with so much refinement of mind as 
 was required to play fairly on the lute, and to govern a 
 wayward poet with tact ; not so modest or so sensitive 
 as to resent the grossness of his fancy, yet respectable 
 enough and determined enough to curb his license at 
 times. She bore him one daughter, it seems, to whom v 
 he addressed one of his latest poems and one of his 
 tamest. 
 
 But it is time to turn from the poet to his work, 
 from. Julia to the Hesperides that she inspired. They 
 are songs, children of the West, brought forth, if not 
 conceived, in the soft, sweet air of Devonshire. And
 
 138 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 the poet strikes a keynote with wonderful sureness 
 in the opening couplets of the opening poem : — 
 
 " I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers, 
 Of April, May, of June and July flowers ; 
 I sing of maypoles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, 
 Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes." 
 
 It would not have been easy to describe more 
 correctly what he does sing of. The book is full of 
 all those pleasant things of spring and summer, full of 
 young love, happy nature, and the joy of mere exis- 
 tence. As far as flowers are concerned, the atmo- 
 sphere is full of them. We are pelted with roses and 
 daffodils from every page, and no one dares enter the 
 sacred precincts without a crown of blossoms on his 
 hair. Herrick's muse might be that Venus of Botticelli 
 who rises, pale and dewy, from a sparkling sea, blown 
 at by the little laughing winds, and showered upon 
 with violets and lilies of no earthly growth. He tells 
 us that for years and years his muse was content to 
 stay at home, or straying from village to village, to 
 pipe to handsome young shepherds and girls of flower- 
 sweet breath, but that at last she became ambitious to 
 try her skill at Court, and so came into print in London. 
 In other words, these little poems circulated widely in 
 manuscript long before they were published. They are 
 not all of the bird and blossom kind, unhappily ; the 
 book is fashioned, as we shall presently see, closely 
 upon the model of the Epigrams of Martial ; and as 
 there the most delicate and jewel-like piece of senti- 
 ment rubs shoulders with a coarse and acrid quatrain
 
 Robert Herrick i39 
 
 of satire, so has Herrick shuffled up odes, epithalamia, 
 epigrams, occasional verses and canzonets, in glorious 
 confusion, without the slightest regard to subject, form, 
 or propriety. There are no less than one thousand 
 two hundred and thirty-one distinct poems in the book, 
 many of them, of course, only two lines long. There 
 are too many " epigrams," as he called them, scraps 
 of impersonal satire, in the composition of which he 
 followed Ben Jonson, who had followed Martial. 
 These little couplets and quatrains are generally very 
 gross, very ugly, and very pointless ; they have, some- 
 times, a kind of broad Pantagruelist humour about 
 them which has its merit, but it must be confessed 
 even of these that they greatly spoil the general com- 
 plexion of the book. 
 
 More worthy of attention in ever}^ way are tlie erotic 
 lyrical pieces, which fortunately abound, and which 
 are unrivalled in our literature for their freshness and 
 tender beauty. They are interpenetrated with strong 
 neo-pagan emotion ; had they been written a century 
 earlier, they would be called the truest English expres- 
 sion of the passion of the Renaissance. This is, how- 
 ever, what they really are. Late in the day as they 
 made their appearance, they were as truly an expres- 
 sion of the delirious return to the freedom of classical 
 life and enjoyment as the Italian paintings of the 
 fifteenth or the French poetry of the sixteenth century. 
 The tone of the best things in the Hesperides is pre- 
 cisely the same as that which permeates the wonderful 
 designs of the Hypnerotomachia. In Herrick's poems, 
 as in that mysterious and beautiful romance, the sun
 
 140 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 shines on a world re-arisen to the duty of pleasure ; 
 Bacchus rides through the valleys, with his leopards 
 and his maidens and his ivy-rods; loose-draped nymphs, 
 playing on the lyre, bound about their foreheads with 
 vervain and the cool stalks of parsley, fill the silent 
 woods with their melodies and dances ; this poet sings 
 of a land where all the men are young and strong, and 
 all the women lovely, where life is only a dream of 
 sweet delights of the bodily senses. The Hesperides 
 is an astounding production when one considers when 
 it was written, and how intensely grave the temper 
 of the age had become. But Herrick hated sobriety 
 and gravity, and distinguished very keenly between 
 the earnestness of art and the austerity of religion. 
 Here he lays down his own canons : — 
 
 "In sober mornings, do not thou rehearse 
 The holy incantation of a verse ; 
 But when that men have both well drunk and fed, 
 Let my enchantments then be sung or read. 
 When laurel spirts in the fire, and when the hearth 
 Smiles to itself, and gilds the roof with mirth, 
 When up the thyrse is raised, and when the sound 
 Of sacred orgies flies around, around, 
 When the rose reigns, and locks whh ointment shine, 
 Let rigid Cato read these lines of mine." 
 
 At such moments as these Herrick is inspired above 
 a mortal pitch, and listens to the great lyre of Apollo 
 with the rapture of a prophet. From a very interest- 
 ing poem, called "The Apparition of his Mistress 
 calling him to Elysium," we quote a few lines that 
 exemplify at the same moment his most ideal condition
 
 Robert Herrlck 141 
 
 of fancy and the habitual oddities of his st3de. This 
 is the landscape of the Hesperides, the golden isles of 
 Herrick's imagination : — 
 
 " Here in green meadows sits eternal May, 
 Purpling the margents, while perpetual day 
 So doubly gilds the air, as that no night 
 Can ever rust the enamel of the light. 
 Here naked younglings, handsome striplings, run 
 Their goals for maidens' kisses, which when done, 
 Then unto dancing forth the learned round 
 Commixt they meet, with endless roses crowned j 
 And here we'll sit on primrose-banks, and see 
 Love's chorus led by Cupid." 
 
 But although he lived in this ideal scenery, he was not 
 entirely unconscious of what actually lay around him. 
 He was the earhest English poet to see the picturesque- 
 ness of homely country life, and all his little landscapes 
 are exquisitely delicate. No one has ever known better 
 than Herrick how to seize, without effort and yet to 
 absolute perfection, the pretty points of modern pas- 
 toral life. Of all these poems of his, none surpasses 
 "Corinna's going a-Maying," which has something of 
 Wordsworth's faultless instinct and clear perception. 
 The picture given here of the slim boys and the girls 
 in green gowns going out singing into the corridors 
 of blossoming whitethorn, when the morning sun is 
 radiant in all its " fresh-quilted colours," is ravishing, 
 and can only be compared for its peculiar charm with 
 that other where the maidens are seen at sunset, with 
 silvery naked feet and dishevelled hair crowned with 
 _ honeysuckle, bearing cowslips home in wicker-baskets.
 
 142 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Whoever will cast his eye over the pages of the 
 Hesperides, will meet with myriads of original and 
 charming passages of this kind : — 
 
 " Like to a solemn sober stream 
 Bankt all with lilies, and the cream 
 Of sweetest cowslips filling them," 
 
 the " cream of cowslips " being the rich yellow anthers 
 of the water-lilies. Or this, comparing a bride's breath 
 to the faint, sweet odour of the earth : — 
 
 " A savour like unto a blessed field, 
 When the bedabbled morn 
 Washes the golden ears of corn." 
 
 Or this, a sketched interior : — 
 
 " Yet can thy humble roof maintain a choir 
 Of singing crickets by the fire, 
 And the brisk mouse may feed herself with crumbs. 
 Till that the green-eyed kitling comes." 
 
 Nor did the homeliest details of the household escape 
 him. At Dean Prior his clerical establishment con- 
 sisted of Prudence Baldwin, his ancient maid, of a 
 cock and hen, a goose, a tame lamb, a cat, a spaniel, 
 and a pet pig, learned enough to drink out of a tankard; 
 and not only did the genial vicar divide his loving 
 attention between the various members of this happy 
 family, but he was wont, a little wantonly, one fears, 
 to gad about to wakes and wassailings and to increase 
 his popular reputation by showing off his marvellous 
 learning in old rites and ceremonies. These he has 
 described with loving minuteness, and not these only,
 
 Robert Herrick 143 
 
 but even the little arts of cookery do not escape him. 
 Of all his household poems, not one is more character- 
 istic and complete than the " Bride-cake," which we 
 remember having had recited to us years ago with 
 immense gusto, at the making of a great pound-cake, 
 by a friend since widely known as a charming follower 
 of Her rick's poetic craft : — 
 
 "This day, my Julia, thou must make 
 For Mistress Bride the wedding-cake ; 
 Knead but the dough, and it will be 
 To paste of almonds turned by thee, 
 Or kiss it, thou, but once or twice, 
 And for the bride-cake there'll be spice." 
 
 There is one very curious omission in all his de- 
 scriptions of nature, in that his landscapes are without 
 background ; he is photographically minute in giving 
 us the features of the brook at our feet, the farmyard 
 and its inmates, the open fireplace and the chimney 
 corner, but there is no trace of anything beyond, and 
 the beautiful distances of Devonshire, the rocky tors, 
 the rugged line of Dartmoor, the glens in the hills — of 
 all these there is not a trace. In this he contrasts 
 curiousl}'- wnth his contem.porary William Browne, 
 another Devonshire poet, whose pictures are infinitely 
 vaguer and poorer than Herrick's, but who has more 
 distance, and who succeeds in giving a real notion of 
 Devonian rock and moor, which Herrick never so 
 much as suggests. In short, it may be said that 
 Herrick made for himself an Arcadian world, in the 
 centre of which the ordinary daily life of a country 
 parish went contentedly on, surrounded by an imagi-
 
 144 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 nary land of pastoral peace and plenty, such as England 
 can hardly have been then in the eyes of any other 
 mortal, unless in those of the French poet St. Amant, 
 who came over to the court at Whitehall just before 
 the Rebellion broke out, while Herrick was piping at 
 Dean Prior, and who on his return wrote a wonder- 
 fully fulsome ode to their serenest majesties Charles 
 and Mary, in which he took precisely the same view of 
 our island as Herrick did : — 
 
 " Oui, c'est ce pays bienheureux 
 
 Qu'avec des regards amoureux 
 
 Le reste du monde contemple ; 
 C'est cette ile fameuse ou tant d'aventuriers 
 
 Et tant de beautes sans exemple 
 Joignirent autrefois les myrtes aux lauriers ! " 
 
 St. Amant lived to alter his opinion, and hurl curses 
 at the unconscious Albion ; but to Herrick the change 
 came too late, and Vv^hen the sunshine ceased to warm 
 him, he simplj^ ceased to sing, as we shall see. 
 
 The personal epithalamium is a form of verse which 
 had a very brief period of existence in England, and 
 which has long been completel}'- extinct. Its theme 
 and manner gave too much opportunity to lavish adu- 
 lation on the one hand, and unseemly innuendo on 
 the other, to suit the preciser manners of our more 
 reticent age ; but it flourished for the brief period 
 contained between 1600 and 1650, and produced 
 some exquisite masterpieces. The Epithalamion and 
 ProtJialamion of Spenser struck the keynote of a 
 fashion that Drayton, Ben Jonson, and others adorned, 
 and of which Herrick was the last and far from the
 
 Robert Herrick i45 
 
 least ardent votary. His confidential muse was de- 
 lighted at being asked in to arrange the ceremonies 
 of a nuptial feast, and described the bride and her 
 surroundings with a world of pretty extravagance. 
 Every admirer of Herrick should read the *' Nuptial 
 Ode on Sir Clipseby Crew and his Lady." It is 
 admirably fanciful, and put together with consummate 
 skill. It opens with a choral outburst of greeting 
 to the bride : — 
 
 " What's that we see from far? the spring of day 
 Bloom'd from the east, or fair enjewelled May 
 Blown out of April ? or some new 
 Star filled with glory to our view 
 Reaching at Heaven, 
 • To add a nobler planet to the seven ? " 
 
 Less and less dazzled, he declares her to be some 
 goddess floating out of Elysium in a cloud of tiffany. 
 She leaves the church treading upon scarlet and amber, 
 and spicing the chafed air with fumes of Paradise. Then 
 they watch her coming towards them down the shining 
 street, whose very pavement breathes out spikenard. 
 But who is this that meets her ? Hymen, with his 
 fair white feet, and head with marjoram crowned, who 
 lifts his torch, and, behold, by his side the bridegroom 
 stands, flushed and ardent. Then the maids shower 
 them with shamrock and roses, and so the dreamy 
 verses totter under their load of perfumed words, till 
 they close with a benediction over the new-married 
 couple, and a peal of maiden laughter over love and its 
 flower-like mysteries. 
 
 Once more, before we turn to more general matters, 
 
 K
 
 146 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 there is one section of the Hesperides that demands 
 a moment's attention — that, namely, devoted to de- 
 scriptions of Fairyland and its inhabitants. We have 
 seen that it was probably the performance of Ben 
 Jonson's pretty masque of Oberon that set Herrick 
 dreaming about that misty land where elves sit eat- 
 ing butterflies' horns round little mushroom tables, 
 or quaff draughts 
 
 " Of pure seed-pearl of morning dew, 
 Brought and besweetened in a blue 
 And pregnant violet." 
 
 And with him the poetic literature of Fairyland ended. 
 
 He was its last laureate, for the Puritans thought its 
 
 rites, though so shadowy, superstitious, and frowned 
 
 upon their celebration, while the whole temper of the 
 
 Restoration, gross and dandified at the same time, was 
 
 foreign to such pure play of the imagination. But some 
 
 of the greatest names of the great period had entered 
 
 its sacred bounds and sung its praises. Shakespeare 
 
 had done it eternal honour in A Midsummer-Night'' s 
 
 Dream, and Drayton had written an elaborate romance, 
 
 The Court of Faerie. Jonson's friend Bishop Corbet 
 
 had composed fairy ballads that had much of Herrick's 
 
 lightness about them. It was these literary traditions 
 
 that Herrick carried with him into the west; it does 
 
 not seem that he collected any fresh information about 
 
 the mushroom world in Devonshire ; we read nothing 
 
 of river-wraiths or pixies in his poems. He adds, 
 
 however, a great deal of ingenious fancy to the stores 
 
 he received from his elders; and his fairy-poems, all
 
 Robert Herrick 147 
 
 written in octosyllabic verse, as though forming parts 
 of one projected work, may be read with great interest 
 as a kind of final compendium of all that the poets of 
 the seventeenth century imagined about fairies. 
 
 Appended to the Hesperides, but bearing date one 
 year earlier, is a little book of poems, similar to these 
 in outward form, but dealing with sacred subjects. 
 Here our pagan priest is seen, despoiled of his vine- 
 wreath and his thyrsus, doing penance in a white 
 sheet and with a candle in his hand. That rubicund 
 visage, with its sly eye and prodigious jowl, looks 
 ludicrously out of place in the penitential surplice; 
 but he is evidently sincere, though not very deep, 
 in his repentance, and sings hymns of faultless ortho- 
 doxy, with a loud and lusty voice to the old pagan 
 airs. Yet they are not inspiriting reading, save where 
 they are least Christian ; there is none of the reli- 
 gious passion of Crashaw, burning the weak heart 
 away in a flame of adoration, none of the sweet and 
 sober devotion of Herbert — nothing, indeed, from an 
 ecclesiastical point of view, so good as the best of 
 Vaughan, the Silurist. Where the Noble Numbers 
 are most readable is where they are most secular. 
 One sees the same spirit here as throughout the 
 worldly poems. In a charming little " Ode to Jesus " 
 he wishes the Saviour to be crowned with roses and 
 daffodils, and laid in a neat white osier cradle ; in 
 "The Present," he will take a rose to Christ and, 
 sticking it in His stomacher, beg for one melhfluous 
 kiss." The epigrams of the earlier volume are re- 
 placed in the Noble Numbers by a series of couplets,
 
 148 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 attempting to define the nature of God, of which none 
 equals in neatness this, which is the last : — 
 
 " Of all the good things whatsoe'er we do, 
 God is the 'Ap^q and the TeXos too." 
 
 As might be expected, his religion is as grossly an- 
 thropomorphic as it is possible to be. He almost sur- 
 passes in indiscretion those mediaeval priests of Picardy 
 who brought such waxen images to the Madonna's 
 shrine as no altar had seen since pagan days ; and 
 certain verses on the circumcision are more revolting 
 in their grossness than any of those erotic poems — 
 
 " unbaptized rhymes 
 Writ in my wild unhallowed times" — 
 
 for which he so ostentatiously demands absolution. 
 
 It is pleasant to turn from these to the three or 
 four pieces that are in every way worthy of his 
 genius. Of these, the tenderest is the "Thanks- 
 giving," where he is delightfully confidential about his 
 food, thus : — 
 
 " Lord, I confess, too, when I dine 
 
 The pulse is Thine, 
 And all those other bits that be 
 
 Placed there by Thee, — 
 The worts, the purslain, and the mess 
 
 Of water-cress. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 'Tis Thou that crown'st my glittering hearth 
 
 With guiltless mirth, 
 And giv'st me wassail-bowls to drink, 
 
 Spiced to the brink."
 
 Robert Herrlck 149 
 
 And about his house : — 
 
 " Like as my parlour, so my hall 
 And kitchen's small, 
 A little buttery, and therein 
 A little bin." 
 
 The wild and spirited "Litany" is too well known 
 to be quoted here, but there are two very fine odes in 
 the Noble Nu7nbers that are hardly so familiar. One 
 is the " Dirge of Jephthah's Daughter," written in a 
 wonderfully musical and pathetic measure, and full of 
 fine passages, of which this is a fair sample : — 
 
 " May no wolf howl, or screech-owl stir 
 A wing about thy sepulchre ! 
 No boisterous winds or storms come hither 
 
 To starve or wither 
 Thy soft sweet earth, but, like a spring, 
 Love keep it ever flourishing." 
 
 But beyond question the cleverest and at the 
 same time the most odd poem in the Noble Numbers 
 is "The Widows' Tears; or, Dirge of Dorcas," a 
 l3T-ical chorus supposed to be wailed out by the 
 widows over the death-bed of Tabitha. The bereaved 
 ladies disgrace themselves, unfortunately, by the greedi- 
 ness of their regrets, dwelling on the loss to them of 
 the bread—" ay ! and the flesh and the fish "—that 
 Dorcas was wont to give them ; but the poem has 
 stanzas of marvellous grace and delicacy, and the 
 metre in which it is written is peculiarly sweet. But 
 truly Herrick's forte did not He in hymn-writing, nor 
 was he able to refrain from egregious errors of taste, 
 whenever he attempted to reduce his laughing features
 
 150 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 to a proper clerical gravity. Of all his solecisms, how- 
 ever, none is so monstrous as one almost incredible poem 
 "To God," in which he gravely encourages the Divine 
 Being to read his secular poems, assuring Him that — 
 
 " Thou, my God, may'st on this impure look, 
 Yet take no tincture from my sinful book." 
 
 For unconscious impiety this rivals the famous 
 passage in which Robert Montgomery exhorted God 
 to "pause and think." 
 
 We have now rapidly considered the two volumes 
 on which Herrick claims his place among the best 
 Enghsh lyrical poets. Had he written twenty instead 
 of two, he could not have impressed his strong poetic 
 individuality more powerfully on our literature than 
 he has done in the Hesperides. It is a storehouse of 
 lovely things, full of tiny beauties of varied kind and 
 workmanship ; like a box full of all sorts of jewels — 
 ropes of seed-pearl, opals set in old-fashioned shifting 
 settings, antique gilt trifles sadly tarnished by time; 
 here a ruby, here an amethyst, and there a stray 
 diamond, priceless and luminous, flashing light from all 
 its facets, and dulling the faded jewellery with which it 
 is so promiscuously huddled. What gives a special 
 value to the book is the originality and versatility of 
 the versification. There is nothing too fantastic for 
 the author to attempt, at least ; there is one poem 
 written in rhyming triplet, each line having only two 
 syllables. There are clear little trills of sudden song, 
 like the lines to the "Lark;" there are chance 
 melodies that seem like mere wantonings of the air
 
 Robert Herrick 151 
 
 upon a wind-harp ; there are such harmonious endings 
 as this, " To Music " :— 
 
 " Fall on me like a silent dew, 
 Or like those maiden showers 
 Which by the peep of day do strew 
 A baptism o'er the flowers. 
 Melt, melt my pains 
 With thy soft strains, 
 That, having ease me given, 
 With full delight 
 I leave this light 
 And take my flight 
 For heaven." 
 
 With such poems as these, and with the deUcious 
 songs of so many of Herrick's predecessors and com- 
 peers before them, it is inexplicable upon what pos- 
 sible grounds the critics of the eighteenth century 
 can have founded their astonishing dogma that the 
 first master of English versification was Edmund 
 Waller, whose poems, appearing some fifteen years 
 after the Hesperides, are chiefly remarkable for their 
 stiff and pedantic movement, and the brazen clang, as 
 of stage armour, of the dreary heroic couplets in which 
 they strut. • Where Waller is not stilted, he owes his 
 excellence to the very source from which the earlier 
 lyrists took theirs — a study of nature and a free but 
 not licentious use of pure English. But not one of his 
 songs, except " Go, Lovely Rose," is worth the slightest 
 of those delicate warbles that Herrick piped out when 
 the sun shone on him and the flowers were fresh. 
 
 It is an interesting speculation to consider from what 
 antique sources Herrick, athirst for the pure springs of
 
 152 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 pagan beauty, drank the deep draughts of his inspira- 
 tion. Ben Jonson it was, beyond doubt, who first 
 introduced him to the classics, but his mode of accept- 
 ing the ideas he found there was wholly his own. In 
 the first place, one must contradict a statement that all 
 the editors of Herrick have repeated, sheep-like, from 
 one another, namely, that Catullus was his great ex- 
 ample and model. In all the editions of the Hesperides 
 we find the same old blunder: "There is no collection 
 of poetry in our language which more nearly resem- 
 bles the Carmina of Catullus." In reality, it would be 
 difficult to name a lyric poet with whom he has less 
 in common than with the Veronese, whose eagle-flights 
 into the very noonday depths of passion, swifter than 
 Shelley's, as flaming as Sappho's, have no sort of 
 fellowship with the pipings of our gentle and luxurious 
 babbler by the flowery brooks. In one of his poems, 
 "To Live Merrily," where he addresses the various 
 classical poets, and where, by the way, he tries to 
 work himself into a great exaltation about Catullus, he 
 does not even mention the one from whom he really 
 took most of form and colour. No one carefully reading 
 the Hesperides can fail to be struck with the extraordi- 
 nary similarity they bear to the Epigrams of Martial ; 
 and the parallel will be found to run throughout the writ- 
 ings of the two poets, for good and for bad, the differ- 
 ence being that Herrick is much the more religious pagan 
 of the two, and that he is as much a rural as Martial 
 an urban poet. But in the incessant references to him- 
 self and his book, the fondness for gums and spices, the 
 delight in the picturesqueness of private life, the art
 
 Robert Herrlck 153 
 
 of making a complete and gemlike poem in the fewest 
 possible lines, the curious mixture of sensitiveness and 
 utter want of sensibility, the trick of writing confidential 
 little poems to all sorts of friends, the tastelessness 
 that mixes up obscene couplets wath delicate odes 
 " De Hortis Martialis " or " To Anthea " — in all these 
 and many more qualities one can hardly tell where to 
 look for a literary parallel more complete. As far as 
 I know, Herrick mentions Martial but once, and then 
 very slightly. He was fond of talking about the old 
 poets in his verse, but never with any critical clever- 
 ness. The best thing he says about any of them is 
 said of Ovid in a pretty couplet. In a dream he sees 
 Ovid lying at the feet of Corinna, who presses 
 
 " With ivory wrists his laureat head, and steeps 
 His eyes in dew of kisses while he sleeps." 
 
 How much further Herrick's learning proceeded it 
 is difficult to tell. Doubtless he knew some Greek; 
 he mentions Homer and translates from the spurious 
 Anacreon. The English poets of that age, learned as 
 many of them were, do not seem to have gone much 
 further than Rome for their inspiration. Chapman is, 
 of course, a great exception. But none of them, as 
 all the great French poets of the Renaissance did, went 
 directly to the Anthology, Theocritus and Anacreon. 
 Perhaps Herrick had read the Planudian Anthology; 
 the little piece called ** Leander's Obsequies " seems as 
 though it must be a translation of the epigram of 
 Antipater of Thessalonica. 
 
 It is curious to reflect that at the very time that the
 
 154 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Hespe7'ides was printed, Salmasius, soon to be hunted 
 to death by the implacable hatred of Milton, was 
 carrying about with him in his restless wanderings 
 the manuscript of his great discovery, the inestimable 
 Anthology of Constantine Cephalas. One imagines 
 with what sympathetic brotherliness the Vicar of Dean 
 Prior would have gossiped and glowed over the new 
 storehouse of Greek song. That the French poets of 
 the century before were known to Herrick is to me 
 extremely doubtful. One feels how much there was in 
 such a book as La Bergerie of Remy Belleau, in which 
 our poet would have felt the most unfeigned delight, but 
 I find no distinct traces of their style in his ; and unless 
 the Parisian editions of the classics influenced him, I 
 cannot think that he brought any honey, poisonous or 
 other, from France. His inspiration was Latin; that 
 of Ronsard and Jodelle essentially Greek. It was the 
 publication of the Anthology in 1531, and of Henri 
 Estienne's Anacreon in 1554, that really set the Pleiad 
 in movement, and founded V ecole gallo-grecque. It was 
 rather the translation of Ovid, Lucan, Seneca, and Virgil 
 that gave English Elizabethan poetry the start-word. 
 
 To return to Herrick, there is not much more to say. 
 He had sung all the songs he had to sing in 1648, being- 
 then fifty-seven years of age. He came up to London 
 when the Puritans ejected him from his living, and 
 seems to have been sprightly enough at first over the 
 pleasant change to London life. Soon, however, bad 
 times came. So many friends were gone ; Jonson was 
 dead, and Fletcher; Selden was very old and in disgrace. 
 It was poor work solacing himself with Sir John Denham,
 
 Robert Herrick 155 
 
 and patronising that precocious lad Charles Cotton; 
 and by-and-by the Puritans cut off his fifths, and poor 
 old Herrick is vaguely visible to us in poor lodgings 
 somewhere in Westminster, supported by the charity 
 of relations. In August 1662, some one or other 
 graciously recollected him, and he was sent back in 
 his seventy-second year to that once detested vicarage 
 in "rocky Devonshire," which must now have seemed 
 a kind asylum for his old age. 
 
 The latest verses of his which seem to have been 
 preserved are these, carved on the tomb of two of his 
 parishioners in the south aisle of Dean Prior Church — 
 
 " No trust to metals nor to marbles, when 
 These have their fate and wear away as men ; 
 Times, titles, trophies may be lost and spent, 
 But virtue rears the eternal monument. 
 What more than these can tombs or tombstones pay? 
 But here's the sunset of a tedious day : 
 These two asleep are : I'll but be undress'd 
 And so to bed : pray wish us all good rest." 
 
 There is something extremely pathetic in the complete 
 obscurity of the poet's last days. In those troublesome 
 times his poetry, after a slight success, passed com- 
 pletely out of all men's minds. The idiotic Winstanley, 
 in his Lives of the Most Famous English Poets, written 
 shortly after Herrick's death, says that "but for the 
 interruption of trivial passages, he might have made 
 up none of the worst poetic landscapes." This is the 
 last word spoken, as I think, on Herrick, till Mr. 
 Nichols revived his fame in 1796. All we know of his 
 latest years is summed up in one short extract from
 
 156 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 the church register of Dean Prior : " Robert Herrick, 
 vicker, was buried ye 15th day of October 1674." By 
 that time a whole new world was formed in poetry. 
 Milton was dead; Wychcrley and Dryden were the 
 fashionable poets ; Addison and Swift were lately born ; 
 next year the Pilgrim's Progress was to appear; all 
 things were preparing for that bewigged and bepowdered 
 eighteenth century, with its mob of gentlemen who 
 wrote with ease, its Augustan self-sufficiency, and its 
 horror of nature ; and what wonder that no one cared 
 whether Herrick were alive or dead ? 
 
 1875.
 
 RICHARD CRASHAW 
 
 NO sketch of the Enghsh hterature of the middle 
 of the seventeenth century can pretend to be 
 complete if it does not tell us something of that 
 serried throng of poets militant who gave in their 
 allegiance to Laud, and became ornaments and then 
 martyrs of the High Church party. Their piety was 
 much more articulate and objective than that which 
 had inspired the hymn-writers and various divine 
 songsters of an earlier age; an element of political 
 conviction, of anger and apprehension, gave ardour 
 and tension to their song. They were conservative 
 and passive, but not oblivious to the tendencies of the 
 time, and the gathering flood of Puritanism forced 
 them, to use an image that they would not themselves 
 have disdained, to climb on to the very altar-step of 
 rituahsm, or even in extreme instances to take wing 
 for the mystic heights of Rome itself. 
 
 It is from such extreme instances as the latter that 
 we learn to gauge their emotion and their desperation, 
 and it is therefore Crashaw rather than Herbert whom 
 we select for the consideration of a typical specimen 
 of the High Church poets. Nor is it only the hysterical 
 intensity of Crashaw's convictions which marks him 
 
 out for our present purpose ; his position in history, 
 
 157
 
 158 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 his manhood spent in the last years of the reign of 
 "Thorough," and in the very forefront of the crisis, 
 give him a greater claim upon us than Herbert, 
 who died before Laud succeeded to the Primacy, or 
 Vaughan, who was still a boy when Strafford wasj. 
 executed. There are many other points of view from 
 which Crashaw is of special interest; his works 
 present the only important contribution to English 
 literature made by a pronounced Catholic, embodying 
 Catholic doctrine, during the whole of the seventeenth 
 century, while as a poet, although extremely unequal, 
 he rises, at his best, to a mounting fervour which is 
 quite electrical, and hardly rivalled in its kind before 
 or since. Nor is the story of his life, brief and vague 
 though its outline may be, unworthy of having in- 
 spired, as it has evidently done, that noble romance 
 oi John Inglesant which all the world has been reading 
 with so much curiosity and delight. 
 
 It has remained for Dr. Grosart to discover that 
 Crashaw, who has hitherto been supposed to have 
 been born in 16 16, must really have seen the light in 
 161 2. His father, the Rev. William Crashaw, Vicar 
 of Whitechapel and preacher at the Temple, was a 
 notable Puritan divine. Forty years of age when his 
 son was born, William Crashaw had grown up within 
 the vehement and instant fear of Papal aggression, and 
 had but become fiercer in his love for a simple Pro- 
 testantism under the irritating pressure of James the 
 First's decisions. His numerous tracts and sermons 
 are almost entirely devoted to an exposure of what he 
 conceived to be the fatal errors of Rome, and their
 
 Richard Crashaw 159 
 
 titles and contents have often been referred to in order 
 to emphasise the difference between their study Pro- 
 testantism and his son's adoring Mysticism. The sug- 
 gestive title-page of the Bcspotted Jesuit, however, is 
 now proved to have been added by a zealous hand after 
 his death ; it is quite plain, at the same time, that he 
 would not have shrunk from saying " bespotted," or 
 something far worse, if it had occurred to him so to 
 distinguish a Jesuit, a monk, or a friar. This vigorous 
 personage was the intimate friend of Usher, who is 
 said to have baptized Richard Crashaw, and to have 
 buried a second Mrs. Crashaw, stepmother to the 
 poet, who died at the age of twenty- four in 1620. It 
 is pleasant to read the great divine's praise of " her 
 singular motherly affection to the child of her pre- 
 decessor." We learn also that she was a gentlewoman 
 of considerable beauty and accomplishment, a good 
 singer and dancer, and that she gave up the vanities 
 of the world to marry a clergyman who may have 
 been grim and who was certainly elderly. But of 
 Crashaw's own mother we hear not a word, and even 
 her Christian name is missing. 
 
 The boy was admitted to the Charterhouse. In 
 October 1626 his father died, leaving him an orphan 
 at fourteen. His childhood is an absolute blank, until 
 we find him elected, at the rather advanced age of 
 nineteen, to be a scholar of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, 
 on July 6, 163 1. He became a matriculated pensioner 
 of Pembroke on March 26, 1632, a Bachelor of Arts 
 in 1634, was transferred to Peterhouse on November 
 26, 1636, was elected a Fellow of that college in 1637,
 
 i6o Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 and became a Master of Arts in 1638, on the same 
 day with his younger friend and enthusiastic admirer, 
 Joseph Beaumont, afterwards Master of Peterhouse. 
 He was finally ejected, in company with a large 
 number of other Royalist gentlemen, by the Earl of 
 Manchester, on June ii, 1644. These barren state- 
 ments give us but little power of realising the poet's 
 life at Cambridge during thirteen years of residence, 
 but it is possible to supplement them with certain facts 
 and illustrations which enable us to see the progress of 
 this delicate spirit through a rough and perilous age. 
 
 The Master of Pembroke, Dr. Benjamin Lany, was 
 an old friend of Crashaw's father, and there can be 
 little doubt that the boy was sent to that college to 
 be under his personal protection. Lany, as far as we 
 can collect an impression of his views, was a stout 
 Protestant, whose opinions had at one time coincided 
 with those of the author of the Bespotted Jesuit, but 
 who now was leaning more and more in a Laudian 
 direction, and to whom neither ritual nor a flowery 
 poetical diction was distasteful. We really know Dr. 
 Lany almost entirely through a copy of English verses 
 addressed by him to the elder Crashaw, and through 
 another copy of Latin verses addressed to him by the 
 younger Crashaw. In the latter he is spoken of as 
 oae around whom young poets throng with their 
 tributes of verse, as " the dear guardian of the Pierian 
 flock," and as one whose habit it is to encourage 
 and guide the children of the Muses. It is, therefore, 
 not unlikely that the transition between the grim 
 Puritanism of his father's household and the fervid
 
 Richard Crashaw i6i 
 
 Anglicanism of Cambridge was made easy to the youth 
 by the personal character and guidance of Dr. Ben- 
 jamin Lany. 
 
 It would be interesting to know whether or not 
 Crashaw had begun to compose poetry before going 
 up to the University. It is at all events certain that 
 he was busy versifying almost immediately on his 
 arrival. He was stimulated into the production, or I 
 am afraid we must say the manufacture, of an extra- 
 ordinary number of exercises, in English and Latin, 
 by the death of William Harries, a promising under- 
 graduate of his own college, who seems to have died 
 rather suddenly in October 163 1, when Crashaw had 
 been at Cambridge only three months. Four of these 
 elegies on a single person pleased their author suf- 
 ficiently to be retained by him for a prominent position 
 in his Delights of the Muses fifteen years afterwards, 
 and others exist and have been printed. Genuine 
 grief does not bewail itself with this fluency, or upon 
 so many stops, and indeed all these pieces seem to be 
 dictated rather by an official than a personal regret. 
 It is interesting, however, to find in them that at the 
 age of twenty Crashaw already possessed the germ of 
 that fine metrical skill and coloured fanc}'^ which after- 
 wards distinguished him. The extreme vehemence of 
 praise, the laudation of this youth for wit, learning, 
 piety, and physical beauty, was not calculated to startle 
 any one in the seventeenth century, and was probably 
 accepted by the entire college, from Dr. Lany down- 
 wards, as being the proper and becoming, and indeed 
 the only possible tone for a young poet to adopt on a
 
 i62 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 melancholy occasion of the kind. The alternations of 
 life and death are dwelt upon in flowing numbers : — 
 
 " For the laurel in his verse, 
 The sullen cypress o'er his hearse ; 
 For a silver-crowned head, 
 A dirty pillow in death's bed ; 
 For so dear, so deep a trust. 
 Sad requital, so much dust 1 " 
 
 These verses belong to the school of Ben Jonson, 
 but with a difference; there is an indefinable touch 
 of brightness and colour about them, which may have 
 suggested to Crashaw's college friends the advent of 
 a new poet. Moreover, these elegies on Herries are 
 valuable to us as belonging certainly to the year 1631, 
 when neither Donne, Herbert, nor Habington, although 
 well known in private circles, had been brought before 
 the world as poets. It is very important to observe 
 that Crashaw had already formed the foundation of 
 his lyrical style at a time when it is exceedingly 
 improbable that he can have read a line of Donne's 
 manuscripts. Certain tendencies were in the air, and 
 poets in various provinces sounded the same note 
 simultaneously and with unconscious unanimity. 
 
 Crashaw's first public appearance was made in a 
 little Latin anthology prepared in 1632 to congratulate 
 Charles I. on the preservation of his health. Re- 
 peatedly, through his college career, he was called 
 upon to contribute to those learned garlands of re- 
 spectful song which were all remembered against the 
 University when that " nest of serpents " fell into the 
 hands of the Puritans. In 1634 Crashaw published
 
 Richard Crashaw 163 
 
 a little volume of his Latin verses, entitled Epigram- 
 inatum Sacroruin Liber, following a fashion which 
 was already antiquated, and of which John Owen's 
 famous collection had been a typical example. One 
 of these epigrams contains the celebrated conceit on 
 the miracle of the water turned into wine, Lympha 
 pudica Deuni vidit et erubuit, which has been very 
 felicitously translated — 
 
 " The conscious welter saw its God and blushed." 
 
 It would be very interesting, but it is unfortunately 
 impossible, to trace the gradual transformation which 
 the religious nature of Crashaw underwent. He 
 found a very fervid piety maintained by certain young 
 men at Cambridge, and he adopted their doctrines 
 while surpassing them in zeal. He had already, we 
 cannot doubt, passed far from the narrow rigour of 
 his father's faith when he came under the influence 
 of the saintly Nicholas Ferrar, whose famous com- 
 munity at Little Gidding gave a final stamp to his 
 character. It is to be lamented that when John Ferrar 
 wrote his deeply interesting life of his brother, it did 
 not occur to him to give us fuller particulars of Crashaw; 
 we must, however, be grateful for what he has given. 
 The family of Ferrars and Colletts retired to their 
 lonely manor-house of Little Gidding, in Huntingdon- 
 shire, in 1625. Nicholas, already thirty- four years of 
 age, and weary of a career of action, had determined 
 to abandon the world and to adopt a life of pious 
 retirement. The "Protestant Nunnery," a name given 
 to it in malice by the Puritans, was an establishment
 
 164 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 conducted on purely unaffected principles, and took 
 its peculiar colouring slowly and unconsciously, as 
 these grave persons, all of one mind, and unopposed 
 in their country solitude, found more and more oppor- 
 tunity of following the natural bent of their inclinations. 
 Until the beauty of their books and the report of their 
 singular devotion had attracted the personal notice of 
 the King, the colony at Little Gidding seems to have 
 been but little distracted by visitors or perturbed by 
 injudicious praise or blame. But the King passed on 
 to Cambridge inflamed with the holy loyalty of these 
 gentle people, and his subjects in the University woke 
 up to the importance of the ritual and the monastic 
 seclusion practised at Little Gidding. Those who 
 were like-minded contended for the honour of follow- 
 ing Nicholas Ferrar from the oratory to the church, 
 and from the church to the hospital, in that round of 
 devotion and benefaction which made life busy in the 
 Protestant Nunnery. 
 
 But it was when Mrs. Ferrar died, in 1635, that 
 the saintly life at Gidding reached its final ecstasy 
 and fervour. The old lady had watched over the 
 physical welfare of the community, and had preserved 
 sufficient authority over her son Nicholas to prevent 
 him from entirely neglecting what the body craves in 
 sleep and food. But her death released him from all 
 such obligation, and after the day of her funeral he 
 never slept in a bed again, but for the rest of his 
 life wrapped himself in a bearskin and lay upon the 
 floor, when nature overwhelmed him, and obliged him 
 to take brief snatches of sleep between his long prayers
 
 Richard Crashaw 165 
 
 and vigils. He became more exalted, more unearthly, 
 and of course more attractive than ever to those young 
 ascetics who, like Crashaw, tried to imitate him in the 
 churches and chapels of Cambridge, and who took 
 every opportunity of riding over to Little Gidding to 
 refresh their faith and passion by intercourse with the 
 saintly household. We know that Crashaw was one 
 of these, that he was in constant communion with 
 Nicholas Ferrar until the death of the latter in the 
 winter of 1637, and that, when he could not join in 
 the midnight functions at Little Gidding, he would 
 emulate the vigils of his teacher b}^ nightly watches 
 in the Church of Little St. Mary's, which was close to 
 his new College of Peterhouse. 
 
 If the Civil War had never broken out, it is pro- 
 bable that Crashaw would never have left the Anglican 
 communion. Nicholas Ferrar, who had sympathies 
 for the ritual and even for the dogmas of Rome, such 
 as had been unheard of a generation earlier, stayed his 
 foot very firmly outside the Papal precincts. He died 
 deliberately satisfied with the English forms of faith. 
 He had never taken priest's orders, and, what is still 
 more strange, it seems that Crashaw never did; but 
 the latter took the warmest interest in ecclesiastical 
 affairs, and was one of those who clamoured most 
 importunately for the restoration of the college chapel 
 of Peterhouse, which was performed during his fellow- 
 ship. And when no longer he was forced at midnight 
 to cross the college bounds and enter the neighbouring 
 chancel of Little St. Mary's, there can be no doubt 
 that he spent more hours than ever in prayer under
 
 1 66 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 the shadow of the great gold angels of Peterhouse 
 Chapel, and among the hundred saints and cherubs, 
 with "God the Father in a chair, holding a glass in 
 His hand," which formed part of the ancient ornament 
 of this splendid building. 
 
 There, in a trance of orison, with the rich notes of 
 the organ pouring upon him and the light from the 
 antique windows surrounding him, the Puritan Com- 
 mission found him unaware. On December 21, 1643, 
 Mr. Horscot and his soldiers sacked the chapel of 
 Peterhouse, pulling down the images and breaking the 
 windows. This was but a local realisation of the 
 universal fact that the reign of Laudian ceremonial 
 was over. Laud himself was executed a year later, 
 and the very foundations of Episcopacy in England 
 were shaken. Cambridge formed a helpless island in 
 a sea of Puritan counties, and in the summer of 1644 
 the Earl of Manchester, on his way to the siege of 
 York, lingered in the eastern University long enough 
 to hold out the alternative of the Covenant or of ejection 
 to every Master and Fellow. On June 1 1 five Fellows 
 of Peterhouse, Crashaw and Beaumont being two of 
 them, were forcibly driven out, and five Puritans 
 appointed in their place. 
 
 The Fellows were scattered in all directions. Beau- 
 mont, even then engaged upon his High Church epic 
 of Psyche, lamented, in a passage which Dr. Grosart 
 was the first to point out, that his friend was not by 
 his side to revise it. It seems probable that Crashaw 
 proceeded at once to Oxford, where the King was still 
 for a few months undisturbed. It is at least natural
 
 Richard Crashaw 167 
 
 that he should have done so, since in 164 1 he had 
 been incorporated a member of the sister University, 
 and had been that year in residence at Oxford. It 
 may even be conjectured that the events which 
 followed the execution of Strafford so terrified the 
 timid scholar that he removed to the western and more 
 loyal University, and was ejected from Peterhouse 
 during his absence. However this may be, his posi- 
 tion must have become desperate soon after 1644, and 
 he may even have been concealed at Newnham Paddox 
 by his friends, the Earl and Countess of Denbigh, 
 until the defeat at Naseby finally overwhelmed the 
 Royalist party in ruin. It was at this time that the 
 poet seemed to have entered the Catholic Church. His 
 religious nature possessed what Milton calls "a fugi- 
 tive and cloistered virtue ; " to him it must have seemed 
 that the English ritual was destroyed, its bishops 
 scattered, its creed disused, and its authority ridiculed ; 
 and from the face of anarchy this shrinking soul fled 
 to the staunch and conservative arms of Rome. He 
 had long been meditating the possibility of this step, 
 although very probably it was forced upon him at last 
 harshly and suddenly. Cowley, who was always a 
 sincere Anglican, refers to his friend's conversion to 
 Rome with a charming tact and delicacy : — 
 
 " Pardon, my mother Church, if I consent 
 That angels led him when from thee he went ; 
 For even in error sure no danger is 
 When joined with so much piety as his. 
 Ah ! mighty God, with shame I speak' t, and grief; 
 Ah 1 that our greatest faults were in belief!"
 
 1 68 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Regarding the sanctity and single-heartedness of 
 the unfortunate Crashaw there is but one testimony. 
 The only dissentient voice is that of the harsh and 
 ribald Prynne, whose accusation is a eulogy. And 
 now, having attempted to conduct the sacred poet to 
 the great crises of his life, let us leave him there for a 
 while, and consider those poems which his first editor 
 tells us were written beneath the wings of God, when 
 Crashaw lodged under " Tertullian's roof of angels at 
 Peterhouse, where he made his nest more gladly than 
 David's swallow near the house of God, and, like a 
 primitive saint, offered more prayers in the night than 
 others usually offer in the day." 
 
 Crashaw's English poems were first published in 
 1646, soon after his arrival in Paris. He was at that 
 time in his thirty-fourth year, and the volume contains 
 his best and most mature as well as his crudest pieces. 
 It is, indeed, a collection of juvenile and manly verses 
 thrown together with scarcely a hint of arrangement, 
 the uncriticised labour of fifteen years. The title is 
 Steps to the Temple, Sacred Poems, with other delights 
 of the Muses. The sacred poems are so styled by his 
 anonymous editor because they are " steps for happy 
 souls to climb heaven by ; " the Delights of the Muses 
 are entirely secular, and the two divisions of the book, 
 therefore, reverse the order of Herrick's similarly 
 edited Hesperides and Noble Numbers. The Steps to 
 the Temple are distinguished at once from the collec- 
 tion with which it is most natural to compare them, 
 the Temple of Herbert, to which their title refers with 
 a characteristic touch of modesty, by the fact that they
 
 Richard Crashaw 169 
 
 are not poems of experience, but of ecstasy — not of 
 meditation, but of devotion. Herbert, and with him 
 most of the sacred poets of the age, are autobiographi- 
 cal ; they analyse their emotions, they take themselves 
 to task, they record their struggles, their defeats, their 
 consolation. 
 
 But if the azure cherubim of introspection are the 
 dominant muses of English sacred verse, the flame- 
 coloured seraph of worship reigns in that of Crashaw. 
 He has made himself familiar with all the amorous 
 phraseology of the Catholic metaphysicians; he has 
 read the passionate canticles of St. John of the Cross, 
 the books of the Carmelite nun, St. Teresa, and all 
 the other rosy and fiery contributions to ecclesiastical 
 literature laid by Spain at the feet of the Pope during 
 the closing decades of the sixteenth century. The 
 virginal courage and ardour of St. Teresa inspire 
 Crashaw with his loveliest and most faultless verses. 
 We need not share nor even sympathise with the 
 sentiment of such lines as these to acknowledge that 
 they belong to the highest order of lyric writing : — 
 
 " Thou art Love's victim, and must die 
 A death more mystical and high ; 
 Into Love's arms thou shalt let fall 
 A still-surviving funeral. 
 His is the dart must make thy death, 
 Whose stroke will taste thy hallowed breath — 
 A dart thrice dipped in that rich flame 
 Which writes thy spouse's radiant name 
 Upon the roof of heaven, where aye 
 It shines and with a sovereign ray 
 Beats bright upon the burning faces 
 Of souls which in that name's sweet graces
 
 lyo Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Find everlasting smiles. So rare, 
 So spiritual, pure, and fair, 
 Must be the immortal instrument 
 Upon whose choice point shall be spent 
 A life so loved ; and that there be 
 Fit executioners for thee, 
 The fairest first-born sons of fire, 
 Blest seraphim, shall leave their choir. 
 And turn Love's soldiers, upon thee 
 To exercise their archery." 
 
 Nor in the poem from which these hnes are quoted 
 does this melodious rapture flag during nearly two 
 hundred verses. But such a sustained flight is rare, 
 as in the similar poem of " The Flaming Heart," also 
 addressed to St, Teresa, where, after a long prelude 
 of frigid and tuneless conceits, it is only at the very 
 close that the poet suddenly strikes upon this golden 
 chord of ecstasy : — 
 
 " Let all thy scattered shafts of light, that play 
 Among the leaves of thy large books of day. 
 Combined against this breast at once break in, 
 And take away from me myself and sin ; 
 This gracious robbeiy shall thy bounty be, 
 And my best fortunes such fair spoils of me. 
 O thou undaunted daughter of desires ! 
 
 By all thy dower of lights and fires, 
 
 By all the eagle in thee, all the dove, 
 
 By all thy lives and deaths of love. 
 
 By thy large draughts of intellectual day, 
 And by thy thirsts of love more large than they. 
 By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire. 
 By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire. 
 By the full kingdom of that final kiss 
 That seized thy parting soul and sealed thee His ;
 
 Richard Crashaw 171 
 
 By all the heaven thou hast in Him, 
 Fair sister of the seraphim ! 
 By all of thine we have in tliee — 
 Leave nothing of myself in me ; 
 Let me so read thy life that I 
 Unto all life of mine may die." 
 
 If Crashaw had left us nothing more than these two 
 fragments, we should be able to distinguish him by 
 them among English poets. He is the solitary repre- 
 sentative of the poetry of Catholic psychology which 
 England possessed until our own days ; and Germany 
 has one no less unique in Friedrich Spe. I do not 
 know that any critic has compared Spe and Crashaw, 
 but they throw lights upon the genius of one another 
 which may seasonably detain us for a while. The 
 great Catholic poet of Germany during the seventeenth 
 century was born in 1591. Like Crashaw, he was 
 set in motion by the Spanish Mystics ; like him, he 
 stood on the verge of a great poetical revolution with- 
 out being in the least affected by it. To Waller and 
 to Opitz, with their new dry systems of precise 
 prosody, Crashaw and Spe owed nothing; they were 
 purely romantic and emotional in style. Spe was 
 born a Catholic, spent all his life among the Jesuits, 
 and died, worn out with good works and immortalised 
 by an heroic struggle against the system of perse- 
 cution for witchcraft, in the hospital of Treves in 
 1635, just when Crashaw was becoming enthralled by 
 the delicious mysteries of Little Gidding. Both of 
 them wrote Jesuit eclogues. In Spe the shepherd 
 winds his five best roses into a garland for the infant
 
 172 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Jesus ; in Crashaw he entertains the " starry stranger" 
 with conceits about his diamond eyes and the red 
 leaves of his hps. In each poet there is an hysterical 
 delight in blood and in the details of martyrdom, in 
 each a shrill and frantic falsetto that jars on the 
 modern ear, in each a sweetness of diction and purity 
 of fancy that redeem a hundred faults.^ The poems 
 of Spe, entitled Trutz-Nachtigal, were first printed in 
 1649, the year that Crashaw died. 
 
 The chief distinction between Spe and Crashaw is, 
 in the first place, that Crashaw is by far the greater 
 and more varied of the two as regards poetical gifts, 
 and, secondly, that while Spe was inspired by the 
 national Volkslied, and introduced its effects into his 
 song, Crashaw was an adept in every refinement of 
 metrical structure which had been invented by the 
 poet-artists of England, Spain, and Italy. The pro- 
 gress of our poetical literature in the seventeenth 
 century will never be thoroughly explained until some 
 competent scholar shall examine the influence of 
 
 1 As an illustration of almost all these qualities, and as a specimen 
 of Spe's metrical gifts, I give one stanza from the Trutz-Nachtigal: — 
 " Aus der Seiten 
 Lan sich leiten 
 
 Rote Strahlen wie Korall ; 
 Aus der Seiten 
 Lan sich leiten 
 
 Weisse Wasser wie Krystal 1 
 O du reines, 
 Hiibsch und feines 
 
 Bachlein von Korall und Glas, 
 Nit noch weiche, 
 Nit entschleiche, 
 
 O Rubin und Perlcngass 1 "
 
 Richard Crashaw 173 
 
 Spanish poetry upon our own. This influence seems 
 to be particularly strong in the case of Donne, and in 
 the next generation in that of Crashaw. I am not 
 sufficiently famihar with Spanish poetry to give an 
 opinion on this subject which is of much value ; 
 but as I write I have open before me the works of 
 Gongora, and I find in the general disposition of 
 his Octavas Sacras and in the style of his Canciones 
 resemblances to the staves introduced to us by 
 Crashaw which can scarcely be accidental. 
 
 Mr. Shorthouse reminds me that Ferrar was much 
 in Spain ; we know that Crashaw " was excellent in 
 Italian and Spanish," and we are thus led on to 
 consider the more obvious debt which he owed to the 
 contemporary poetry of Italy. One of the largest 
 pieces of work which he undertook was the translation 
 of the first canto of the Strage degli Innocently or 
 '* Massacre of the Innocents," a famous poem by the 
 Neapolitan Cavaliere Marini, who had died in 1625. 
 Crashaw has thrown a great deal of dignity and fancy 
 into this version, which, however, outdoes the original 
 in ingenious illustration, as the true Marinists, such 
 as Achillini, outdid Marini in their conceited sonnets. 
 Crashaw, in fact, is a genuine Marinist, the happiest 
 specimen which we possess in English, for he pre- 
 serves a high level of fantastic foppery, and seldom, 
 at his worst, sinks to those crude animal imagings — 
 illustrations from food, for instance — which occasion- 
 ally make such writers as Habington and Carew not 
 merely ridiculous but repulsive. 
 
 In criticising with severity the piece on Mary
 
 174 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Magdalene which stands in the forefront of Crashaw's 
 poems, and bears the title of " The Weeper," I have 
 the misfortune to find myself at variance with most of 
 his admirers. I cannot, however, avoid the conviction 
 that the obtrusion of this eccentric piece on the thresh- 
 old of his shrine has driven away from it many a 
 would-be worshipper. If language be ever liable to 
 abuse in the hands of a clever poet, it is surely out- 
 raged here. Every extravagant and inappropriate 
 image is dragged to do service to this small idea — 
 namely, that the Magdalen is for ever weeping. Her 
 eyes, therefore, are sister springs, parents of rills, 
 thawing crystal, hills of snow, heavens of ever-falling 
 stars, eternal breakfasts for brisk cherubs, sweating 
 boughs of balsam, nests of milky doves, a voluntary 
 mint of silver, and Heaven knows how many more 
 incongruous objects, from one to another of which 
 the labouring fancy flits in despair and bewilder- 
 ment. In this poem all is resigned to ingenuity ; we 
 are not moved or softened, we are merely startled, 
 and the irritated reader is at last appeased for the 
 fatigues he has endured by a frank guffaw, when he 
 sees the poet, at his wits' end for a simile, plunge 
 into the abyss of absurdity, and style the eyes of the 
 Magdalen 
 
 " Two walking baths, two weeping motions, 
 Portable and compendious oceans." 
 
 These are the worst lines in Crashaw. They are 
 perhaps the worst in all English poetry, but they must 
 not be omitted here, since they indicate to us the
 
 Richard Crashaw 175 
 
 principal danger to which not he only but most of his 
 compeers were hable. It was from the tendency to 
 call a pair of eyes "portable and compendious oceans" 
 that Waller and Dryden, after both of them stumbling 
 on the same stone in their youth, finally delivered us. 
 It is useless to linger with indulgence over the stanzas 
 of a poem like " The Weeper," simply because many 
 of the images are in themselves pretty. The system 
 upon which these juvenile pieces of Crashaw are 
 written is in itself indefensible, and is founded upon 
 what Mr. Matthew Arnold calls an "incurable defect 
 of style." 
 
 Crashaw, however, possesses style, or he would not 
 deserve the eminent place he holds among our poets. 
 The ode in praise of Teresa, written while the author 
 was still among the Protestants, and therefore pro- 
 bably about 1642, has already been cited here. It is 
 an exquisite composition, full of real vision, music of 
 the most delicate order, and imagery which, although 
 very profuse and ornate, is always subordinated to 
 the moral meaning and to the progress of the poem. 
 The " Shepherd's Hymn," too, is truly ingenious and 
 graceful, with its pretty pastoral tenderness. "On 
 Mr. G. Herbert's Book sent to a Gentleman " evidently 
 belongs to the St. Teresa period, and contains the 
 same charm. The lyrical epistle persuading the 
 Countess of Denbigh to join the Roman communion 
 contains extraordinary fehcities, and seems throbbing 
 with tenderness and passion. We have already drawn 
 attention to the splendid close of " The Flaming Heart," 
 There is perhaps no other of the sacred poems in the
 
 176 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 volume of 1646 which can be commended in its en- 
 tirety. Hardly one but contains felicities ; the dullest 
 is brightened by such flashes of genius as — 
 
 " Lo, how the thirsty lands 
 Gasp for the golden showers with long-stretch'd hands !' 
 
 But the poems are hard, dull, and laborious, the 
 exercises of a saint indeed, but untouched by inspira- 
 tion, human or divine. We have to return to the in- 
 comparable " Hymn to St. Teresa " to remind ourselves 
 of what heights this poet was capable. 
 
 There can be very little doubt that Crashaw regarded 
 the second section of his book, the secular Delights of 
 the Muses, as far inferior in value and importance to 
 the Steps to the Temple. That is not, however, a view 
 in which the modern reader can coincide, and it is 
 rather the ingenuity of his human poems than the 
 passion of his divine which has given him a prominent 
 place among poets. The Delights open with the 
 celebrated piece called the " Muse's Duel," paraphrased 
 from the Latin of Strada. As one frequently sees a 
 reference to the " Latin poet Strada," it may be worth 
 while to remark that Famianus Strada was not a poet 
 at all, but a lecturer in the Jesuit colleges. He be- 
 longed to Crashaw's own age, having been born in 
 1572, and dying in the year of the English poet's 
 death, 1649. The piece on the rivalry of the musician 
 and the nightingale was published first at Rome in 
 16 1 7, in a volume of Prolusiones on rhetoric and 
 poetry, and occurs in the sixth lecture of the second 
 course on poetic style. The Jesuit rhetorician has
 
 Richard Crashaw 177 
 
 been trying to familiarise his pupils with the style of 
 the great classic poets by reciting to them passages 
 in imitation of Ovid, Lucretius, Lucan, and the rest, 
 and at last he comes to Claudian. This, he says, is 
 an imitation of the style of Claudian, and so he gives 
 us the lines which have become so famous. That 
 a single fragment in a school-book should suddenly 
 take root and blossom in European literature, when 
 all else that its voluminous author wrote and said 
 was promptly forgotten, is very curious, but not un- 
 precedented. 
 
 In England the first person who adopted or adapted 
 Strada's exercise was John Ford, in his play of The 
 Lover's Melancholy^ in 1629. Dr. Grosart found 
 another early version among the Lansdowne MSS., 
 and Ambrose Phillips a century later essayed it. 
 There are numerous references to it in other litera- 
 tures than ours, and in the present age M. Francois 
 Coppee has introduced it with charming effect into 
 his pretty comedy of Le Luthier de Crh7tone. Thus 
 the schoolmaster's task, set as a guide to the manner 
 of Claudian, has achieved, by an odd irony of for- 
 tune, a far more general and lasting success than 
 any of the actual verses of that elegant writer. 
 With regard to the comparative merits of Ford's 
 version, which is in blank verse, and of Crashaw's, 
 which is in rhyme, a confident opinion has generally 
 been expressed in favour of the particular poet under 
 consideration at the moment ; nor is Lamb him- 
 self superior to this amiable partiality. He denies 
 that Crashaw's version "can at all compare for 
 
 M
 
 178 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 harmony and grace with this blank verse of Ford's." 
 But my own view coincides much rather with that of 
 Mr. Swinburne, who says that " between the two 
 beautiful versions of Strada's pretty fable by Ford 
 and Crashaw, there will always be a diversity of judg- 
 ment among readers ; some must naturally prefer the 
 tender fluency and limpid sweetness of Ford, others 
 the dazzling intricacy and affluence in refinements, the 
 supple and cunning implication, the choiceness and 
 subtlety of Crashaw." Mr. Shorthouse, on the other 
 hand, suggests to me that " Crashaw's poem is surely 
 so much more full and elaborate, that it must be 
 acknowledged to be the more important effort." There 
 can be no doubt that it presents us with the most 
 brilliant and unique attempt which has been made in 
 our language to express the very quality and variety 
 of musical notation in words. It may be added that 
 the only reference made by Crashaw in any part of 
 his writings to any of the dramatists his contemporaries 
 is found in a couplet addressed to Ford : — 
 
 " Thou cheat'st us, Ford, mak'st one seem two by art ; 
 What is loves sacrifice but the broken heart f" 
 
 After " Music's Duel," the best-known poem of 
 Crashaw's is his " Wishes to his Supposed Mistress," 
 a piece in forty-two stanzas, which Mr. Palgrave 
 reduced to twenty-one in his Golden Treasury. He 
 neglected to mention the "sweet theft," and accord- 
 ingly most readers know the poem only as he re- 
 duced and rearranged it. The act was bold, perhaps, 
 but I think that it was judicious. As Crashaw left
 
 Richard Crashaw 179 
 
 it, the poem extends beyond the hmits of a lyric, 
 tediously repeats its sentiments, and gains neither 
 in force nor charm by its extreme length. In Mr. 
 Palgrave's selection it challenges comparison with 
 the loveliest and most original pieces of the century. 
 It never, I think, rises to the thrilling tenderness which 
 Donne is capable of on similar occasions. Crashaw 
 never pants out a line and a half which leave us 
 faint and throbbing, as if the heart of humanity 
 itself had been revealed to us for a moment; with 
 all his flying colour and lambent flame, Crashaw is 
 not Donne. But the " Wishes " is more than a charm- 
 ing, it is a fascinating poem, the pure dream of the 
 visionary poet, who liked to reflect that he too might 
 marry if he would, and choose a godly bride. He 
 calls upon her — 
 
 " Whoe'er she be 
 That not impossible She 
 That shall command my heart and me ; 
 
 Where'er she He 
 
 Locked up from mortal eye 
 
 In shady leaves of destiny " — 
 
 to receive the embassy of his wishes, bound to in- 
 struct her in that higher beauty of the spirit which his 
 soul demands — 
 
 •' Something- more than 
 Taifata or tissue can, 
 Or rampant feather, or rich fan." 
 
 But what he requires is not spiritual adornment alone ;
 
 i8o Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 he will have her courteous and accomplished in the 
 world's ways also, the possessor of 
 
 " Sydneian showers 
 Of sweet discourse, whose powers 
 Can crown old Winter's head with flowers ;" 
 
 and finally, 
 
 " Life, that dares send 
 A challenge to his end, 
 And when it comes say, ' Welcome, friend.' 
 
 I wish her store 
 
 Of worth may leave her poor 
 
 Of wishes ; and I wish — no more." 
 
 The same refined and tender spirit animates the 
 "Epitaph upon Husband and Wife, who died and 
 were buried together." The lovely rambling verses 
 of "To the Morning, in satisfaction for Sleep," are 
 perhaps more in the early manner of Keats than any 
 other English lines. In some of those sacred poems 
 which we have lately been considering, he reminds us 
 no less vividly of Shelley, and there are not a few 
 passages of Crashaw which it would require a very 
 quick ear to distinguish from Mr. Swinburne. We 
 may safely conjecture that the latter poet's " Song in 
 Season " was written in deliberate rivalry of that song 
 of Crashaw's which runs — 
 
 " O deliver 
 
 Love his quiver ; 
 From thine eyes he shoots his arrows, 
 
 Where Apollo 
 
 Cannot follow, 
 Feathered with his mother's sparrows."
 
 Richard Crashaw i8i 
 
 But perhaps the sweetest and most modern of all 
 Crashaw's secular lyrics is that entitled Lovers Horo- 
 scope. The phraseology of the black art was never 
 used with so sweet and picturesque an ingenuity, and 
 the piece contains some of the most delicately musical 
 cadences to be found in the poetry of the age : — 
 
 " Thou know'st a face in whose each look 
 Beauty lays ope Love's fortune-book, 
 On whose fair revolutions wait 
 The obsequious motions of Love's fate. 
 Ah ! my heart ! her eyes and she 
 Have taught thee new astrology. 
 Howe'er Love's native hours were set, 
 Whatever starry synod met, 
 'Tis in the mercy of her eye 
 If poor Love shall live or die." 
 
 It is probable from internal and from external evi- 
 dence also that all these secular poems belong to 
 Crashaw's early years at Cambridge. The pretty lines 
 " On Two Green Apricocl^s sent to Cowley by Sir 
 Crashaw" evidently date from 1633; the various 
 elegies and poems of compliment can be traced to 
 years ranging from 1631 to 1634. It is doubtful 
 whether the "Wishes" themselves are at all later 
 than this. Even regarding him as a finished poet ten 
 years before the publication of his book, however, he 
 comes late in the list of seventeenth century lyrists, 
 and has no claims to be considered as an innovator. 
 He owed all the basis of his style, as has been already 
 hinted, to Donne and to Ben Jonson. His originality 
 was one of treatment and technique ; he forged a 
 more rapid and brilliant short line than any of his
 
 1 82 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 predecessors had done, and for brief intervals and along 
 sudden paths of his own he carried English prosody to 
 a higher refinement, a more glittering felicit}'', than it 
 had ever achieved. Thus, in spite of his conceits and 
 his romantic colouring, he points the way for Pope, 
 who did not disdain to borrow from him freely. 
 
 It is unfortunate that Crashaw is so unequal as to 
 be positively delusive ; he bafQes analysis by his un- 
 certain hold upon style, and in spite of his charm and 
 his genius is perhaps most interesting to us because 
 of the faults he shares with purely modern poets. It 
 would scarcely be unjust to say that Crashaw was the 
 first real poet who allowed himself to use a splendid 
 phrase when a simple one would have better expressed 
 his meaning; and in an age when all but the best 
 poetry was apt to be obscure, crabbed, and rugged, 
 he introduces a new fault, that of being visionary and 
 diffuse, with a deliberate intention not only, as the 
 others did, to deck Nature out in false ornament, but 
 to represent her actual condition as being something 
 more " starry " and " seraphical " than it really is. His 
 style has hectic beauties that delight us, but evade us 
 also, and colours that fade as promptly as the scarlet 
 and the amber in a sunset sky. We can describe him 
 best in negatives; he is not so warm and real as 
 Herrick, nor so drily intellectual as the other h3'mnists, 
 nor coldly and respectably virile like Cowley. To use 
 an odd simile of Shelley's, he sells us gin when the 
 other poets offer us legs of mutton, or at all events 
 baskets of bread and vegetables. 
 
 Crashaw now disappeared from the circle of his
 
 Richard Crashaw 183 
 
 friends. Joseph Beaumont, preparing his epic for the 
 press in his retirement at Hadleigh, knew not where 
 to turn for advice, and sighed to think how 
 
 " Fair had my Psyche been had she at first 
 By thy judicious hand been dressed and nursed." 
 
 But to us the movements of this spiritual luminary are 
 somewhat more obvious. 
 
 After the birth of the future Duchess of Orleans in 
 1644, Queen Henrietta Maria fled to Paris, and held 
 a kind of court there for the benefit of her husband's 
 cause. The poet Cowley was her secretary, and seems 
 to have introduced Crashaw to her. Tradition says 
 that the younger poet found the elder in great poverty 
 in Paris, and that his good offices with the Queen 
 enabled him to secure for Crashaw one of the last 
 fragments of preferment yet clinging about exiled 
 majesty. To a fellow-CathoHc Henrietta Maria could 
 still offer an introduction to Roman societ}', and it is 
 said that she gave the poet a letter to Cardinal J. B. 
 Pallotta, then the Governor of Rome, a post to which 
 he had been raised, in the flower of his age, by Pope 
 Urban VIII. Pallotta was a man of force and ambition, 
 feared as much as honoured for the extreme severity 
 of his morals. His influence over Innocent X. was so 
 considerable and so salutary that he was himself talked 
 of as a possible successor to the tiara. This man, as 
 Canon Bargrave recounts in his Pope and College of 
 Cardinals in 1660, offered Crashaw the post of private 
 secretary to himself, which the poet seems to have 
 held for about two vears.
 
 184 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 In the vivid pages of the close of John Inglcsant 
 the reader will find a very correct and stirring picture 
 of the condition of the Holy City some six years after 
 Crashaw's departure from it. He will easily realise, 
 from that description, that although Rome had purged 
 itself from its most crying scandals of a hundred 3'ears 
 before, its society was far from being calculated to 
 soothe or delight the soul of a chaste mystic, who had 
 seen no ruder side of life than was to be found in the 
 quiet hall of Peterhouse or the saintly society of Little 
 Gidding. His soul burned within him because of the 
 wickedness of the servants of the Cardinal, and at 
 last, like Joseph, he felt constrained to bring their 
 evil report to his father in God. We hear from Bar- 
 grave, who was in Rome at the time, in common with 
 several of the exiled Fellows of Peterhouse, that Pallotta 
 took the hint and chastised his followers, whereupon 
 they in revenge threatened to take Crashaw's life. 
 The Cardinal, who came from Ancona, bethought him 
 of the neighbouring sanctuary of Loreto, of which he 
 was himself the patron, and on April 24, 1649, he 
 procured for the poet a small benefice in the famous 
 Basilica Church of Our Lady. 
 
 We can imagine with what feelings of rapture and 
 content the world-worn poet crossed the Apennines 
 and descended to the dry little town above the shores 
 of the Adriatic, in which he doubtless pictured to 
 himself a haunt of peace and prayer till his life's 
 end. As he ascended the last hill, and saw before 
 him the magnificent basih'ca which Bramante had built 
 as a shelter for the Holy House, he would feel that
 
 Richard Crashaw 185 
 
 his feet were indeed upon the threshold of his rest. 
 With what joy, with what a beating heart, he would 
 long to see that very Santa Casa, the cottage built 
 of brick, which angels lifted from Nazareth out of 
 the black hands of the Saracen, and gently dropped 
 among the nightingales in the forest of Loreto on 
 that mystic night of the year 1294! There, like a 
 child's bare body wrapped in the velvets and naperies 
 of a princely cradle, the humble Casa lay in the marble 
 enclosure which Sansovino had made for it, and there 
 through the barbaric brickwork window in the Holy 
 Chimney he could see, in a trance of wonder, the 
 gilded head of Madonna's cedarn image that St. Luke 
 the Evangelist had carved with his own hands. Here 
 indeed a delicious life seemed planned for Crashaw — 
 to minister all day in the rich incense ; to touch the 
 very raiment of Our Lady, stiff with pearls and rubies 
 to the feet ; to trim the golden lamps, the offerings 
 of the kings of the whole Catholic world; to pass 
 in and out between the golden cherubim and brazen 
 seraphim; to cleanse the mosaics of lapis-lazuli, and 
 to pohsh the silver bas-reliefs till they shouted the 
 story of the magic flight from Nazareth. There, in 
 the very house of Jesus, to hear the noise and mutter 
 of the officiating priest, the bustle of canons, chaplains, 
 monks, and deacons, the shrill sweet voices of the 
 acolytes singing all day long — this must have seemed 
 the very end of life and beginning of heaven to the 
 mystical and sensuous Crashaw. 
 
 It appears, however, that his joys were brief. In 
 August 1649, four months after his appointment, his
 
 1 86 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 benefice had passed into other hands, and we learn 
 from Bargrave that he died a few weeks after he 
 arrived at Loreto, not without suspicion of having been 
 poisoned b}'' those whom he had denounced to Cardinal 
 Pallotta. He seems to have been in his thirty-seventh 
 year. Cowley composed a lovely elegy for his funeral, 
 promising him an immortality which he has in some 
 sort achieved. He was a good man and a gentleman, 
 an extreme instance of a remarlcable type, and the 
 only one of all the English divine poets of the century 
 whose temperament drove him actually' within the pre- 
 cincts of Rome. 
 
 1882. 
 
 Too often it is with regret, or with a grudged esteem, 
 that we hail newly-discovered works by standard 
 authors. The best writing generally takes care of 
 itself, and is remembered and preserved, whatever may 
 be lost. The first sprightl}'- running is commonly the 
 best, and editors scarcely earn our thanks by troubling 
 the lees for us. For once we have an exception before 
 us. The pamphlet of newly-discovered poems by 
 Crashaw which Dr. Grosart forwarded to his sub- 
 scribers in 1888 contains some things which, even in 
 the congested condition of our national literature, are 
 never likely to be obscured again. The British Museum 
 bought from a bookseller, who had picked it up as an 
 odd lot at Sotheby's or Puttick & Simpson's, a MS. 
 volume of Crashaw's poems, indubitably, as would
 
 Richard Crashaw 187 
 
 appear, in his own, previously untraced, handwriting. 
 Dr. Grosart gives us an example of the latter in fac- 
 simile, selecting the page which contains the well-known 
 epigram on " The Water being made Wine." 
 
 We turn at once to the poems which are entirely- 
 new. Here is one apparently intended to form the 
 dedication to a gift-volume of the poet's Steps to the 
 Temple : — 
 
 " At the ivory tribunal of your hand, 
 Fair one, these tender leaves do treinbling stand, 
 Knowing 'tis in the doom of your sweet eye 
 Whether the Muse they clothe shall hve or die ; 
 Live she or die to Fame, each leaf you meet 
 Is her life's wing, or else her winding-sheet." 
 
 We could swear this was Crashaw if we picked it 
 up anonymous on Pitcairn's Island. Moreover, some- 
 thing very like the second couplet is to be found already 
 in Love's Horoscope : — 
 
 " 'Tis in the mercy of her eye 
 If poor Love shall live or die." 
 
 It is very pretty. But this, a nameless lyric, is more 
 than pretty; it is exquisite, and in Crashaw's most 
 transcendental manner : — 
 
 " Though now 'tis neither May nor June, 
 And nightingales are out of tune, 
 Yet in these leaves, fair One, there lies 
 (Sworn servant to your sweetest eyes) 
 A nightingale, who, may she spread 
 In your white bosom her chaste bed, 
 Spite of all the maiden snow 
 Those pure untrodden paths can show.
 
 t88 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 You straight shall see her wake and rise, 
 Taking fresh life from your fair eyes, 
 And with claspt wings proclaim a spring, 
 Where Love and she shall sit and sing ; 
 For lodged so near your sweetest throat 
 What nightingale can lose her note? 
 Nor let her kindred birds complain 
 Because she breaks the year's old reign ; 
 For let them know she's none of those 
 Hedge-quiristers whose music owes 
 Only such strains as serve to keep 
 Sad shades, and sing dull night asleep. 
 No, she's a priestess of that grove. 
 The holy chapel of chaste love. 
 Your virgin bosom. Then whate'er 
 Poor laws divide the public year, 
 Whose revolutions wait upon 
 The wild turns of the wanton sun, 
 Be you the Lady of Love's year, 
 Where your eyes shine his suns appear. 
 There all the year is Love's long Spring, 
 
 There all the year 
 Love's nightingales shall sit and sing." 
 
 The break in the penultimate verse is a charming 
 addition to the melody, and I am very much mistaken 
 if this lyric does not take its place among the best of 
 Charles I.'s reign. 
 
 The remainder of the new poems are religious, and 
 they are not in Crashaw's very finest manner. " To 
 Pontius, Washing his Blood-stained Hands," is a typical 
 example of the monstrous chains of conceits which these 
 most unequal poets were at any moment liable to pro- 
 duce. The face of Pilate was originally a nymph — 
 
 " The daughter of a fair and well-famed fountain 
 As ever silver-tipped the side of shady mountain,' —
 
 Richard Crashaw 189 
 
 (in itself a charming image); this nymph has suffered 
 the fate of Philomela from this new Tereus, the hand 
 of Pilate, and " appears nothing but tears." A para- 
 phrase of Grotius gives us a first version of the well- 
 known verse on the Eucharist : — 
 
 " The water blushed and started into wine." 
 
 We trace the great Crashaw of the fiery surprises 
 but seldom in this long, tame, and somewhat crabbed 
 poem ; but he asserts himself in a few such phrases 
 as this : — 
 
 "Before the infant shrine 
 
 Of my weak feet, the Persian Magi lay, 
 
 And left their mithra for my star ; " 
 
 and this, which well describes the condition of Cra- 
 shaw's muse : — 
 
 " A sweet inebriated ecstasy." 
 
 The new readings of old poems which the MS. gives 
 are neither, it would seem, very numerous nor very 
 important. "The Weeper" is such a distressing, 
 indeed such a humihating poem, that we receive a 
 new stanza of it with indifference ; we ma}'- note one 
 novelty, — this string of preposterous conceits on the 
 tears of the Magdalen must in future close with a con- 
 ceit that swallows up all the rest : — 
 
 " Of such fair floods as this 
 Heaven the crystal ocean is." 
 
 Dr. Grosart takes this opportunity of recording an 
 interesting little discovery. Crashaw's important Latin
 
 190 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 poem "Bulla" is found to have made its first appear- 
 ance in a very rare Cambridge volume, the Crepundia 
 Siliaua of Heynsius, in 1646, two years after the poet's 
 ejection from his Fellowship. It appeared the same 
 year in the Delights of the Muses, with a considerable 
 number of variations of the text. It is a pity that 
 Crashaw did not write "Bulla" in English, for it is 
 full of the characteristics of his style.
 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY 
 
 THE period of English poetry which lies between 
 the decline of Ben Jonson and the rise of Dryden 
 was ruled with undisputed sway by a man whose 
 works are now as little read as those of any fifth-rate 
 Elizabethan dramatist. During the whole lifetime of 
 Milton, the fame of that glorious poet was obscured 
 and dwarfed by the exaggerated reputation of this 
 writer; and so general and so unshaken was the belief 
 in the lyrist of the day, that a Royalist gentleman of 
 Cambridge or an exiled courtier at Paris in the year 
 1650 would have laughed in your face had you sug- 
 gested that time could ever wither the deathless laurels 
 of Mr. Cowley, or untune the harmonies of his majestic 
 numbers. Yet in a very short space this work of de- 
 struction was most thoroughly done. The generation 
 of Dryden admired his genius passionately, but not 
 without criticism. The generation of Pope praised 
 him coldly, but without reading him, and within fifty 
 years of his own decease this nonpareil of the Re- 
 storation fell into total disfavour and oblivion. With 
 the revival of naturalistic poetry, the lyrists and 
 dramatists of the reign of Charles I. came once more 
 into favour. Crashaw, Quarles, Lovelace, martyrs, 
 
 pietists, and rakes, all the true children of the Muses, 
 
 191
 
 192 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 whatever their mode or matter, were restored and 
 reprinted. 
 
 Not these only, but some very small and unattractive 
 talents have lately been presented anew to the public ; 
 but Cowley, the one representative genius of the age, 
 as his contemporaries supposed, still lacked an editor 
 who would collect his scattered works and give him 
 the chance of a new lease of life, until in 188 1 the 
 Rev. A. B. Grosart issued his privately printed edition 
 in two 4to volumes, one of the best of his many 
 valuable publications. Cowley's prose essays, it must 
 be acknowledged, have held their ground in our litera- 
 ture, but as a poet he is a dead name, or living only 
 in depreciation and ridicule. We hope to show that, 
 however great his faults, this depreciation is unjust 
 and this ridicule absurd, and in doing so it will 
 be necessary to solve two questions — why Cowley 
 ever attained so immense a poetic reputation, and 
 why, having once gained it, he has so completely 
 lost it. 
 
 A wealthy citizen of London, stationer or grocer, 
 dying in the summer of 161 8, left, besides ample 
 provision for his widow, a sum of ;^iOOO to be divided 
 among his six children and one other not yet born. 
 In the autumn of the year this latter heir appeared, 
 and was christened Abraham Cowley. We, looking 
 back upon the history of the time, see that it was a 
 period of rapid poetic decadence into which this baby 
 was born. Shakespeare was dead ; Jonson and the 
 philosophic poets, to whom the newly awakened brain 
 was to be so intimately indebted, were already past
 
 Abraham Cowley 193 
 
 middle life. The years directly after the birth of 
 Cowley were to be darkened by the deaths of many 
 poets, but none were to be born, except Marvell, 
 Vaughan, and, much later, Dryden, for nearly forty 
 years. Of his immediate compeers, Milton was ten 
 years of age, Denham three, Suckling nine years, and 
 Lovelace only a few weeks older than himself. 
 
 We know nothing of his early childhood but what 
 he has himself told us with a charming simplicity — 
 namely that his mother's parlour was full of works of 
 devotion, among which he was so fortunate as to find 
 a copy of the Faery Queen. This became his con- 
 tinual reading, and, without much understanding of 
 the matter, he became so interpenetrated with the 
 delicious recurrence of the rhyme and rhythm that he 
 insensibly was made a poet. Before he was twelve 
 years old he had read the entire works of Spenser. 
 So much he himself tells us, but there can be no doubt 
 to those who study his earliest writings that the magic 
 of another name was added to the charm that woke 
 him into verse. At ten years of age, the child com- 
 posed an epical romance of Pyravius and Thisbe, which 
 is one of the most extraordinary instances of precocity 
 in the whole annals of literature. Indeed, to find a 
 parallel to it, we must leave the art of poetry alto- 
 gether, and note what was done by Mozart in music 
 or Lucas van Leyden in engraving. But this was 
 but the prelude to fresh infantine exertions. The 
 precocious boy was very early sent to Westminster 
 School, and his intense interest in versification and 
 the grace and charm of his manners won him many 
 
 N
 
 194 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 friends and patrons. To his schoolfellows he might 
 well seem the prodigy that we know they considered 
 him ; and the masters of the school, with a gentleness 
 unusual in those austerer times, encouraged his con- 
 tinued production of verses. In 1630, two years after 
 composing Pyramus and Thisbe, he attempted a bolder 
 flight in his little epic of Constantia and Phiietus, 
 being then twelve years of age, and by the year 1633 
 he had accumulated such a store of poems that his 
 friends determined to hide the treasure no longer from 
 the world. 
 
 The first edition of the Poetical Blossoms, by A. C, 
 is a charming little quarto of thirty-two leaves. It is 
 now one of the chief prizes of book-hunters, and a 
 great bibliographical rarity. It ought to possess, what 
 is often lost, a large portrait of the author at the 
 age of thirteen, as the frontispiece. Referring to this 
 volume in after-life, Cowley spoke of it as published 
 at the age of thirteen, in all probability recollecting 
 and being misled by this portrait; and his error has 
 been repeated ever since. As a matter of fact, how- 
 ever, he was in his fifteenth year. It opens with a 
 pompous little invocation to the Muse Melpomene, and 
 is then introduced to the public, after the fashion of 
 the day, by commendatory verses signed by two 
 schoolfellows. One of these, Robert Meade, became 
 a man of some note, and, twenty years after this, a 
 candidate himself for poetic honours in his comedy of 
 The Combat between Friendship and Love. Cowley's 
 contributions are five in number — " Constantia and 
 Phiietus," " Pyramus and Thisbe," " Elegy on the
 
 Abraham Cowley 195 
 
 Death of Dudley, Lord Carlton," " Elegy on Mr. 
 Richard Clark," and "A Dream of Elysium." 
 
 Let any reader of Pyramus and Thisbe consider how 
 naive, artless, and infantine are the writings of the 
 very cleverest child of ten that he has ever known 
 when compared with this first work of Cowley's. After 
 more than two hundred years it remains still readable 
 — much more readable, in fact, than many of its 
 author's more elaborate poems of maturity. The 
 story of that "palpable-gross play" that well beguiled 
 Theseus and Hippolyta to laughter, is here told in 
 all tragic seriousness, but not without several signs, 
 such as " the sucking of odoriferous breath," that show 
 Cowley to have been familiar with the drama so un- 
 successfully produced at Athens with Bottom for the 
 hero. The boy-poet has been ambitious enough to 
 invent a new stanza, and a rather good one too, as 
 will be acknov/ledged from this example. Thisbe finds 
 Pyramus dead, and after tearing her golden hair — 
 
 " She blames all-powerful Jove, and strives to take 
 His bleeding body from the moistened ground ; 
 She kisses his pale face till she doth make 
 It red with kissing, and then seeks to wake 
 
 His parting soul with mournful words, his wound 
 Washes with tears that her sweet voice confound." 
 
 Pyi'anius and Thisbe is a work which few of the 
 adult poets of that day would have been ashamed of 
 writing. It contains mistakes of rhyme and grammar 
 that might be so easily corrected that they form an 
 interesting proof that the poem was not touched up 
 for the press by older hands ; but in other respects it
 
 196 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 is smooth and singularly mature. The heroic verse 
 in which it is written is nerveless, but correct, and 
 the story is told in a straightforward way, and with a 
 regular progress, that are extraordinary in so young 
 a child. It was dedicated to the head-master of West- 
 minster, Lambert Osbalston. 
 
 The amazing promise of Py ramus and Thisbe is 
 hardly justified by the jcleverness of the poem written 
 two 3^ears later, Constantia and Philetus. There is 
 here hardly any sign at all of immaturity, but a far 
 worse fault than childishness has stepped in. Instead 
 of being like the puerile poem of a little boy, it is hke 
 the correct and tedious work of some man that never 
 can be famous. In point of grammar and rhyme there 
 is a great advance apparent, and we see the justice of 
 the pretty phrase Cowley afterwards used in speaking 
 of these juvenile pieces, " that even so far backward 
 there remain yet some traces of me in the little foot- 
 steps of a child ; " for the language has already begun 
 to take the same ingenious turns and involutions that 
 characterise The Blistress and the Odes. It is, indeed, 
 singular that, at the age of twelve, the child should be 
 so much the father of the man as to produce this most 
 Cowley an stanza, illustrative of the author's high-flown 
 rhetoric, as much as those I have just referred to are 
 of his ingenuity : — 
 
 " Oh ! mighty Cupid ! whose unbounded sway 
 Hath often ruled the Olympian Thunderer, 
 Whom all celestial deities obey, 
 
 Whom men and gods both reverence and fear 1 
 Oh, force Constantia's heart to yield to Love, 
 Of all iky works the Masterpiece 'twill prove.^'
 
 Abraham Cowley 197 
 
 Constantia and PJiiletus is an extremel}^ tragical tale, 
 not so briefly or so simply told as Py ramus and 
 T/iisbe, and is padded out by " songs " and " letters " 
 to the extent of nearly seven hundred lines, an extra- 
 ordinary feat, of course, for so young a child. Of the 
 other pieces in the volume, the " Elegy on Dudley, 
 Lord Carlton," an imitation of Ben Jonson, must date 
 from the year of that statesman's death, 163 1 ; "A 
 Dream of Elysium " is almost a very charming reverie 
 on the poets of old and the dreams of neo-pagan 
 romance : we say " almost," for something of the 
 essence of poetry is wanting. 
 
 While Cowley was posing as the child-genius at 
 Westminster, a youth ten years his senior was about 
 to retire to a solitude at Horton which was to enrich 
 English poetry with some of its most exquisite and 
 most perfect treasures. It is possible that the fame 
 of Cowley's precocity had reached the ears of Milton 
 when he lamented, in his earliest sonnet, now the 
 seventh, that no bud or blossom adorned his late 
 spring, such as endued "more timely-happy spirits." 
 However this ma}' be, we have no reason to prefer 
 to the slow maturity of such a manhood as his the 
 exhausting precocity of Cowley's marvellous boyhood. 
 His contemporaries, however, thought otherwise, and 
 when the Poetical Blossoms appeared in 1633 it en- 
 joyed an immediate popularity. A few months earlier, 
 Milton's first printed English verses, the lines on 
 Shakespeare, had appeared in front of the Second 
 Folio. Whether Ben Jonson, now bed-ridden and 
 almost blind, but still eager in poetic matters, expressed
 
 198 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 any favour for the verses of Cowley, is not known. 
 But various signs in the writings of the latter tend to 
 show that he was increasingly influenced by the style 
 of Jonson, and anxious to write like one of his poetic 
 "sons." The very year that the public career of 
 Cowley commenced, that of Jonson virtually closed in 
 the publication of The Tale of a Tub. But Randolph, 
 that admirable writer and dramatic poet, whose early 
 death cut short a career that promised great things in 
 literature, was continuing the traditions of the school 
 with the utmost brilliance. There can be no doubt 
 that in longing to go to Cambridge, as we know that 
 Cowley did, the desire of associating with Randolph was 
 not the least inducement. His Lovers Riddle proves 
 that he was familiar with The Jealous Lovers, printed 
 in 1632. But we shall presently return to this. 
 
 Just as Cowley was leaving Westminster to go to 
 Cambridge, in 1636, a second edition of Poetical 
 Blossoms was called for, and appeared in a smaller 
 form, much augmented. Among the additions was 
 an ode containing these fine and thoughtful verses 
 written at the age of thirteen : — 
 
 " This only grant me, that my means may lie 
 Too low for envy, for contempt too high ; 
 Some honour I would have, 
 Not from great deeds, but good alone ; 
 Th' unknown are better than ill-known. 
 Rumour can ope the grave : 
 Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends 
 Not on the number, but the choice of friends. 
 
 Books should, not business, entertain the light, 
 And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night.
 
 Abraham Cowley 199 
 
 My house a cottage, more 
 Than palace, and should fitting be 
 For all my use, no luxury. 
 My garden painted o'er 
 With nature's hand, not art's ; and pleasures yield 
 Horace might envy in his Sabine field." 
 
 It was for strains of this elevated morality that Cowley 
 won the enthusiastic praise of such later didactic 
 writers as Denham and Roscommon, and in a certain 
 sense originated a school. As an example of another 
 class of gifts, we may read with pleasure the amusing 
 piece called The Poetical Revetige, the story of which 
 may be here told in prose. Cowley, having made an 
 appointment with a young companion to meet him in 
 Westminster Hall at a certain hour, waited in vain, 
 till he despaired of his friend, and out of curiosity 
 went into one of the courts. Here he found a vacant 
 seat, and made himself at home, when a fellow in a 
 satin suit came and pushed him out. Whereupon 
 Cowley expostulated so loudly that a barrister, "a 
 neat man in a ruff," rose and said, "Boy, get you 
 gone; this is no school!" To which Master Impu- 
 dence replied, " Oh no ! for if it were, all you gowned 
 men would go up for false Latin ! " At this 
 
 " The young man 
 Aforesaid, in the satin suit, began 
 To strike me ; doubtless there had been a fray 
 Had I not providently skipped away, 
 Without replying," 
 
 but not without inwardly murmuring this curse : 
 
 " May he 
 Be by his father in his study took 
 At Shakespeare's Plays, instead of my Lord Coke."
 
 200 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 The additional poems are all far better than the first 
 infantine verses. There is more eloquence, more 
 enthusiasm, more power, and some of the odes are 
 fully worthy, at least in extract, of a place in all collec- 
 tions of English poetry. They breathe a great pride 
 in the art of poes}'^, great desire for and confidence of 
 fame, and a scholastic turn of mind. 
 
 " 'Tis not a pyramid of marble stone, 
 Though high as our ambition ; 
 'Tis not a tomb cut out in brass, which can 
 
 Give life to the ashes of a man, 
 But verses only." 
 
 Throughout Cowley's life, however occupied with 
 courtly intrigue or with public duty, he never failed 
 to be true to this boyish declaration of faith. 
 
 He was entered a scholar of Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, and proceeded thither with the manuscript of 
 his pastoral drama of Loves Riddle, written about the 
 age of sixteen, in his pocket. Though Randolph was 
 unhappily dead, there were others who would welcome 
 the boy-genius to the banks of the Cam. Suckling, 
 Cleveland, Fanshawe, Beaumont, and Crashaw were 
 all at Cambridge; and with the last of these, at any 
 rate, he struck up an immediate friendship. It is pro- 
 bable also that the needy and forlorn Butler, in some 
 obscure corner of a college, was picking up such odd 
 scraps of learning as vary the pages of Hudibras. 
 Cowle}^, with a different fate, came into port with 
 flowing sails, and lost no time in winning a position. 
 In 1637 a third edition of the Poetical Blossoms was 
 published, and in 1638 his pastoral comedy of Lovers
 
 Abraham Cowley 201 
 
 Riddle. This made what was then considered a very 
 dainty little volume, adorned with a portrait of the 
 young author, pretty but pertly smiling, while a florid 
 angel descends from heaven with a great quill pen in 
 one hand, and in the other a garland of laurel that he 
 lays on the flowing silky locks. A prologue to Sir 
 Kenelm Digby apologises that 
 
 " The style is low, such as you'll easily take 
 For what a swain might say or a boy make." 
 
 This boyish drama is one of the most readable 
 things that Cowley ever executed, and is in distinct 
 following, without imitation, of Randolph's Jealous 
 Lovers. It is written in good blank verse, with con- 
 siderable sprightliness of dialogue, and with several 
 threads of intrigues that are held well in hand, and 
 drawn skilfully together at last. Callidora, the heroine, 
 flies from her father's court, and Act I. describes her 
 arrival and welcome by some vulgar but amusing 
 shepherds ; the next act shows how anguished at 
 her loss every one at her father's court is, but espe- 
 cially her lover Philistes ; and the rest of the action, 
 of course, records the vicissitudes that prevent their 
 reunion until the fifth act. I have no space to quote, 
 but may in passing be permitted to refer to the last 
 scene of the second act, as containing a passage of 
 genuine and delightful humour. In Lovers Riddle 
 there is much, as I have said, to praise ; but there 
 is an absence of many quaHties that Cowley never 
 possessed, and which are essential to pastoral poetry. 
 There is no genuine passion, no knowledge of the
 
 202 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 phenomena of nature, no observant love of birds or 
 flowers or the beauties of country life. All the exqui- 
 site touches that illuminate The Faithful Shepherdess 
 are eminently absent ; nor have we in the precocious 
 humour of the world-wise boy any equivalent for the 
 sweet garrulous music of Chalkhill or Browne. 
 
 In February of the same year, 1638, was published, 
 but not translated until by Charles Johnson in 1705, 
 a five-act Latin comedy, Naiifragium Joculare, in prose 
 and verse, the scene laid at Dunkirk, but the style and 
 persons strictly imitative of Plautus. In emulation of 
 the Miles Gloriosus, there is a loud boasting soldier 
 named Bombardomachides ! Later on in 1638, Cowley 
 completed his twentieth year. At the age when youths 
 of talent are usually beginning to dream of future 
 enterprise, he found himself an admired and popular 
 poet, author of three successful works, and highly 
 esteemed as a rising scholar. With long fair hair 
 falling on his shoulders, and with a fresh, intelligent 
 face, he must without doubt have been an elegant 
 youth in the fashion of the day, even if with none of 
 the superlative beauty of John Milton, "the Lady of 
 Christ's." With all the adulation which he received, 
 his sensible young head does not seem to have been 
 turned. Past all the praises of the present, he looked 
 wistfully forward into the future ; and with some ink- 
 ling, perhaps, that his fine talents could not promise the 
 lasting crown he sought for, he set himself the memor- 
 able enigma with which his Miscella7ties open : — 
 
 " What shall I do to be for ever known 
 And make the age to come my own ? "
 
 Abraham Cowley 203 
 
 With these same Miscellanies and with the preparation 
 of the volume called The Mistress he seems to have 
 been quietly and happily occupied until the breaking 
 out of the Civil War. We can at all events affix dates 
 to the elegies on Sir Henry Wootton (1639) and Sir 
 Anthony Vandyke (1641), each displaying increased 
 facility in skilful employment of the heroic couplet. 
 
 The visit of Prince Charles to Cambridge in 1641 
 gave occasion to the production of a more bulky work. 
 In a great hurry Cowley was called upon to wTite a 
 comedy, and The Guardian^ an ill-digested, unrevised 
 performance, was acted before His Royal Highness on 
 March 12. The prologue fiercely satirised the Round- 
 heads, and sneered at Prynne, who had just published 
 his ridiculous Jersey poem of Mont-Orgueil. The 
 farcical part of the piece is in prose, but the grand 
 personages, Lucia and her lover Trueman Junior, talk 
 in blank verse. The part of a poet, Doggrell, is 
 amusing, but insisted on too much. One sentence put 
 into the mouth of a girl, Aurelia, is worth recording : — 
 
 " I shall never hear my virginals when I play upon 'em, for 
 her daughter Tabitha's singing of psalms ; the first pious deed 
 will be to banish Shakespeare and Ben Jonson out of the 
 parlour, and to bring in their rooms Marprelate and Prynne's 
 works." 
 
 The Guardian was never included in the works of 
 Cowley, and underwent some curious vicissitudes. It 
 was not printed until 1650, when its author was in 
 exile in Paris, and this, apparently, unauthorised 
 edition is very rare. When Cowley returned to 
 England he entirely rewrote the play in the year 1658,
 
 204 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 and it was brought out on the stage as The Cutter of 
 Coleman Street^ but proved a complete faiUire. Cowley 
 finally tried the effect of his piece in print by publish- 
 ing it in 1663, but again to receive the disapproval of 
 the critics. 
 
 Happy in his work at the University, and in his 
 newly attained fellowship, the young poet was busy on 
 many literary schemes, and mainly on an epic, the 
 Davideis, on the sorrows and victories of King David, 
 when the great Civil War broke upon him like a wave. 
 After the indecisive battle of Edgehill, Oxford became 
 for a while the headquarters of the Royalists. Thither 
 Crashaw had already gone, in 164 1, and Cowley was 
 now fain to follow. Cambridge was now no longer a 
 bed of roses to a Royalist poet, and Cowley " was 
 soon torn thence by that public violent storm which 
 would suffer nothing to stand where it did, but rooted 
 up every plant, even from the princely cedars to me, 
 the hyssop. Yet I had as good fortune as could have 
 befallen me in such a tempest, for I was cast by it into 
 the favour of one of the best persons, and into the 
 court of one of the best princesses of the world." 
 These were Lord Falkland and Queen Henrietta Maria, 
 to whom the sobriety and excellent fidelity of Cowley 
 pointed him out as a fit staff to lean upon in such 
 perilous times. 
 
 Yet it was not in him not to cling to scholarship, 
 and for two years more, or somewhat less, he pursued 
 his studies at Oxford with no less ardour than before 
 at Cambridge. But Newbury shook and Naseby broke 
 the hopes of the Cavaliers. The Queen fled to Paris,
 
 Abraham Cowley 205 
 
 and Cowley followed her, leaving the Earl of Manchester 
 and his Puritan divines to purge the University and 
 eject the sixty-five fellow^s, of w^hom Crashaw was one. 
 The melancholy mystic repaired, as we have seen in 
 the last chapter, to Paris, where in 1646 Cowley 
 found him in utter destitution, and, with character- 
 istic w^armth of heart, insisted on labouring for his 
 relief. 
 
 In the meantime Cowley himself was on terms of 
 confidential intimacy with the Queen and the heads 
 of her party. All his time and thought were dedicated 
 to delicate diplomac}', and he was despatched to various 
 parts of Jersey, Scotland, Flanders, and Holland on 
 private state business. But when the King was given 
 up by the Scots into the custody of the Parliamentary 
 Commissioners, in January 1647, Cowley was recalled 
 to Paris to undertake a yet more onerous duty. To 
 no one less trustworthy than himself would Henrietta 
 Maria delegate the preparation of those letters in cipher 
 by means of which she communicated with her husband 
 till his execution in 1649. Cowley was next occupied 
 in corresponding with the leaders of Ro3^alist reaction 
 in Scotland and Ireland, But when the young King 
 Charles took refuge in Holland, and the Anglo-Parisian 
 Court was in some measure broken up, it was sug- 
 gested that Cowley should return to England, "and, 
 under pretence of privacy and retirement, should take 
 occasion of giving notice of the posture of things in 
 this country." He was immediately caught, however, 
 and imprisoned, apparently in the year 1655 ; nor did 
 he regain his liberty on a less bail tlian of ;^iooo.
 
 2o6 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 At Cromwell's death in 1658 he ventured back into 
 France, and remained there until the Restoration. 
 
 In the course of eighteen years of enforced inaction, 
 much had occurred to literary men, though little to 
 literature itself. Just before the Civil War broke out, 
 a whole group of eminent dramatists, among whom 
 may be named Jonson, Ford, Massinger, and Field, 
 had passed away. The years of contention saw the 
 deaths of Carew, Suckling, Cartwright, Quarles, and 
 Drummond. In 1649 Cowley's dear friend and brother, 
 Richard Crashaw, had breathed his last at the shrine 
 of Loreto. A new generation had meanwhile been 
 born — Shadwell, Wycherley, Southerne, and Otway. 
 Even in the Civil War, moreover, poetry was read 
 and published. In 1647, the year before the Hesperi- 
 des was brought out, an edition, probably pirated, of 
 Cowley's love-cycle, called The Mistress, was issued 
 in England. From the last piece in this collection we 
 learn, or are intended to believe, that Cowley wrote 
 them in three years, during which time he was tor- 
 mented with a love-passion that he saw at last to be 
 hopeless. It is just possible that, like Waller, he was 
 really devoted to some lady of rank beyond his reach, 
 but the poems themselves breathe no ardour of tender- 
 ness, and such a supposition is directly at variance 
 with his own singularly frank exposition of the genesis 
 of the book. " Poets," he says, " are scarce thought 
 freemen of their compan}'-, without paying some duties, 
 and obliging themselves to be true to love. Sooner 
 or later they must all pass through their trial, like 
 some Mahometan monks that are bound by their order.
 
 Abraham Cowley 207 
 
 once at least in their life, to make a pilgrimage to 
 Mecca." 
 
 The Mistress was fated to become one of the most 
 admired books of the age. It was a pocket compendium 
 of the science of being ingenious in affairs of the heart; 
 and its purity and scholastic phrase recommended it 
 to many who were no judges of poetry, but very keen 
 censors of morality. To us it is the most unreadable 
 production of its author, dry and tedious, without 
 tenderness, without melancholy, without music. Here 
 and there we find a good rhetorical line, such as — 
 
 " Love which is soul to body and soul of me ;" 
 
 and, what is very curious, almost all the pieces lead 
 off with a sonorous and well-turned phrase. But 
 scarcely one is readable throughout; scarcely one is 
 even ridiculous enough for quotation. All are simply 
 dull, overloaded with ingenious, prosaic fancy, and set 
 to eccentric measures of the author's invention, that 
 but serve to prove his metrical ineptitude. 
 
 It is not correct to say that these poems continue 
 and cultivate to excess the over-ornate style of the 
 philosophical poets of the generation before. When 
 Habington loads his pages with tasteless conceits, he 
 over-colours his style in the manner learned from 
 Lyly, Marini, and Gongora. So Donne, in a more 
 brilliant and masculine way, errs in the introduction of 
 unsuitable and monstrous ornament. But Cowley is 
 hardly ornamented at all, and his heresy is not so 
 much that of Marini as that of the inflated, prosaic 
 French poets of the class of Saint Amant. He seizes
 
 2o8 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 an idea, perhaps sensible, perhaps preposterous, but 
 in no case beautiful ; he clothes this idea with illustra- 
 tion drawn, not from external nature or objects of any 
 kind, but from the supposed phenomena of the human 
 mind. I think we can trace all this pedantic ingenuity 
 to the personal training and example of Dr. Henry 
 More, who was the great oracle of English Platonism 
 at Cambridge during Cowley's residence there, and 
 whose extraordinary volume of Philosophical Poeins^ 
 published in 1640, may, I think, be constantly found 
 reflected in the lyrics of the younger poet. And in 
 considering why these poems of Cowley's were popular, 
 we must not forget to note that the prose writings of 
 More and others of his stamp were greatly delighted 
 in by the seventeenth century, although now entirely 
 unread. The taste for these ingenuities and para- 
 doxical turns of thought came like a disease, and 
 passed away. So Cowley, who confidently believed 
 that time to come would admit him to have been 
 "Love's last and greatest prophet," and who was 
 quoted as having written what ensphered the whole 
 world of love, is now justly denied the humblest place 
 among the erotic poets. One piece alone must be 
 excepted in this sweeping condemnation. The poem 
 called " The Wish " is so simple, sincere, and fresh, 
 that we are disposed to wonder at finding so delicious 
 a well in such an arid desert. Thus it besins : — 
 
 '&' 
 
 " Well then, I now do plainly see 
 This busy world and I shall ne'er agree ; 
 The very honey of all earthly joy 
 
 Does of all meats the soonest cloy,
 
 Abraham Cowley 209 
 
 And they, methinks, deserve my pity, 
 Who for it can endure the stings, 
 The crowd, and buzz, and murmurings, 
 Of this great hive, the City. 
 
 " Ah, yet, ere I descend to the grave, 
 May I a small house and large garden have ! 
 And a few friends and many books, both true, 
 Both wise, and both delightful too ! 
 And since Love ne'er will from me flee, 
 A mistress moderately fair. 
 And good as guardian-angels are, 
 Only beloved, and loving me." 
 
 The moral purity of Cowley's muse in so licentious 
 a time must not pass without praise, if only to rebut 
 the foolish and fanatic rage of such critics as the 
 Rev. Edmund Elys, who sought, after his death, to 
 persuade the public to the contrary. As a matter of 
 fact, Cowley seldom forgot to write as became a 
 gentleman. 
 
 In 1648 a very inferior satire, The Four Ages of 
 England, and again a piece of doggerel called A Satire 
 against Separatists, were printed, with the name of 
 Abraham Cowley on the title-pages. With these pro- 
 ductions he had nothing to do, nor with the printing 
 of The Guardian in 1650. The increased demand for 
 his unpublished writings and the fear of piracy deter- 
 mined him, so soon as he was released on bail, to 
 set about revising his genuine writings for the press. 
 The result was the appearance, in 1656, of a very 
 important volume, the Works of A. Cowley, in small 
 folio. This contained many things long ago written 
 or imagined, and never before presented to the public. 
 
 o
 
 2IO Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 The opening section of the book consisted of the 
 Miscellanies, poems the composition of which had ex- 
 tended over many years. Among the most notable 
 pieces are "The Motto," an admirable poem on his 
 artistic aspirations and ambitions; "The Ode of Wit," 
 which contains an odd reference to a Bajazet on the 
 stage, which seems just too early to be Racine's, and 
 may probably be Magnon's, which was brought out at 
 Paris in 1648; a horrid "Ode to Dick, my Friend," 
 which is worthy of study as a perfect summary of 
 Cowley's sins of style ; a prettily conceived poem called 
 " Friendship in Absence," which is unhappily spoiled 
 by an inherent wooden ingenuity that never ceases to 
 obtrude itself; "The Chronicle," an amusing jeu 
 d'esprit, in which he feigns to make for himself such 
 a list of conquered hearts as Leporello quotes on 
 his master's account in Don Giovanni ; an epistle to 
 Davenant from Jersey, complimenting him on the 
 publication of Gondibert, and making fun of Prynne's 
 absurd verses ; and finally two really splendid elegies 
 on William Harvey and on Richard Crashaw. 
 
 These two latter poems, as perhaps the finest wheat 
 that the winnowing of criticism will finally leave on this 
 wide granary-floor, we must examine more at leisure. 
 William Harvey, who is not by any means to be 
 confounded with the great physiologist, was a young 
 friend and fellow-student of Cowley's, with whom he 
 was on terms of sympathetic and affectionate intimacy. 
 This excellent and gifted lad, like another Arthur 
 Hallam, was taken away suddenly by fever in the 
 midst of his hopes and labours. Cowley celebrated
 
 Abraham Cowley 211 
 
 his memory in an elegy of unusual directness and 
 tenderness : — 
 
 " Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say 
 
 Have ye not seen us walking every day ? 
 
 Was there a tree about, which did not know 
 The love betwixt us two ? 
 
 Henceforth, ye gentle trees, for ever fade, 
 Or your sad branches thicker join 
 And into darksome shades combine, 
 
 Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid. 
 
 This seems to prophesy of that later lovely dirge of 
 Thyrsis and the tree that knew the soul of the Scholar- 
 Gipsy. Cowley was incapable of long sustaining these 
 level flights, and the poem grows didactic and flat as 
 it proceeds, but gathers fire and force in the last 
 stanza : — 
 
 " And if the glorious saints cease not to know 
 Their wretched friends who fight with life below, 
 Thy flame to me doth still the same abide, 
 
 Only more pure and rarified. 
 There whilst immortal hymns thou dost rehearse, 
 
 Thou dost with holy pity see 
 
 Our dull and earthly poesy 
 Where grief and misery can be joined with verse." 
 
 But the fine elegiac qualities of these memorial verses 
 on Harvey are quickened into ardour, nay, we may 
 almost say fired into rapture, in the lines on the death 
 of Crashaw. In the first case, the poignant regret of an 
 intimate and private sorrow inspired the poem ; in the 
 second, the public loss of a poet whom Cowley might 
 be well forgiven for fancying absolutely supreme, were 
 combined with personal grief at the loss of a friend.
 
 212 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Friendship and poetry were the two subjects that 
 alone set Cowley's peculiar gifts on flame. Languid 
 or insincere on other subjects, on these two he never 
 failed to be eloquent. In the elegy on Crashaw these 
 combined to stimulate his lyric powers to their utmost, 
 and the result was most brilliant. Crashaw, after 
 suffering so much after his ejection from Cambridge, 
 had been helped, as we have seen, by the noble exer- 
 tions of Cowley. When the news of his death at 
 Loreto was circulated, hardly a voice in England was 
 raised to his honour save that of Cowley, who never 
 failed in manly and courageous acts of fidelity. " Poet 
 and saint," he begins, braving all criticism in the outset, 
 thou art now in heaven, companion of the angels, who, 
 when they call on thee for songs, can have no greater 
 pleasure than to hear thine old earthly hymns. " Thy 
 spotless muse," says Cowley, "like Mary, did contain 
 the Godhead ; " and did disdain to sing of any lower 
 matter than eternity. In this strain he proceeds half 
 through the elegy, and then in a sudden ecstasy of 
 contemplation he cries : — 
 
 " How well, blest Swan, did Fate contrive thy death, 
 And made thee render up thy tuneful breath 
 In thy great mistress' arms ! thou most divine 
 And richest offering of Loreto's shrine ! 
 Where like some holy sacrifice to expire, 
 A fever burns thee, and Love lights the fire. 
 Angels, they say, brought the famed chapel there, 
 And bore the sacred load in triumph through the air, — 
 'Tis surer much they brought thee there, and they 
 And thou, their charge, went singing all the way." 
 
 But he feels it needful to apologise to the Anglican
 
 Abraham Cowley 213 
 
 Church for saying that angels led Crashaw when from 
 her he went, and thus the elegy finally winds up : — 
 
 " His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might 
 Be wrong ; his life, I'm sure, was in the right, 
 And I myself a Catholic will be. 
 So far, at least, great Saint, to pray to thee. 
 Hail, Bard triumphant ! and some care bestow 
 On us, the poets militant below, 
 Opposed by our old enemy, adverse Chance, 
 Attacked by Envy and by Ignorance, 
 Enchained by Beauty, tortured by Desires, 
 Exposed by tyrant Love to savage beasts and fires. 
 Thou from low earth in nobler flames didst rise, 
 And, like Elijah, mount alive the skies, 
 EUsha-like (but with a wish much less 
 More fit thy greatness and my littleness) 
 Lo, here I beg, — I whom thou once didst prove 
 So humble to esteem, so good to love, — 
 Not that thy spirit might on me doubled be, 
 I ask but half thy mighty spirit for me, 
 And when my Muse soars with so strong a wing 
 'Twill learn of things divine, and first of thee to sing." 
 
 The reader will not need to be persuaded that these 
 are very exquisite and very brilliant lines. Had Cowley 
 written often in such a nervous strain as this, he had 
 needed no interpreter or apologist to-day ; nay, more — 
 Dryden, his occupation gone, would have had to pour 
 the vigour of his genius into some other channel. The 
 tenderness of the allusion to Crashaw's sufferings and 
 persecution, the tact and sweetness of the plea for his 
 saintship, the sudden passion of invocation, the modest 
 yet fervent prayer at the close, — all these are felicities 
 of the first order of rhetorical poetry.
 
 214 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 At the close of the Miscellanies were printed, in the 
 volume of 1656, twelve translations or imitations of 
 the Odes of Anacreon done into octosyllabic verse, or 
 rather into that iambic measure of either seven or eight 
 syllables, but always of four cadences, which Milton 
 used with such admirable effect in his minor poems 
 and Conius. Cowley, whose ear was certainly not 
 sensitive, could ill afford to compete with Milton in 
 melody, and made some sad discords with this delicate 
 instrument. Stanley, again, in 165 1, had introduced 
 this kind of writing to the public with a great deal 
 more spirit. Still, Cowley's Anacreontics are frequently 
 pretty and sparkling, and they have been praised, 
 even in our own time, at the expense of all his other 
 writings. In this judgment, however, I can by no 
 means coincide. 
 
 The second division of the folio is occupied with the 
 Mistress, reprinted from the edition of 1647. This, 
 again, is followed by the Pindarique Odes. In pub- 
 lishing these odes Cowley performed a dangerous in- 
 novation ; nothing at all like these pompous lyrics in 
 vers libres had hitherto been attempted or suggested in 
 English. In his preface he acknowledged this with a 
 proud humility characteristic of the man. " I am in 
 great doubt whether they will be understood by most 
 readers, na}^, even by very many who are well enough 
 acquainted with the common roads and ordinary tracks 
 of poesy. The figures are unusual and bold even to 
 temerit}', and such as I durst not have to do withal in 
 any other kind of poetry : the numbers are various 
 and irregular, and sometimes, especially some of the
 
 Abraham Cowley 215 
 
 long ones, seem harsh and uncouth, if the just measures 
 and cadences be not observed in the pronunciation. 
 So that almost all their sweetness and numerosity, 
 which is to be found, if I mistake not, in the roughest, 
 if rightly repeated, lies in a manner wholly at the 
 mercy of the reader." The readers of the day were 
 very merciful or very uncritical, for it was chiefly on 
 the score of those raucous odes that so many sweet 
 words were said about "the majestick numbers of Mr. 
 Cowley." They became the rage, and founded a whole 
 school of imitators. Bishop Sprat states in his Life of 
 Cowley that the poet was set thinking on this style of 
 poetry by finding himself with the works of Pindar in 
 a place where there were no other books. It seems 
 likely that this place was Jersey or some other 
 temporary station of exile, while his headquarters 
 were at Paris. 
 
 The writing of irregular inflated verse of a rhetorical 
 character was just coming into fashion in France. 
 Although condemned by Boileau, it was frequently 
 practised by Corneille, and still more characteristically, 
 long after Cowley's death, by Racine in Esther and 
 Athalie. But to Cowley is due the praise of inventing 
 or introducing a style of ode which was a new thing 
 in modern literature, and which took firm hold of our 
 poetry until, in Collins, it received its apotheosis and 
 its death-blow. But though the chaster form of ode 
 designed by Collins from a Greek model has ever since 
 his day ruled in our poetic art, there has always been 
 a tendency to return to the old standard of Cowley. 
 So lately as our own day, Mr. Lowell's Commemoration
 
 2i6 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Ode is a specimen of the informal poem of unequal 
 lines and broken stanzas supposed to be in the manner 
 of Pindar, but truly the descendant of our Royalist 
 poet's " majestick numbers." * Keats, Shelley, and 
 Swinburne, on the other hand, have restored to the 
 ode its harmony and shapeliness. Congreve attempted 
 a diversion in favour of regularity, but in vain, and 
 until the days of Collins and Gray, the ode modelled 
 upon Cowley was not only the universal medium for 
 congratulatory lyrics and pompous occasional pieces, 
 but it was almost the only variety permitted tc the 
 melancholy generations over whom the heroic couplet 
 reigned supreme. Dryden, whose Song on St. Cecilia's 
 Day directly imitates Cowley's Ode on the Resurrec- 
 tion, used it with grand effect for his rolling organ- 
 music. The forgotten lyrists of the Restoration found 
 it a peculiarly convenient instrument in their bound 
 and inflexible fingers. Pope only once seriously 
 diverged from the inevitable couplet, and then to 
 adopt the ode-form of Cowley. Yet so rapidly had 
 the fame of the latter declined that Pope could ask, 
 in 1737— 
 
 "Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet, 
 His moral pleases, not his pointed wit ; 
 Forgot his Epic, nay, Pindaric art, 
 But still I love the language of his heart." 
 
 The language of the heart has not much to do with 
 the Odes of 1656. They are fifteen in number, and 
 open with two paraphrases of Pindar himself, the second 
 
 * See Appendix.
 
 Abraham Cowley 217 
 
 Olympic and the first Nemean. Following these is a 
 praise of " Pindar's unnavigable Song," in imitation of 
 Horace. The remaining twelve are supposed to be 
 original, but two are taken from the prophetic Scrip- 
 tures. One on " Destiny " contains the following lines, 
 which form a favourable example of Cowley's style of 
 Pindarising and of the construction of his odes. In 
 a series of grotesque and rather unseemly images, he 
 declares that he was taken from his mother's childbed 
 by the lyric Muse, and that she addressed him thus, as 
 he lay naked in her hands : — 
 
 " ' Thou of my church shalt be ; 
 Hate and renounce,' said she, 
 'Wealth, honour, pleasures, all the world for me. 
 Thou neither great at court, nor in the war, 
 Nor at the Exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar. 
 Content thyself with the small barren praise 
 That neglected verse doth raise.' 
 She spake, and all my years to come 
 Took their unlucky doom. 
 Their several ways of life let others choose, 
 Their several pleasures let them use. 
 But I was born for love, and for a Muse. 
 
 " With fate what boots it to contend ? 
 Such I began, such am, and so must end. 
 The star that did my being frame 
 
 Was but a lambent flame, 
 And some small light it did dispense. 
 But neither heat nor influence. 
 No matter, Cowley, let proud Fortune see 
 That thou canst her despise no less than she does thee. 
 Let all her gifts the portion be 
 Of folly, lust, and flattery. 
 Fraud, extortion, calumny,
 
 21 8 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Murder, infidelity, 
 Rebellion, and hypocrisy. 
 Do not thou grieve or blush to be 
 As all the inspired tuneful men, 
 And all thy great forefathers were from Homer down to Ben." 
 
 With such a sonorous hyber-alexandrine he loves 
 to wind his odes up in a stormy close. Else, in spite 
 of much well and even nobly said, and in spite of 
 occasional lines and couplets such as — 
 
 " Whether some brave young man's untimely fate 
 In words worth dying for he celebrate," 
 
 or, 
 
 " Where never fish did fly 
 And with short silver wings cut the low liquid sky,' 
 
 which linger in the memory, the grandiose language 
 and the broken versification unite to weary the ear 
 and defy the memory. Nor can the Odes ever again 
 take a living place in literature. But to the student 
 they are very interesting as the forerunners of a whole 
 current of loud-mouthed lyric invocation not yet silent 
 after more than two centuries. 
 
 The folio of 1656 closed with the sacred epic of the 
 Davideis, on the sorrows and achievements of David. 
 We have already seen that this poem was conceived, 
 and in great part written, while Cowley was at 
 Cambridge. It is in four books, and composed in the 
 heroic couplet, varied with occasional alexandrines, 
 another innovation introduced by Cowley and accepted 
 by Dryden, but excluded from the rules of verse by 
 Pope. The first book of the Davideis opens with an 
 invocation, couched in language very similar to that
 
 Abraham Cowley 219 
 
 employed in the Elegy on Crashaw, and bearing 
 internal evidence of being of a later date than the rest 
 of the piece. These lines may be quoted as excep- 
 tionally tuneful and earnest : — 
 
 " Lo, with pure hands thy heavenly fires to take, 
 My well-changed Muse I a chaste vestal make ! 
 From earth's vain joys, and love's soft witchcraft free, 
 I consecrate my Magdalene to thee ! 
 Lo, this great work, a temple to thy praise. 
 On polished pillars of strong verse I raise ! " 
 
 The action commences in hell, where the devil calls 
 for a spirit who will tempt Saul. Envy replies, and 
 her figure is described in lines of great power and 
 realistic horror, which were evidently studied by 
 Milton before he wrote his far finer description of Sin 
 and Death. Envy flies up to Saul's palace, and 
 whispers jealousy of David in his ear. 
 
 " With that she takes 
 One of her worst, her best-beloved snakes : 
 ' Softly, dear worm, soft and unseen,' said she, 
 * Into his bosom steal, and in it be 
 My viceroy.' At that word she took her flight, 
 And her loose shape dissolved into the night." 
 
 We are then transported to heaven, and into the 
 presence of God Himself, who sends an angel to David. 
 In consequence, David goes to play before Saul, and 
 Saul in vain tries to kill him. The book closes with 
 a lengthy description of the Prophets' College, which 
 appears to have been closely modelled on the Univer- 
 sity of Cambridge. In certain passages, such as the 
 pretty description of David and his wife walking
 
 220 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 among the lemon-trees, Cowley approaches nearer 
 than usual to a naturalistic style in poetry. The other 
 three books of this epic are tedious and redundant 
 beyond all endurance. It is, in fact, the sort of poem 
 with which, if you sit on the grass in a quiet place 
 some summer afternoon, you cannot by any means fail 
 to slumber soundly. This is indeed its only merit, 
 save that of marking a distinct step in the process of 
 the ossification of the English heroic couplet. I must 
 not omit, however, to acknowledge that in the third 
 book there is a serenade, " Awake, awake, my lyre," 
 which ought to rank among Cowley's most accom- 
 plished lyrics. At the end was printed a translation, 
 by the author, of the first book only, into Latin 
 hexameters. 
 
 While the volume we have been examining in detail 
 was being prepared for the press, Cowley's position 
 was considered so equivocal, that he was urged, by 
 way of diverting political suspicion, to study for some 
 profession. He chose that of medicine, and although 
 he was now forty years of age, worked like a young 
 student at anatomy and materia inedica. In December 
 1657, he passed a final examination at Oxford, but it 
 does not appear to be recorded whether he ever prac- 
 tised as a physician. The principal consequence of 
 this line of labour was to interest Cowley in botany, 
 which henceforward became increasingly his favourite 
 study. 
 
 At the death of Cromwell, as we have seen, he took 
 occasion to slip back to his friends in France, and 
 returned in 1660, only just in time to see through the
 
 Abraham Cowley 221 
 
 press an Ode on his Majesty's Restoration and Return, 
 a Pindaric poem of immense length, very bombastic 
 and rhetorical, but no doubt earnest enough, and, for 
 those fulsome times, not extremely grovelling in its 
 attitude to Royalty. It was to be supposed that if 
 any man deserved reward, it was he who with so much 
 purity of purpose and devoted service had given the 
 best 3'ears of a flourishing youth to the despairing 
 cause of the King, and who, in spite of temptations, 
 had never wavered in his active fidelit3\ But Cowley 
 was not the man to win honours in such a court as 
 that of Charles II. Of austere life, a sincere and even 
 rigid religionist, an earnest lover of scholarship and 
 holy living, he was looked upon with suspicion by 
 the gay butterflies that flocked to Whitehall. Charles 
 himself, who admired his genius and respected his 
 character, was prejudiced against him by spiteful 
 tongues, W'ho pointed to certain pacific passages in 
 his writings, as if they proved his lukewarmness in 
 the Royalist cause. Nothing could be more wantonly 
 unjust. In point of fact, Charles was too read}^ to 
 embrace his enemies and let his friends shift for 
 themselves. 
 
 The poets, however, managed to provide for their 
 own maintenance. The easy turncoat. Waller, came 
 skipping back to court ; Herrick regained his vicarage, 
 and Roscommon his wealth and influence. " In that 
 year when manna rained on all, why should the Muse's 
 fleece only be dry ? " lamented Cowley, who found 
 himself alone unwatered by the golden shower of 
 preferments. In his despair, he had resolved to go to
 
 222 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 America, and seems to have made arrangements for so 
 doing, when he discovered that his fortunes were at so 
 low an ebb that he had not money enough for the 
 outward voyage. He possessed two faithful friends, 
 however — Lord St. Albans and the young Duke of 
 Buckingham, afterwards author of the Rehearsal. By 
 the united efforts of these noblemen a generous pro- 
 vision was made for the poet, who was by these means 
 relieved from anxiety, the world being all before him 
 where to choose. 
 
 In the language of Bishop Sprat, " He was now 
 weary of the vexations and formalities of an active 
 condition. He had been perplexed with a long com- 
 pliance to foreign manners. He was satiated with the 
 arts of court, which sort of life, though his virtue had 
 made innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. 
 Immediately he gave over all pursuit of honour and 
 riches in a time when, if any ambitious or covetous 
 thoughts had remained in his mind, he might justly 
 have expected to have them readily satisfied. In his 
 last seven or eight years he was concealed in his 
 beloved obscurity, and possessed that soHtude which 
 from his very childhood he had always most passion- 
 ately desired. Though he had frequent invitations to 
 return into business, yet he never gave ear to an}'- 
 persuasions of profit or preferment. His visits to the 
 city and court were very few ; his stays in town were 
 only as a passenger, not as an inhabitant. The places 
 that he chose for the seats of his declining life were 
 two or three villages on the banks of the Thames." 
 
 In 1 66 1 he published A Discourse by Way of Vision
 
 Abraham Cowley 223 
 
 concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwell^ one of 
 his finest prose works, containing several pieces of 
 verses, of no very striking merit; and in 1662 two 
 books of plants in Latin verse, the result of his 
 enthusiastic but somewhat pedantic studies in botany. 
 These " books " were printed after Cowley's death by 
 Nahum Tate, in an English translation by the latter, 
 by Mrs. Aphra Behn, a great imitator of the style, 
 though not the ethics, of Cowley, and by certain other 
 persons whose names are now forgotten. It must have 
 been about this time that he made the acquaintance of 
 " the matchless Orinda," Mrs. Katherine Philips, with 
 whom he corresponded at great length, and for whom 
 he seems to have shared the popular admiration. 
 Orinda was a poetess of the new school, who preferred 
 force of thinking in poetry before harmony or tender- 
 ness of style, and her verses were expressly modelled 
 upon those of Cowley. This remarkable young woman, 
 who was but twenty-nine years of age at the time of 
 the Restoration, had already a great reputation, and 
 Elys declares that Cowley was no less enamoured of 
 her poetry than impressed to a still more serious pietism 
 by her devotional austerity. When she died, still 
 young, in 1664, Cowley mourned her in an ode that 
 passes all bounds of discretion and moderation, in 
 which he sets her above Sappho, and, what is still 
 more funny, above Pope Joan ! 
 
 In 1663 he reprinted some poems that had appeared 
 in his Essays on Verse and Prose, with other miscel- 
 laneous pieces. The publication of this volume, which 
 he entitled Verses on Several Occasions, was forced
 
 224 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 upon him by the piratical printing of a volume of his 
 inedited poems at Dublin. This small quarto contains 
 fourteen copies of verses of an occasional kind. We 
 find an ode on the death of Dr. William Harvey, the 
 great anatomist; and an "Ode Sitting and Drinking 
 in the Chair made out of the Relics of Sir Francis 
 Drake's Ship," which is a capital instance of the 
 author's fantastic wit. He further included a number 
 of gracefully turned paraphrases from the Latin poets, 
 particularly Horace, Martial, and Claudian. The soli- 
 tude he had so long desired suited his body less than 
 his m.ind, and about the time that this volume was 
 published, when he was living at Barnes, he fell into a 
 low fever, from which with great difficulty he recovered. 
 He therefore removed, in 1666, to Chertsey, where he 
 took the Porch House, towards the west end of that 
 town, and bought some fields in the vicinity. He 
 seems to have suffered again much during the one 
 winter he spent there, but to have recovered in the 
 spring ; but through staying over long in the meadows 
 one summer afternoon, superintending his labourers, 
 he caught a cold, which he neglected. Within a 
 fortnight he died, on July 28, 1667, not having quite 
 completed his forty-eighth year. 
 
 With his death his glory flourished. King Charles 
 declared that Mr. Cowley had not left a better man 
 behind him. On August 3 he was laid in Westminster 
 Abbey, beside the ashes of Chaucer and Spenser. The 
 Earl of Orrery composed a funeral poem, and Sir John 
 Denham, himself in a few months to die, wrote an 
 elegy, beginning " Old Chaucer, like the morning star,"
 
 Abraham Cowley 225 
 
 which is quoted in every work on Enghsh literature. 
 All the poets of the day wrote " Pindarique Odes," in 
 imitation of the transcendent poet of that form of 
 verse, and his heroic couplet became the despair of all 
 gentlemen who wrote with ease. 
 
 " He who would worthily adorn his hearse, 
 Should write in his own way, in his immortal verse," 
 
 said Thomas Higgins, who indited a very good Pindaric 
 ode to his memory. His fame was more materially 
 served by Sprat, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, who 
 pubHshed in Latin in 1668, and then in English in 
 1669, a Life of Cowley, which is one of the very best 
 examples of memorial prose or elegiac monograph in 
 the language, being pure, elegant, and forcible in style, 
 and full of fine thought. George, Duke of Buckingham, 
 raised a monument to his memory in Westminster 
 Abbey, and so, crowned with unusual honour, and 
 lighted by the funeral flambeaux of temporal and spiri- 
 tual peers, this poet also, like his obscurer brethren, 
 went down into the place where all the incidental 
 advantages of life are as if they had not been. 
 
 If it be held that the two questions with which I 
 started have not been wholly answered, and that I 
 have still to show why Cowley once was the most 
 popular poet of his age, and why he is now forgotten, 
 a few words may, at all events, suffice to complete the 
 reply. Every student of English poetry will admit 
 that two great opposite influences have alternately 
 ruled the writers of our verse. Before the age of 
 
 Elizabeth, it is not quite so easy to mark the differ- 
 
 p
 
 226 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 ence between the fresh and natural spirit of Chaucer 
 and some of his Scottish followers, and the wholly 
 didactic and scholastic spirit of Lydgate, Barclay, and 
 Skelton ; but at least from the Mirror for Magistrates, 
 when poetry once more burst into sudden blossom, 
 and every branch upon every tree rang with melodious 
 voices, it is easy enough to trace down to Herrick the 
 unbroken chain of objective and naturalistic poets, born 
 to teach through singing, and not through rhetoric. 
 With Cowley a wholly new influence came in. From 
 Cowley to Darwin all the poets made oratorical effect 
 take the place of the observation and inspired inter- 
 pretation of nature. With Collins, through Cowper, 
 and first fully in Wordsworth, there came that return 
 to primal forms and primal feeling which still breathes 
 in our latest poetry. 
 
 Cowley gave the reading public a new experience. 
 Tired of the exotic and over-jewelled style of the re- 
 ligious and philosophical lyrists, tired of the romantic 
 epic which had slipped from Shakespeare and Marlowe 
 down into such hands as Chamberlayne's, tired of the 
 Cavalier song-writers, who harped for ever on the 
 same strained string, and with no ears or hearts for 
 Milton's glorious revival, the public of the day rejoiced 
 in Cowley as Parisian society of a generation before 
 had welcomed Malherbe. Versification had lost all 
 nerve and shape in the lax lips of the last slovenly 
 dramatists. In France the great Corneille was making 
 the stage resound with the harmonious cadences of his 
 heroical couplets ; why should not England also aspire 
 to such sublime eloquence, to such chaste numbers ?
 
 Abraham Cowley 227 
 
 Feeling, passion, romance, colour, all these had been 
 poured out so lavishly that the public palate was cloyed 
 with sweetness. The severity of Cowley's writings, 
 their intellectual quality, their cold elevation and dry 
 intelligence, were as charming as they were novel. But 
 the charm was not to last. A far greater man, Dryden, 
 with assimilative genius of the most marvellous kind, 
 was to tarnish the glory of Cowley by sheer superiority 
 of imitation. No form of verse that the elder poet 
 cultivated, with the single exception of the Elegy, but 
 was to be carried to far greater perfection in the same 
 line by the younger. Even to the technicality of the 
 occasional use of an alexandrine in heroic verse, 
 Dryden was to illuminate the discoveries of Cowley, 
 not to strike out new paths for himself. 
 
 Three writers of less influence than Cowley sup- 
 ported the new school, and strengthened the determina- 
 tion of Dryden. These were Davenant in his stilted, 
 Gallicised dramas, Denham in his correct, but cold and 
 measured descriptive poem of Cooper's Hill, and Waller 
 in his smooth, emasculated lyrics. Neither of these 
 had Cowley's genius or power, but they all had the 
 tact to seize the turn of the tide to put out into new 
 seas. Waller had been the first to employ the new 
 versification, but Cowley earliest perceived its propriety 
 for didactic uses. To him, and to him alone, belongs 
 the doubtful honour of inaugurating the reign of didactic 
 and rhetorical poetry in England. 
 
 It may be asked, why restore a memory so justly 
 dishonoured, why recall to our attention a writer whose 
 verses were but galvanised at the outset, and now are
 
 228 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 long past all hope of revival ? In the first place, if 
 the judgment of a whole generation has unanimously 
 set an unambitious man on a pedestal of supreme 
 reputation, I am more ready to doubt my own percep- 
 tion than to stigmatise so many cultivated persons with 
 folly. No poet universally admired in his own age can 
 be wholly without lasting merit. In the second place, 
 Cowley in particular, whether judged as a man or as 
 a litterateur, or even as a poet more or less malformed, 
 has qualities of positive and intrinsic merit. I trust 
 that my citations have at least proved so much. For 
 the rest, I confess that I find a particular fascination 
 in the study of these maimed and broken poets, these 
 well-strung instruments upon whose throbbing strings 
 Destiny has laid the pressure of her silencing fingers. 
 The masters of song instil me with a sort of awe. I 
 feel embarrassed when I write of Milton, But Cowley 
 has surely grown humble in the long years of his exile, 
 and he will not exact too much homage from the last 
 of his admirers. 
 
 1876.
 
 THE MATCHLESS ORINDA 
 
 IT was not until the second half of the seventeenth 
 century that women began to be considered com- 
 petent to undertake literature as a profession. In 
 the crowded galaxy of Elizabethan and Jacobean poets 
 there is no female star even of the seventh magnitude. 
 But with the Restoration, the wives and daughters, 
 who had learned during the years of exile to act in 
 political and diplomatic intrigue with independence 
 and skill, took upon themselves to write independently 
 too, and the last forty years of the century are crowded 
 with the names of "celebrated scribbling women." 
 Among all these the Matchless Orinda takes the fore- 
 most place — not exactly by merit, for Aphra Behn sur- 
 passed her in genius, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, 
 in versatility, and Catherine Trotter in professional 
 zeal; but by the moral eminence which she attained 
 through her elevated public career, and which she 
 sealed by her tragical death. When the seventeenth 
 century thought of a poetess, it naturally thought of 
 Orinda; her figure overtopped those of her literary 
 sisters ; she was more dignified, more regal in her 
 attitude to the public, than they were ; and, in fine, 
 she presents us with the best type we possess of the 
 
 woman of letters in the seventeenth century. 
 
 229
 
 230 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Yet modern criticism has entirely neglected her. 1 
 cannot find that any writer of authority has mentioned 
 her name with interest since Keats, in 1 817, when 
 he was writing Endymion, came across her poems at 
 Oxford, and in writing to Reynolds remarked that he 
 found " a most delicate fancy of the Fletcher kind " in 
 her poems, and quoted one piece of ten stanzas to 
 prove it. In Mr. Ward's English Poets, where so 
 many names owe their introduction to one or two 
 happy compositions which have survived the body of 
 their works, I find no page dedicated to Orinda ; and 
 I suppose she may fairly be considered as dead to the 
 British public. If I venture to revive her here, it is 
 not that I greatly admire her verses, or consider her 
 in the true sense to have been a poet, for even the 
 praise just quoted from Keats seems to me exaggerated ; 
 but it is because of the personal charm of her character, 
 the interest of her career, and its importance as a 
 chapter in the literary history of the Restoration. Nor 
 was she, like so many of her contemporaries, an absurd, 
 or preposterous, or unclean writer : her muse was uni- 
 formly pure and reasonable ; her influence, which was 
 very great, was exercised wholly in favour of what was 
 beautiful and good ; and if she failed, it is rather by 
 the same accident by which so many poets of less in- 
 telligence have unexpectedly succeeded. 
 
 Katherine Fowler was born on New- Year's Day, 
 1631, in a respectable cockney family of Bucklersbury. 
 Of her father, who was a Presbyterian, nothing else is 
 known save that he was a prosperous merchant. She 
 was baptized at the font of St. Mary Woolchurch on
 
 The Matchless Orlnda 231 
 
 January ii, 1631. John Aubrey, the antiquary, who 
 was her exact contemporary and one of her numerous 
 friends, has preserved various traditions of her child- 
 hood. Like Cowley, another cockney child of the 
 period, she was very eager and precocious in the pur- 
 suit of letters. The imaginative bias of her mind first 
 took a religious form. She had read the Bible right 
 through before she was five years old ; she would pray 
 aloud — rather ostentatiously, one fears — by the hour 
 together, and had a potent memory for the actual text 
 of the florid sermons that she heard on Sundays. At 
 school she was a prodigy of application ; she would 
 commonly say, by heart, many chapters and passages 
 of Scripture, and began at a very early age to write 
 verses. As she grew old enough to form convictions 
 of her own, she threw off" the Presbyterian and Parlia- 
 mentary traditions of her home, and announced herself 
 an admirer of the Church and the King just as those 
 stars were setting on the political horizon. Through 
 the darkest period of the Commonwealth she remained 
 stanchly Royalist; and we may fancy that she was 
 wxll content to leave a home no longer sympathetic to 
 her, when, in her seventeenth year, she married a 
 Royalist gentleman of Wales, Mr. James Philips, of 
 Cardigan Priory. 
 
 The early part of her life as Mrs. Philips is dark to 
 us. None of her letters, and but few of her poems, 
 from this period have been preserved. The earliest of 
 her verses form an address to her neighbour Henry 
 Vaughan, the. Silurist, on the publication of his Olor 
 Iscajiiis in 165 1. These lines are interesting to the
 
 232 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 student of versification as showing that Katherine 
 Phihps, from the very first, had made up her mind to 
 look forwards and not backwards. There is no parti- 
 cular merit in these verses, but they belong to the 
 school of Waller and Denham, and prove that the 
 authoress had learned very exactly the meaning of the 
 new prosody. To the end of her career she never 
 swerved from this path, to which her constant study 
 of French poetry further encouraged her. 
 
 She seems to have adopted the melodious pseudonym 
 by which she had become known to posterity in 165 1. 
 It would appear that among her friends and associates 
 in and near Cardigan she instituted a Society of Friend- 
 ship, to which male and female members were admitted, 
 and in which poetry, religion, and the human heart 
 were to form the subjects of discussion. This society, 
 chiefly, no doubt, owing to the activity of Mrs. Philips, 
 became widely known, and was an object of interest to 
 contemporaries. Jeremy Taylor recognised it from afar, 
 and Cowley paid it elaborate compliments. In the eyes 
 of Orinda it took an exaggerated importance: — 
 
 " Nations will own us now to be 
 A temple of divinity ; 
 And pilgrims shall ten ages hence 
 Approach our tombs with reverence,'* 
 
 a prophecy which still waits to be fulfilled. On 
 December 28, 1651, Miss Anne Owen, a young lady of 
 Landshipping, entered the Society under the name of 
 Lucasia, it being absolutely necessary that each member 
 should be known by a fancy name. The husband of
 
 The Matchless Orlnda 233 
 
 the poetess, for instance, is never mentioned in her 
 poems or her correspondence except as Antenor. 
 Lucasia was the chief ornament of the Society, and 
 the affection of Orinda was laid at her feet for nearly 
 thirteen years, in a style of the most unbounded and 
 vivacious eulogy. It is very delightful to contemplate 
 the little fat, ruddy, cockney lady, full of business and 
 animation, now bustling the whole parish by the ears, 
 now rousing her rather sluggish husband to ambition, 
 now languishing in platonic sentiment at the feet of 
 the young Welsh beauty who accepted all her raptures 
 so calmly and smilingly. In Miss Owen, Mrs. Philips 
 saw all that can be seen in the rarest altitudes of 
 human character. 
 
 " Nor can morality itself reclaim 
 The apostate world like my Lucasia's name : 
 . . . Lucasia, whose harmonious state 
 The Spheres and Muses only imitate. 
 ... So to acknowledge such vast eminence, 
 Imperfect wonder is our eloquence, 
 No pen Lucasia's glories can relate." 
 
 Nor is Lucasia the only member of her little pro- 
 vincial quorum of whom she predicates such brave 
 things. There is Ardelia, whose real name neglectful 
 posterity has forgotten to preserve; there is Miss 
 Mary Aubrey, who becomes Mrs. Montague as time 
 goes on, and whose poetical name is Rosania; there 
 is Regina, "that Queen of Inconstancy," Mrs. John 
 Collier; later on, Lady Anne Boyle begins to figure 
 as " adored Valeria," and Lady Mary Cavendish 
 as "dazzling Polycrite." The gentlemen have very
 
 234 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 appropriate names also, though propriety prevents 
 Orinda, in their cases, from celebrating friendship in 
 terms of so florid an eloquence. The "excellent 
 Palaemon " was Francis Finch originally, but the name 
 was transferred, as the "noble Palaemon," to Jeremy 
 Taylor ; the " noble Silvander," Sir Edward Bering, 
 was more fortunate in preserving his name of honour ; 
 and last, but not least, the elegant Sir Charles Cotterel 
 achieved a sort of immortality as Orinda's greatest 
 friend, under the name of Poliarchus. 
 
 There are few collections of seventeenth century 
 verse so personal as the poems of Orinda. Her 
 aspirations and sentimentalities, her perplexities and 
 quarrels, her little journeys and her business troubles, 
 all are reflected in her verse as a mirror. She goes 
 from Tenby to Bristol by sea in September 1652, and 
 she gives Lucasia an account of the uneventful voyage 
 in verse : — 
 
 " But what most pleased my mind upon the way, 
 Was the ships' posture that in harbour lay ; 
 Which to a rocky grove so close were fixed 
 That the trees' branches with the tackling mixed, — 
 One would have thought it was, as then it stood, 
 A growing navy or a floating wood." 
 
 These are verses for which we have lost all taste, 
 but they were quite as good as those by which Waller 
 was then making himself famous, and in the same 
 modern manner. These and others were handed about 
 from one friend to another till they reached London, 
 and gained the enthusiastic poetess literary and 
 artistic friends. Among these latter were Henry
 
 The Matchless Orinda 235 
 
 Lawes, the great musician, and Samuel Cooper, the 
 finest miniature painter of the day, to both of whom 
 she has inscribed flowing copies of verses, informed by 
 her familiar stately wit. 
 
 But the subject that chiefly inspired her was the 
 excellence of her female friends, and in treating this 
 theme she really invented a new species of literature. 
 She is the first sentimental writer in the English 
 language, and she possesses to the full those qualities 
 which came into fashion a century and a half later in 
 the person of such authors as Letitia Landon. Orinda 
 communes with the stars and the mountains, and is 
 deeply exercised about her own soul. She is all 
 smiles, tears, and sensibility. She asks herself if her 
 affection has been slighted, she swears eternal troth, 
 she yearns for confidences, she fancies that she is 
 "dying for a little love." With Antenor, her husband, 
 she keeps up all the time a prosaic, humdrum happi- 
 ness, looking after his affairs, anxious about his health, 
 rather patronisingly affectionate and wifely ; but her 
 poetical heart is elsewhere, and her leisure moments 
 are given up to romantic vows with Rosania and 
 Lucasia, and correspondence about the human heart 
 with the noble Silvander. The whole society, one 
 cannot help feeling, was entirely created and kept alive 
 by the sensibility of Orinda, and nothing but her 
 unremitting efforts could have sustained its component 
 parts at the proper heights of sympathy. Mrs. Philips, 
 in fact, had come to the conclusion that, as she put it, 
 " Men exclude women from friendship's vast capacity," 
 and she was determined, in spite of the difficulties in
 
 236 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 her path, to produce some shining specimens of female 
 friendship. The seventeenth century was quite aston- 
 ished, and looked on with respectful admiration, while 
 the good Orinda laboured away, undeterred by the 
 irritating circumstances that her soci^taires would get 
 married at the very moment when the}' seemed ap- 
 proaching perfection, and that after marriage they were 
 much more difficult for her to manage than before. 
 
 Her first great disappointment was the "apostasy " 
 of Rosania, on which occasion she lifted up her voice 
 to the " great soul of Friendship," and was rewarded 
 by unusual response from Lucasia, on whom it is 
 possible that the absence of Rosania had acted in an 
 exhilarating manner. But it is time to quote some of 
 those addresses to her friends by which she distin- 
 guishes herself so clearly from all the writers of her 
 generation, and by which she must be known in future, 
 if she be known at all. After receiving one of those 
 compliments from the great men of her age, which 
 began to flow in upon her retirement at Cardigan, 
 Orinda thus expressed her satisfaction to Lucasia, and 
 stirred her up to fresh efforts of sentiment : — 
 
 " Come, my Lucasia, since we see 
 
 That miracles man's faith do move, 
 By wonder and by prodigy 
 
 To the dull angry world let's prove 
 There's a religion in our love. 
 
 " We court our own captivity, — 
 
 Than thrones more great and innocent ; 
 'Twere banishment to be set free, 
 Since we wear fetters whose intent 
 Not bondage is, but ornament.
 
 The Matchless Orinda 237 
 
 *' Divided joys are tedious found, 
 And griefs united easier flow ; 
 We are ourselves but by rebound, 
 And all our titles shuffled so, — 
 Both princes, and both subjects too. 
 
 " Our hearts are mutual victims laid, 
 
 While they, — such power in friendship lies, — 
 Are altars, priests and offerings made, 
 And each heart which thus kindly dies, 
 Grows deathless by the sacrifice." 
 
 It cannot be denied that these are vigorous lines, 
 full of ingenious fancy, nor were there many men then 
 living in England who could surpass them. We are 
 dealing with a school whose talent has evaporated, 
 and we must not forget to judge such verse by the 
 standards of its time. Of Milton nobody was think- 
 ing ; Dryden was still silent ; Herrick and Wither 
 had ceased to write; and it may safely be said that 
 there was nothing in the lines just quoted which 
 Cowley, or Waller, or Denham would have dis- 
 dained to sign. Lucasia was also the theme of some 
 verses which close, at all events, in a very delicate 
 harmony : — 
 
 " I did not live until this time 
 Crowned my felicity. 
 When I could say, without a crime, 
 I am not Thine, but Thee. 
 
 " For as a watch by art is wound 
 To motion, such was mine ; 
 But never had Orinda found 
 A soul till she found thine.
 
 238 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 "Then let our flame still light and shine, 
 And no false fear control, 
 As innocent as our design, 
 Immortal as our soul." 
 
 The piece which Keats admired so much that he 
 took the trouble of copying it in full, was inspired by 
 Miss Mary Aubrey, and may be given here as a final 
 example of the manner of Orinda : — 
 
 " I have examined and do find 
 
 Of all that favour me, 
 There's none I grieve to leave behind, 
 
 But only, only thee : 
 To part with thee 1 needs must die, 
 Could parting separate thee and I. 
 
 " But neither chance nor compliment 
 
 Did element our love ; 
 'Twas sacred sympathy was lent 
 
 Us from the Quire above. 
 That friendship Fortune did create 
 Still fears a wound from Time or Fate. 
 
 " Our changed and mingled souls are grown 
 
 To such acquaintance now. 
 That, if each would resume her own, 
 
 Alas ! we know not how ; 
 We have each other so engrost, 
 That each is in the union lost. 
 
 " And thus we can no absence know. 
 
 Nor shall we be confined ; 
 Our active souls will daily go 
 
 To learn each other's mind. 
 Nay, should we never meet to sense 
 Our souls would hold intelligence.
 
 The Matchless Orlnda 239 
 
 " Inspired with a flame divine, 
 
 I scorn to court a stay ; 
 For from that noble soul of thine 
 
 I neer can be away. 
 But I shall weep when thou dost grieve, 
 Nor can I die whilst thou dost live. 
 
 " By my own temper I shall guess 
 
 At thy felicity, 
 And only like thy happiness, 
 
 Because it pleaseth thee. 
 Or hearts at any time will tell 
 If thou or I be sick or well. 
 
 " All honour sure I must pretend. 
 All that is good or great ; 
 She that would be Rosania's friend 
 
 Must be at least complete ; 
 If I have any bravery, 
 'Tis cause I have so much of thee. 
 
 " Thy leiger soul in me shall lie, 
 And all thy thoughts reveal, 
 Then back again with mine shall fly. 
 
 And thence to me shall steal ; 
 Thus still to one another tend : 
 Such is the sacred name of Friend. 
 
 " Thus our twin souls in one shall grow, 
 
 And teach the world new love, 
 Redeem the age and sex, and show 
 
 A flame Fate dares not move : 
 And, courting Death to be our friend, 
 Our lives too shall together end. 
 
 '* A dew shall dwell upon our tomb 
 
 Of such a quality, 
 That fighting armies thither come 
 
 Shall reconcilM be. 
 We'll ask no epitaph, but say, 
 Orinda and Rosania."
 
 240 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 For ten years Katherine Philips continued to live 
 at Cardigan in the midst of this enthusiastic circle of 
 friends, and in a social quiet that was broken only by 
 her own agitations of spirit. In 1654, in the seventh 
 year of her marriage, she bore her first child, a son 
 who was named Hector, and who lived only forty days. 
 She bewails his loss in many verses, which are not the 
 less affecting because they are stiff in form. She was 
 ultimately consoled for her boy's death by the birth of 
 a girl, who survived her, and eventually married a 
 Mr. Wogan, of Pembrokeshire. It is unfortunate that 
 we cannot trace the course of Orinda's intimacy with 
 Jeremy Taylor, although it is most probable that he 
 visited her Society at Cardigan during the years that 
 he lived near to her in Carmarthenshire. At all 
 events, when, in 1659, he dedicated his Discourse on 
 the Nature^ Offices^ and Measures of Friendship to 
 "the most ingenious and excellent Mrs. Katherine 
 Philips," he paid her the most delicate and affectionate 
 compliments, and showed himself well acquainted with 
 the tenor of her mind. His treatise was, indeed, a 
 public testimony, from a man of the highest authority, 
 to the success with which she had proved women to be 
 capable of the serene and exalted virtue of friendship. 
 
 This tribute from the famous Bishop of Down and 
 Connor inaugurated that brief period during which 
 Orinda ceased to be a provincial notoriety, and became 
 for the small remainder of her life a prominent figure in 
 contemporary society. At the Restoration she sang out 
 loud and clear, in strains that were proved to be sincere 
 by her long and unflinching resistance to the Common-
 
 The Matchless Orinda 241 
 
 wealth. As Arion she goes forth to meet his Majesty 
 upon a dolphin : — 
 
 " Whom does this stately navy bring ? 
 O, 'tis Great Britain's glorious King ! 
 Convey him then, ye Winds and Seas, 
 Swift as desire and calm as peace. 
 Charles and his mighty hopes you bear ; 
 A greater now than Caesar's here, 
 Whose veins a richer purple boast 
 Than ever hero's yet engrossed. 
 Sprung from a father so august 
 He triumphs in his very dust." 
 
 She hails the fine weather for the coronation as a 
 'bright parenthesis" placed by Heaven itself between 
 two storms of rain, and she indites separate copies of 
 verses to all the ladies of the royal family. Soon the 
 Duchess of York becomes aware of this ardent poetess 
 in the West, and commands her to send some speci- 
 mens of her poems ; and in a little time we find Orinda, 
 unable to stay at Cardigan when the world of London 
 had suddenly become so distractingly interesting, on 
 a visit to town. We find her the guest of Cowley at 
 Barn Elms, and invited to inscribe her name on one 
 of his ancient trees. And at the close of this visit to 
 London in 1661 she suddenly becomes vividly present 
 to us for the rest of her life. 
 
 We have already mentioned her friendship for Sir 
 Charles Cotterel, whom she named Poliarchus. He 
 was a Royalist courtier of great elegance and erudition, 
 who had long been steward to the Queen of Bohemia, 
 and was now master of the ceremonies at the Court of 
 Charles II. He dabbled gracefully in literature, was a 
 
 Q
 
 242 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 very accomplished linguist, and long after the death of 
 Orinda achieved an ephemeral reputation as the trans- 
 lator of the novels of La Calprenede. He survived 
 Katherine Philips nearly a quarter of a century, dying 
 in 1687, and what then became of his collection of her 
 letters does not appear. In 1705, however, forty years 
 after her death, Bernard Lintott published, without any 
 bibliographical information, forty-eight Letters from 
 Orinda to PoliarcJius, which are not only extremely 
 well written and vivacious, but full of autobiographical 
 matter, and amply furnished with dates. By means of 
 these letters we can follow Orinda closely through the 
 last and most interesting months of her life. 
 
 The first letter is dated from Acton, Dec. i, 1661. 
 She has come up to London to prosecute some business 
 for her husband, and is staying with his brother, to the 
 members of whose family she had at various occasions 
 indited poems. Sir Charles Cotterel has paid her a 
 visit, in the course of which he has confided to her his 
 hopeless passion for a lady named Calanthe, and she 
 is full of concern for his peace of mind. Mr. Matthew 
 Arnold has pointed out how suddenly the prose of the 
 Restoration threw off its traditional involutions and false 
 ornament, and became in a great measure the prose that 
 we wish to use to-day. The Letters of Orinda form a 
 singular instance of the truth of this criticism, and com- 
 pare very favourably with such letters as those of Ilowel 
 in point of simplicity of style. Thus, for instance, she 
 refers to Sir Charles Cotterei's agitation of mind : — 
 
 " The great disturbance you were in when you went hence, 
 and the high and just concern I have for you, have made me
 
 The Matchless Orlnda 243 
 
 take the resolution to trouble you with my most humble and 
 earnest request to resist the attempts your present passion is 
 like to make on your quiet, before it grows too imperious to be 
 checked by the powers of either reason or friendship. There is 
 nothing more easy than to captivate one's self to love or grief, 
 and no more evident mark of a great soul than to avoid those 
 bondages. I hope, therefore, you will not think it altogether 
 unbecoming the friendship you have given me leave to profess 
 for you, to entreat you to overcome those passions, and not give 
 way to melancholy, which will unhinge your excellent temper, 
 and bring so great a cloud on the happiness of your friends. 
 Consider for how many important interests you are responsible, 
 and exert all the powers of reason with which your excellent 
 judgment abounds, to shake off your sorrows, and live cheer- 
 fully and long the delight of all who have the honour of your 
 acquaintance." 
 
 Calanthe had been in correspondence with Orinda, 
 and that faithless confidante had shown her letters to 
 Poliarchus, hence many entreaties that her weakness 
 may not be divulged to the injured fair. It is plain 
 that Orinda greatly enjoyed her position as go-between 
 in this interesting love affair, which, however, very 
 shortly languished, and left upon the ensuing corre- 
 spondence only this trace, that Sir Charles Cotterel 
 having written such passages in his letters to Orinda 
 as were not to be read by Calanthe in Italian, Orinda 
 was obliged to learn that language, to which, indeed, 
 she forthv/ith gave herself very assiduously. Her visit 
 to London came to an end in March 1662, and she 
 wrote to Poliarchus a sprightly letter from Gloucester 
 on her return journey. A very interesting letter, dated 
 Cardigan Priory, March i8th, announced her return. 
 She found Wales exceedingly dull at first, after the
 
 244 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 pleasures of courtly and literary society in London. 
 She complained that she could not find any satisfaction 
 in "my beloved rocks and rivers, formerly my best 
 entertainment," and she longed to be able once more 
 to enjoy Sir Charles Cotterel's conversation, which was 
 to her " above all the flights of panegyrick." Her one 
 consolation was that the faithful Lucasia was still at 
 Cardigan, though threatening every day to be gone 
 to her own home. Descending to mundane things, 
 poor Orinda confessed that she had been much disap- 
 pointed in the condition of her husband. He is dull, 
 apathetic, and depressed, was roused to no interest 
 by her account of the conduct of his affairs in 
 London, and terrifies her by his absolute indifference 
 to business. From the sluggishness of Antenor she 
 turns again to the pleasures of literature, and by an 
 amusing affectation characteristic of the school she 
 belonged to, she tells Poliarchus that she is reading 
 English books with patience and French ones with 
 pleasure. 
 
 She spent the month of April with her beloved friend 
 at Landshipping, but, alas ! the hour of the apostasy of 
 Lucasia was approaching. While Orinda was amusing 
 herself with the idea that Poliarchus was showing her 
 poems at Court, and while she was signing herself to 
 him "more than all the world besides your faithful 
 Valentine," Miss Anne Owen was herself accepting a 
 valentine in a less platonic sense. It seems to have 
 all happened at Landshipping under the very nose of 
 Orinda, without attracting the attention of that active 
 creature. When at last she found it out, she was
 
 The Matchless Orlnda 245 
 
 beside herself with chagrin and indignation. The 
 bridegroom was a son of Sir Thomas Hanmer, and 
 the match was one thoroughly approved of by both 
 famiHes. Orinda, as she says herself, "alone of all 
 the company was out of humour; nay, I was vexed to 
 that degree that I could not disguise my concern, 
 which many of them were surprised to see, and spoke 
 to me of it; but my grief was too deeply rooted to be 
 cured with words." Her position, indeed, was a very 
 trying one ; nor ought we to smile at the disappoint- 
 ment of this worthy little lady, who had worshipped a 
 divinity so long only to find her suddenly composed of 
 common clay. 
 
 The event was certainly hurried, for before the 
 middle of May Lucasia was married, Orinda mean- 
 while indulging herself in transports of jealousy, and 
 in long correspondence on the subject with Rosania 
 and Poliarchus. When the young people were actually 
 married, Orinda remained with them at Landship- 
 ping, and when they prepared to go over to Ireland, 
 where the bride's new home was, she announced 
 her intention of accompanying them. The vigilance 
 of friendship, however, was not the only or the main 
 cause of this determination. There were several 
 suits to be tried in Dublin, involving heavy gains or 
 losses to her husband, and as he could by no means 
 be roused to an interest in these, Mrs. Philips re- 
 solved to undertake them herself. On July 19th, 
 1662, she writes from Rosstrevor, in County Down, 
 where she had been enjoying the society of Jeremy 
 Taylor, who had been settled something less than two
 
 246 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 years in his diocese. This august companionship 
 did not prevent Orinda from exercising a sharp super- 
 vision over the newly married pair. She informs 
 Poharchus, in a strain of the finest unconscious humour, 
 that she beheves the bridegroom to be of a most stub- 
 born and surly humour, although, " to speak sincerely, 
 she has not been able hitherto to detect in him the 
 marks of any ill nature," and what exasperates her 
 most of all, in her character of the social banshee, is 
 that Lucasia herself " pretends to be the most satisfied 
 creature in the world." 
 
 In July 1662, Mrs. Philips began what was evidently 
 the happiest year of her life by taking up her abode 
 in Dublin. At the Restoration the great difficulty of 
 settling the claims of those Irish gentlemen who de- 
 manded the King's favour, and the endless litigations 
 respecting the forfeited lands in Ireland, brought over 
 to Dublin a large company of distinguished lawyers 
 with their families, and gave the city a temporary show 
 and glitter. It was many' years before affairs were in 
 any degree arranged, and the English colony in Dublin 
 settled down to enjoy themselves as best they might. 
 Orinda found herself thrown at once into the distin- 
 guished company which gathered round the Lord- 
 Lieutenant, the great first Duke of Ormonde, and she 
 received an exceptionally warm welcome in the family 
 of the Countess of Cork, Of all the Boyles, however, 
 at that moment, the most influential was Roger, Earl 
 of Orrery, whose enthusiastic admiration for Orinda 
 displayed itself at once in every species of compliment 
 and hospitality. He was eminent alike as a soldier,
 
 The Matchless Orinda 247 
 
 a statesman, and a poet, was one of tlie most influen- 
 tial men in the three kingdoms, and at that moment 
 was engaged in Ireland upon a most arduous and 
 painful office. He had just been appointed Lord Chief- 
 Justice of Ireland under the Duke of Ormonde, and 
 his friendship was not merely flattering and agreeable 
 to Orinda, but extremely advantageous. He placed 
 her among the ladies of his famil}^, obtained for her 
 the protection and personal friendship of Lady Cork, 
 and in fact did all that was possible to make her stay 
 in Dublin pleasant. 
 
 Another distinguished person with whom she swore 
 eternal friendship in Dublin was the 3'oung Earl of 
 Roscommon, not yet famous as the author of the 
 Essay on Ti^anslated Verse, and indeed only twenty- 
 eight years of age, but already looked upon as a patron 
 of poetry, and as a very agreeable and eligible bachelor, 
 "distempered," unfortunately, "with a fatal affection 
 for play." Another Dublin acquaintance was James 
 Tyrell, the politician and historian ; yet another was 
 John Ogilby, a man belonging to a generation earlier 
 than all these, who had successfully outwitted Sir 
 "William Davenant, and had contrived to persuade 
 Charles II. to send him out to Dublin as Master of 
 the Revels. Ogilby is still sometimes remembered as 
 the translator of the Odyssey and of the ^neid. That 
 Orinda impressed all these persons with a great sense 
 of her intellectual power and moral excellence, is 
 evident from the nature of the eulogies they poured 
 upon her while she lived and long after she died. 
 When a man in the position of Lord Orrery says in
 
 248 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 print of a little plain Welsh lady of the middle 
 class — 
 
 " Madam, when I but knew you by report, 
 I feared the praises of the admiring Court 
 Were but their compHments, but now I must 
 Confess, what I thought civil is scarce just" — 
 
 we may be sure that he is trying to express with 
 sincerity a very genuine admiration. Nor is the Earl 
 of Roscommon, who addresses her as " Dear Friend," 
 less sincere, though more ridiculous, when he states it 
 to be his experience that when he meets hungry wolves 
 in the Scythian snows, 
 
 " The magic of Orinda's name 
 
 Not only can their fierceness tame, 
 But, if that mighty word I once rehearse, 
 They seem submissively to roar in verse." 
 
 On one of the earliest occasions upon which Mrs. 
 Philips met Lord Orrery, in August 1662, she ven- 
 tured to show him her latest effusion, a scene she had 
 translated from the third act of Corneille's tragedy of 
 Pomp^e. Orrery admired it excessively, and laid his 
 entreaties, almost his commands, upon her to complete 
 it in the same style — that is, in rhymed heroic verse. 
 She set to work and completed the task, a very con- 
 siderable one, by the middle of October. She found 
 that it relieved her, in combination with select passages 
 from Seneca and Epictetus, from absolutely breaking 
 her heart over Lucasia, whose husband at last insisted 
 on taking her back to their house at Rosstrevor. 
 Orinda, ensconced in her snug nest of quality at
 
 The Matchless Orinda 249 
 
 Dublin, full of literary ambition, and scribbling day 
 and night at Pompey, seems to have missed her friend 
 as little as could be expected. She was treated as a 
 very great celebrity ; and when she had occasion to 
 hand round some manuscript verses w^hich Cowley 
 had just sent her for approval, she must have felt that 
 her cup of literary importance was full. 
 
 Thus caressed by Lady Cork and complimented by 
 all the lettered earls, she passed the months of August 
 and September 1662 in a sort of golden dream, 
 scarcely finding time, amid all her avocations, to write 
 a hasty letter to the devoted Poliarchus, to whom, 
 however, Pompey was sent in quick instalments. She 
 gives him an interesting account, in October, of the 
 theatre which the new master of the revels, Ogilby, 
 was building at Dublin — a theatre that cost ;^2000 to 
 put up. She holds it to be much finer than Davenant's 
 in London ; and she is present when the season opens 
 with a performance of Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy 
 of Wit without Money. As soon as the rough draft 
 of Pompey was finished, she busied herself with her 
 husband's affairs — " putting in Antenor's claim as an 
 adventurer in my father's right here in Ireland" — and 
 this, with two other minor lawsuits, occupies her spare 
 time until the summer of the ensuing year. Her most 
 serious attention, however, settles upon Pompey. Sir 
 Charles Cotterel takes so much interest in it that she 
 says, " I look on you as more a friend to me than 
 David was to Jonathan ; " but she shows a little temper 
 when he offers some verbal criticism. For instance, 
 and this is interesting historically, he objects to the
 
 250 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 word effort as not English, and she rephes that it has 
 been naturahsed here these twelve years. She might 
 have added that Cotgrave had included it in his 
 dictionary, in 1660. 
 
 Orinda spent the winter of 1662 at Dublin, touching 
 up the text of Pompey, writing songs for it, and having 
 them put to music — not without regret that her friend, 
 the great Henry Lawes, who died just as the first 
 manuscript of the play reached London, could not 
 adorn them with immortal strains. Lord Orrery, who 
 looked upon himself as the " onlie begetter " of this 
 traged}^, moved heaven and earth to bring it out upon 
 the stage ; and, when Ogilby had made arrangements 
 for its representation, Orrery spent ;^iOO out of his 
 own pocket to buy handsome Egyptian and Roman 
 dresses and bring out the traged}^ in style. It was 
 dedicated to his mother. Lady Cork. Lord Roscommon 
 wrote the prologue, and Sir Edward Bering the 
 epilogue ; each of them so ordered their verses that 
 they should be delivered by the actor while turning 
 to the Duke of Ormonde's box. New dances and a 
 masque were introduced here and there by Ogilby, 
 and on the second week of February 1663 it was 
 finally presented to the public. It enjoyed an un- 
 bounded success; but, unfortunately, the letter in 
 which Mrs. Philips gave Sir Charles Cotterel an 
 account of the performance has not been preserved. 
 Her friends, however, pressed her to print the play, 
 and from the success which attended this experiment 
 we may judge of the reception of the piece on the 
 boards. An edition of five hundred was printed, a
 
 The Matchless Orlnda 251 
 
 single packet onl^^ being sent to London, and in a 
 fortnight the whole of the impression was sold. In 
 London the demand was so great, that hardly had the 
 few copies sent arrived at the capital, than Mr. Herring- 
 man, the poets' publisher in those early days of the 
 Restoration, wrote to ask Orinda's leave to bring out 
 a London edition. 
 
 Meanwhile, Orinda had certain literary experiences. 
 She made the acquaintance of Samuel Tuke, whose 
 very successful play, the Adventures of Five Hours ^ 
 was awakening delusive hopes of a great new dra- 
 matist ; and she welcomed in Hudibras the advent of 
 one much greater than Tuke. Her first impulse of 
 criticism was that which the v/orld has endorsed: "In 
 my life I never read anything so naturally and so 
 knowingly burlesque." In May, her troubles as an 
 authoress began. A miscellany of poems by living 
 writers appeared, in which some of her lyrics were 
 pirated and widely advertised ; and her serenity was 
 shaken, a week or two later, by the fact that two 
 London publishers were quarrelling for Pompey, and 
 did, in fact, bring out, in the month of June, two 
 simultaneous editions of that lucky play. And now it 
 came to her knowledge that, while she had been thus 
 busily employed, she had cut the ground from under 
 the feet of some of the most celebrated wits of the 
 day ; for Waller had set his heart on translating 
 Pompee, and had finished one act before Orinda's 
 version was heard of. The other four acts had been 
 supplied by Sir Edward Fillmore, Sir Charles Sedley, 
 and the young men who were afterwards known as
 
 252 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 the Earls of Dorset and Middlesex. As early as 
 January 1663 it was announced that this translation 
 was complete and immediately to appear. The success, 
 however, of the Irish version checked the London one; 
 and Orinda, hearing nothing of her illustrious rivals, 
 became frightened, and wrote to Waller a letter depre- 
 cating his anger. His reply, which reached her early 
 in June, reassured her; the courtly poet was character- 
 istically smooth, courteous, and obliging, and, if he 
 felt annoyance, contrived most wittily to avoid the 
 show of it. At last, on July 16, 1663, having gained 
 the two most important of her three suits, Mrs. Philips 
 set sail from Dublin to Milford, and went home to 
 her husband at Cardigan after an absence of exactly 
 twelve months. 
 
 She found the excellent Antenor much improved in 
 health, and she settled down to spend the autumn and 
 winter at home. Her new importance as a woman of 
 letters, and her large London correspondence, how- 
 ever, exposed her to a fresh annoyance. The post- 
 master at Carmarthen scandalously neglected his 
 duty, and letters were constantly delayed and lost. 
 The gentry of the neighbourhood, however, stirred up 
 by the ever-energetic Orinda, sent in a memorial to 
 O'Neil, the Postmaster-General, and the indolence at 
 Carmarthen received a sharp reprimand. She found 
 the winter tedious after her happy life at Dublin ; she 
 does not complain, but her letters to Sir Charles 
 Cotterel are dejected in tone, and her appeals to her 
 friends to find something in London for her husband 
 to do are constant and pathetic. And now another
 
 The Matchless Orinda 253 
 
 annoyance occurred. A piratical London publisher 
 managed to obtain copies of all her miscellaneous 
 poems, which she had refused to print, and brought 
 them out surreptitiously in November 1663, the title- 
 page dated 1664. Her friends wrote to her to condole, 
 but did not send her the book, and her anxiety and 
 vexation, combined with the rumour that the verses 
 were very incorrectly printed, threw her into a sharp 
 attack of illness. The volume, however, is not parti- 
 cularly incorrect, and it was prefaced by an ode of 
 Cowley's which should have been balm to the breast of 
 the wounded poetess. In it that eminent rhetorician, 
 speaking in the consciousness of his enormous prestige, 
 addressed her in terms of the highest and most affec- 
 tionate eulogy, and contrived to throw into one stanza, 
 at least, of his encomiastic ode, some of the most 
 delicately felicitous compliments that a poet ever 
 addressed to a sister in Apollo : — 
 
 " Thou dost my wonder, would'st my emy raise, 
 If to be praised I loved more than to praise ; 
 I must admire to see thy well-knit sense, 
 Thy numbers gentle, and thy fancies high, 
 These as thy forehead smooth, these sparkling as thine eye. 
 'Tis solid and 'tis manly all, 
 Or rather, 'tis angelical 1 
 For, as in angels, we 
 Do in thy verses see 
 Both improved sexes eminently meet, — 
 They are than Man more strong, and more than Woman sweet." 
 
 In January 1664 she took in hand another play of 
 Corneille's, and that the one most popular in England 
 through his lifetime — Horace. It had been translated
 
 254 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 before, by Sir William Lower, in 1656, and was 
 attempted later on by Charles Cotton, in 1671. Orinda 
 worked slowly at this, and brought four acts of it, all 
 she was destined to complete, with her when she came 
 to London in March. She was absolutely unable to 
 stay any longer in suspense, and she thought that her 
 energy and influence might secure some post for her 
 husband if she came right up to town. The last three 
 months of her life were brilliantly spent ; she was 
 warmly welcomed at court and in the best society. 
 Her last verses, signed June 10, 1664, were addressed 
 in terms of affectionate respect to the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury. They breathe the old ardour, the old 
 moral elevation, the old eager note of the enthusiastic 
 Orinda. Twelve days later she was dead, a victim to 
 smallpox, that frightful disease to which the science 
 of the day saw no hope of resistance. She had but 
 half completed her thirty-fourth year. She was buried 
 under a great slab in the church of St. Bennet 
 Sherehog, among the remains of her ancestors. 
 
 Thus, in the middle of a brilliant social and literary 
 success, the abhorred shears slipped in and cut the 
 thread. The memory of the matchless Orinda was 
 celebrated in numberless odes. All the Royalist poets 
 combined to do her honour. Cowley mourned her in 
 a massive lyric. Denham demanded the privilege of 
 concluding her Horace. Her name was mentioned 
 with those of Sappho and Corinna, and language was 
 used without reproach which might have seemed a 
 little fulsome if addressed to the Muse herself. 
 
 For half a century Orinda was an unquestioned light
 
 The Matchless Orlnda 255 
 
 in English song; then she sank into utter darkness. 
 But her memory is worthy of some judicious revival. 
 She presents us with a clearly defined and curious 
 type of the literary woman, and there are few such 
 in our early literature. She secured the affectionate 
 esteem of the principal people of her time, and we 
 know enough of her character to see that she could 
 not but secure it ; and if she sinned against poetry, as 
 we understand it, much may be forgiven her, for she 
 loved it much. 
 
 Fifteen 3^ears after the death of Orinda there was 
 published in London a volume of Female Poems, 
 which now forms one of the rarest books of the 
 Restoration. This little volume was anonymous, but 
 was said to be "written by Ephelia," and we are 
 told that Ephelia was a certain Miss Joan Philips. I 
 do not know whether I start too wild a theory when 
 I acknowledge that it has several times crossed my 
 mind that Ephelia may have been Orinda's only 
 daughter, who, as we have said, eventually married a 
 Mr. Wogan, of Pembrokeshire. This daughter seems 
 to have been born about 1656, and accordingly would 
 be twenty-three in 1679. The portrait of Ephelia 
 affixed to her poems, and the description she gives of 
 her person would tally closely enough with this hypo- 
 thesis ; and she expressly speaks of herself as deprived 
 of her parents in early life, and as having soon after 
 lost the property which they bequeathed to her. 
 However this may be, the poems of Joan Philips are
 
 2^6 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 closely modelled upon those of Katherine Philips, even 
 to the form of her addresses to royalty and to the 
 enthusiastic pseudonyms which she gives to her 
 friends. That she does not refer to any such relation- 
 ship would be amply accounted for by her desire to 
 conceal her name, which the extremely confidential 
 nature of her effusions made imperative. Her little 
 book deserves mention as an appendix to Orinda's, 
 not merely because it may be written by a relation 
 and is certainly quite unknown to students, but also 
 on account of its inherent merit. It is a sincere page 
 out of the heart of a human being — a series of con- 
 fessions so true and so poignant that we seem to hear 
 a living voice across two centuries. In its warmth 
 and vivacity, its womanly passion and subtlety, I know 
 no utterance like it except the sonnets of Louise Labe. 
 A real human voice is so rare in Restoration literature, 
 that we may listen for a few moments to this not very 
 tuneful one. 
 
 Ephelia tells us her story without any maidenly 
 reserve, but with a great deal of nature. Her earliest 
 poems show her, as Orinda had been before her, 
 enslaved to a circle of fair friends of her own sex. 
 One day she meets Strephon, or J. G., whose surname 
 appears from an acrostic to have been Gilbert, and 
 she falls in love with him at first sight. He is much 
 older than she, and does not for some time respond to 
 her passion ; but by degrees he melts to her, and they 
 are engaged to be married. J. G., however, is offered 
 a valuable appointment in the factory at Tangiers, and 
 he rides away under her bower-eaves, Hke a false
 
 The Matchless Orinda 257 
 
 knight in a ballad, and sets sail without even bidding 
 her farewell. She hears first a rumour that he is 
 paying court to a lady of wealth in Morocco, and then 
 that he had married This, "the best-born among the 
 Afric maids." Ephelia loudly bewails her fate and 
 Strephon's unkindness, and presents the public with 
 a volume of poems in which every shade of emotion, 
 as it passed through her mind, has been conscientiously 
 transferred to verse. The result is extraordinary. 
 
 Joan Philips is a very unequal writer, but at her 
 best she attains some undeniable vigour in the use of 
 the heroic couplet. The following example gives as 
 good an impression of her style as the reader can 
 require ; it is a passage inspired by the first suspicion 
 of J. G.'s unfaithfulness: — 
 
 " Why do I love ? go, ask the glorious sun 
 Why ever>' day it round the world doth run ; 
 Ask Thames and Tiber, why they ebb and flow ; 
 Ask damask roses, why in June they blow ; 
 Ask ice and hail, the reason why they're cold ; 
 Decaying beauties, why they will grow old ; 
 They'll tell thee, fate, that everything doth move, 
 Inforces them to this, and me to love. 
 There is no reason for our love or hate, 
 'Tis irresistible as Death or Fate ; 
 'Tis not his face ; I've seen enough to see 
 That is not good, though doted on by me ; 
 Nor is't his tongue that has this conquest won. 
 For that at least is equalled by my own ; 
 His carriage can to none obliging be, 
 'Tis rude, affected, full of vanity, 
 Strangely ill-natured, peevish and unkind, 
 Unconstant, false, to jealousy inclined ; 
 His temper could not have so great a power, 
 'Tis mutable and changes every hour ; 
 
 R
 
 258 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Those vigorous years, that women so adore, 
 Are past in him, he's twice my age and more ; 
 And yet I love this false, this worthless man 
 With all the passion that a woman can, 
 Dote on his imperfections, though I spy 
 Nothing to love, I love, and know not why. 
 Save 'tis decreed in the dark book of fate. 
 That I should love, and he should be ingrate." 
 
 The artificial accent of the age is entirely absent 
 here, as elsewhere in Ephelia, and her couplets are not 
 without vigour. Dryden's Aureng-Zebe had not been 
 acted without profit to the ear of this young lady, who 
 might, one fancies, under proper training, have become 
 a genuine poet. She mentions Waller and Cowley with 
 enthusiasm, and addresses a copy of rhymes to Aphra 
 Behn, complimenting her on her " strenuous polite 
 verses." In all this she is the child of her age. But 
 her misfortunes, her amazing frankness in the analysis 
 of her feelings, and the possibility that she was Orinda's 
 daughter, lift her out of the region of commonplace. 
 
 1881. 
 
 There was a second edition of Ephelia's Poems, for 
 a knowledge of which I am indebted to the courtesy of 
 Mr. Edward H. Bierstadt, of New York. It consists 
 of the sheets of the first edition, with a new title dated 
 1682, and twenty-eight additional leaves at the end 
 containing thirty-two new poems. At least nine of 
 these additional poems are taken from the first (1680) 
 edition of Rochester, and many of the others are of 
 such a character as to make us hope that the chaste 
 Ephelia not merely did not write, but never read them.
 
 SIR GEORGE ETHEREDGE 
 
 THAT Sir George Etheredge wrote three plays 
 which are now even less read than the rank and 
 file of Restoration drama, and that he died at 
 Ratisbon, at an uncertain date, by falling down the 
 stairs of his own house and breaking his neck after a 
 banquet, these are the only particulars which can be 
 said to be known, even to students of literature, con- 
 cerning the career of a very remarkable writer. I 
 shall endeavour to show in the following pages that 
 the entire neglect of the three plays is an unworthy 
 return for the singular part they enjoyed in the creation 
 of modern English comedy; and I shall be able to 
 prove that the one current anecdote of Etheredge's life 
 has no foundation in fact whatever. At the same time 
 I shall have the satisfaction of printing, mainly for the 
 first time, and from manuscript sources, a mass of 
 biographical material which makes this dramatist, 
 hitherto the shadowiest figure of his time, perhaps the 
 poet of the Restoration of whose life and character we 
 know the most. 
 
 The information I refer to has been culled from two 
 or three fields. Firstly, from the incidental references 
 
 to the author scattered in the less-known writings of 
 
 259
 
 26o Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 his contemporaries ; secondly, from an article published 
 in 1750, and from manuscript notes still unprinted, 
 both from the pen of that " busy, curious, thirsty fly " 
 of polite letters, the antiquarian Oldys; but mostly, 
 and with far the greatest confidence, from a volume in 
 the Manuscript Room of the British Museum, entitled 
 TJie Lettej-book of Sir George Etheredge, while he was 
 Envoy Extraordinary at Ratisbon. This volume, which 
 is in the handwriting of an unnamed secretary, contains 
 drafts of over one hundred letters from Etheredge, in 
 English and French, a certain number of letters 
 addressed to him by famous persons, some of his 
 accounts, a hudibrastic poem on his character, and, 
 finally, some extremely caustic letters, treacherously 
 written by the secretary, to bring his master into bad 
 odour in England. I cannot understand how so very 
 curious and important a miscellany has hitherto been 
 overlooked. It was bought by the British Museum in 
 1837, and, as far as I can find out, has been never 
 referred to, or made use of in any way. It abounds 
 with historical and literary allusions of great interest, 
 and, as far as Etheredge is concerned, is simply a 
 mine of wealth. Having premised so much, I will 
 endeavour to put together, as concisely as pos- 
 sible, what I have been able to collect from all these 
 sources. 
 
 On January 9, 1686, Etheredge addressed to the 
 Earl of Middleton an epistle in octosyllabics, which 
 eventually, in 1 704, was printed in his Works. 
 Readers of Dryden will recollect that a letter in 
 verse to Sir George Etheredge by that poet has
 
 Sir George Etheredge 261 
 
 always been included in Dry den's poems, and that 
 it begins : — 
 
 " To you who live in chill degree, 
 As map informs, of fifty-three, 
 And do not much for cold atone 
 By bringing thither fifty-one." 
 
 That Etheredge was fifty-one at the date of this 
 epistle has hitherto been of little service to us, since 
 we could not tell when that letter was composed. 
 The Letterbook, however, in giving us the date of 
 Etheredge's epistle, to which Dryden's poem was an 
 immediate answer, supplies us with an important item. 
 If Etheredge was fifty-one in the early spring of 1686, 
 he must have been born in 1634, or the first months 
 of 163 5. He was, therefore, a contemporary of Dryden, 
 Roscommon, and Dorset, rather than, as has always 
 been taken for granted, of the younger generation of 
 Wycherley, Shad well, and Rochester. Nothing is 
 certainly known of his family. Gildon, who knew him, 
 reported that he belonged to an old Oxfordshire family. 
 He was at school at Thame, and, therefore, may pro- 
 bably have been a descendant of Dr. George Etheredge, 
 the famous Greek and Hebrew scholar, who died about 
 1590, and whose family estate was at that town. A 
 Captain George Etheredge, who was prominent among 
 the early planters of the Bermudas Islands from 16 15 
 to 1630, was presumably the poet's father. Oldys very 
 vaguely conjectures that he was educated at Cambridge. 
 Gildon states that for a little while he studied the law, 
 but adds, what external and internal evidence combine 
 to prove, that he spent much of his early manhood in
 
 262 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 France. My own impression is that from about 1658 
 to 1663 he was principally in Paris. His French, in 
 prose and verse, is as fluent as his English ; and his 
 plays are full of allusions that show him to be inti- 
 mately at home in Parisian matters. What in the 
 other Restoration pla3^wrights seems a Gallic affecta- 
 tion seems nature in him. My reason for supposing 
 that he did not arrive in London at the Restoration, 
 but a year or two later, is that he appears to have 
 been absolutely unknown in London until his Comical 
 Revenge was acted ; and also that he shows in this 
 play an acquaintance with the new school of French 
 comedy. He seems to have possessed means of his 
 own, and to have lived a thoroughly idle life, without 
 aim or ambition, until, in 1664, it occurred to him, in 
 his thirtieth year, to write a play. 
 
 At any critical moment in the development of a 
 literature, events follow one another with such head- 
 long speed, that I must be forgiven if I am a little tire- 
 some about the sequence of dates. According to all 
 the bibliographers, old and new, Etheredge's earliest 
 publication was She Would if She Could, 1668, im- 
 mediately followed by The Comical Revenge, first 
 printed in 1669. If this were the case, the claim of 
 Etheredge to critical attention would be comparatively 
 small. Oldys, however, mentions that he had heard 
 of, but never seen, an edition of this latter play of 
 1664. Neither Langbaine, Gildon, nor any of their 
 successors believe in the existence of such a quarto, 
 nor is a copy to be found in the British Museum. How- 
 ever, I have been so fortunate as to pick up two copies
 
 Sir George Etheredge 263 
 
 of this mythical quarto of 1664,* the main issue of 
 which I suppose to have been destroyed by some one 
 of the many accidents that befell London in that decade, 
 and Etheredge's precedence of all his more eminent 
 comic contemporaries is thus secured. 
 
 The importance of this date, 1664, is rendered still 
 more evident when we consider that it constitutes a 
 claim for its author for originality in two distinct kinds. 
 The Comical Revenge^ or Love in a Tub, which was 
 acted at the Duke of York's Theatre in Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, in the summer of 1664, is a tragi-comedy, of 
 which the serious portions are entirely written in 
 rhymed heroics, and the comic portions in prose. The 
 whole question of the use of rhyme in English drama 
 has been persistently misunderstood, and its history 
 misstated. In Mr. George Saintsbury's life of Dryden, 
 for the first time, the subject receives due critical atten- 
 tion, and is approached with the necessary equipment. 
 But while I thoroughly agree with Mr. Saintsbury's 
 view of the practice, I think something may be added 
 from the purely historical side. The fashion of rhyme 
 in the drama, then, to be exact, flourished from 1664 
 until Lee and Dryden returned to blank verse in 1678. 
 Upon this it suddenly languished, and after being occa- 
 sionally used until the end of the century, found its last 
 example in Sedley's Beauty the Conqueror^ published 
 in 1702. The customary opinion that both rhymed 
 dramatic verse and the lighter form of comedy were 
 introduced simultaneously with the Restoration is one 
 
 * I have also in my collection an issue of 1667, so that the edition 
 of 1669 must really be tlie third, and not the first.
 
 264 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 of those generalisations which are easily made and 
 slavishly repeated, but which fall before the slightest 
 historical investigation. When the drama was re- 
 organised in 1660, it reappeared in the old debased 
 forms, without the least attempt at novelty. Brome 
 and Shirley had continued to print their plays during 
 the Commonwealth, and in Jasper Mayne had found 
 a disciple who united, without developing, their merits 
 or demerits. During the first years of the Restoration 
 the principal playwrights were Porter, a sort of third- 
 rate Brome, Killigrew, an imitator of Shirley, Stapylton, 
 an apparently lunatic person, and Sir William Lower, 
 to whom is due the praise of having studied French 
 contemporary literature with great zeal, and of having 
 translated Corneille and Quinault. 
 
 Wherever these poetasters ventured into verse, they 
 displayed such an incompetence as has never before 
 or since disgraced any coterie of considerable writers. 
 Their blank verse was simply inorganic, their serious 
 dialogue a sort of insanity, their comedy a string of 
 pothouse buffooneries and preposterous "humours." 
 Dryden, in his Wild Gallant, and a very clever drama- 
 tist, Wilson, who never fulfilled his extraordinary 
 promise, tried, in 1663, to revive the moribund body of 
 comedy, but always in the style of Ben Jonson ; and 
 finally, in 1664, came the introduction of rhymed 
 dramatic verse. For my own part, I frankly confess 
 that I think it was the only course that it was possible 
 to take. The blank iambics of the romantic dramatists 
 had become so execrably weak and distended, the 
 whole movement of dramatic verse had grown so flaccid,
 
 Sir George Etheredge 265 
 
 that a little restraint in the severe limits of rhyme was 
 absolutely necessary. It has been too rashly taken for 
 granted that we owe the introduction of the new form 
 to Dryden. It is true that in the 1664 preface to The 
 Rival Ladies, a play produced on the boards in the 
 winter of 1663, Dryden recommends the use of rhyme 
 in heroic plays, and this fact, combined with the little 
 study given to Dryden's dramas, has led the critics to 
 take for granted that that play is written in rhyme. A 
 glance at the text will show that this is a mistake. 
 The Rival Ladies is written in blank verse, and only 
 two short passages of dialogue in the third act exhibit 
 the timid way in which Dryden tested the ear of the 
 public. 
 
 Of course lyrical passages in all plays, and the main 
 part of masques, such as the pastorals of Day, had, 
 even in the Elizabethan age, been written in deca- 
 syllabic rhymed verse ; but these exceptions are as 
 little to the point as is the example under which Dryden 
 shelters himself, The Siege of Rhodes. This piece was 
 an opera, and therefore naturally in rhyme. As a 
 point of fact Dryden was the first to propose, and 
 Etheredge the first to carry out, the experiment of 
 writing ordinary plays in rhyme. Encouraged by the 
 preface to The Rival Ladies, and urged on by the 
 alexandrines he was accustomed to listen to on the 
 French stage, Etheredge put the whole serious part of 
 his Comical Revenge into dialogue, of which this piece 
 from the duel scene is an example : — 
 
 " Bruce. Brave men ! this action makes it well appear 
 'Tis honour and not envy brings you here.
 
 266 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Beaufort. We come to conquer, Bruce, and not to see 
 Such villains rob us of our victory ; 
 Your lives our fatal swords claim as their due, 
 We'd wronged ourselves had we not righted you. 
 
 Bruce. Your generous courage has obliged us so, 
 That to your succour we our safety owe. 
 
 Lovis. You've done what men of honour ought to do. 
 What in your cause we would have done for you. 
 
 Beaufort. You speak the truth, we've but our duty done ; 
 Prepare ; duty's no obligation. \fie strips. 
 
 None come into the field to weigh what's right. 
 This is no place for counsel, but for fight." 
 
 And so on. The new style was at once taken up by 
 the Howards, Killigrews, and Orrerys, and became, as 
 we have seen, the rage for at least fourteen years. 
 
 But the serious portion of The Comical Reve^tge is 
 not worth considering in comparison with the value of 
 the prose part. In the underplot, the gay, realistic 
 scenes which give the play its sub-title of the " Tale of 
 a Tub," Etheredge virtually founded English comedy, 
 as it was successively understood by Congreve, Gold- 
 smith, and Sheridan. The Royalists had come back 
 from France deeply convinced of the superiority of 
 Paris in all matters belonging to the business of the 
 stage. Immediately upon the Restoration, in i66i, an 
 unknown hand had printed an English version of the 
 Menteur of Corneille. Lower had translated the trage- 
 dies of that poet ten years before, and had returned 
 from his exile in Holland with the dramas of Quinault 
 in his hand. But the great rush of Royalists back to 
 England had happened just too soon to give them an 
 opportunity of witnessing the advent of Moliere. By 
 the end of 1659 the exiled Court, hovering on the Dutch
 
 Sir George Etheredge 267 
 
 frontier, had transferred their attention from Paris to 
 London. A few months before this, Moliere and his 
 troop had entered Paris, and an unobtrusive perform- 
 ance of L^tourdi had gradually led to other triumphs 
 and to the creation of the greatest modern school of 
 comedy. What gave The Comical Revenge of Etheredge 
 its peculiar value and novelty was that it had been 
 written by a man who had seen and understood 
 VAtourdi^ Le Depit Amoureux, and Les Precieuses 
 Ridicules. Etheredge loitered long enough in Paris 
 for Moliere to be revealed to him, and then he hastened 
 back to England with a totally new idea of what comedy 
 ought to be. 
 
 The real hero of the first three comedies of Moliere 
 is Mascarille, and in like manner the farcical interest 
 of The Comical Revenge centres around a valet, Dufoy. 
 When the curtain went up on the first scene, the 
 audience felt that a new thing was being presented to 
 them, new types and an unfamiliar method. Hitherto 
 Ben Jonson had been the one example and theoretical 
 master of all popular comedy. The great aim had been 
 to hold some extravagance of character up to ridicule, 
 to torture one monstrous ineptitude a thousand ways, 
 to exhaust the capabilities of the language in fantastic 
 quips and humours. The comedian had been bound to 
 be in some sort a moralist, to lash himself into an ethical 
 rage about something, and to work by a process of 
 evolution rather than by passionless observation of 
 external manners. Under such a system wit might 
 flourish, but there was no room for humour, in the 
 modern acceptation of the word; for humour takes
 
 268 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 things quietly, watches unobtrusively, and is at heart 
 sublimely indifferent. Now, the Royalists had come 
 home from exile weary of all moral discussion, apt to 
 let life slip, longing above all things for rest and 
 pleasure and a quiet hour. It was a happy instinct that 
 led Etheredge to improve a little on Moliere himself, 
 and simply hold up the mirror of his play to the genial, 
 sensual life of the young gentlemen his contemporaries. 
 The new-found motto of French comedy, castigat 
 ridendo mores, would have lain too heavily on English 
 shoulders; the time of castigation was over, and life 
 flowed merrily down to the deluge of the Revolution. 
 
 The master of Dufoy, Sir Frederick Frollick, is not a 
 type, but a portrait ; and each lazy, periwigged fop in 
 the pit clapped hands to welcome a friend that seemed 
 to have just strolled in from the Mulberry Garden. He 
 is a man of quality, who can fight at need with spirit 
 and firmness of nerve, but whose customary occupation 
 is the pursuit of pleasure without dignity and without 
 reflection. Like all Etheredge's fine gentlemen, he is 
 a finished fop, although he has the affectation of not 
 caring for the society of fine friends. He spends 
 hours at his toilet, and " there never was a girl more 
 humoursome nor tedious in the dressing of her baby." 
 It seems to me certain that Etheredge intended Sir 
 Frederick as a portrait of himself. Dufoy gives an 
 amusing account of his being taken into Sir Frederick's 
 service. He was lounging on the new bridge in Paris, 
 watching the marionettes and eating custard, when 
 young M. de Grandville drove by in his chariot, in 
 company ,with his friend Sir Fred. Frollick, and recom-
 
 Sir George Etheredge 269 
 
 mended Dufoy as a likely fellow to be entrusted with a 
 certain delicate business, which he carried out so well, 
 that Sir Frederick made him his valet. The Comical \ 
 Revenge is a series of brisk and entertaining scenes / 
 strung on a very light thread of plot. Sir Frederick 
 plays fast and loose, all through, with a rich widow who 
 wants to marry him ; a person called Wheedle, with 
 an accomplice. Palmer, who dresses up to personate a 
 Buckinghamshire drover, plays off the confidence-trick 
 on a stupid knight, Sir Nicholas Cully, quite in the 
 approved manner of to-day. This pastime, called 
 "coney-catching" a century earlier, was by this time 
 revived under the title of " bubbling." By a pleasant 
 amenity of the printer's the rogues say to one another, 
 " Expect your Kew," meaning " cue," 
 
 Meanwhile high love affairs, jealousies, and a tremen- 
 dous duel, interrupted by the treachery of Puritan 
 villains, have occupied the heroic scenes. The comedy 
 grows fast and furious ; Sir Nicholas rides to visit the 
 widow on a tavern-boy's back, with three bottles of 
 wine suspended on a cord behind him. Sir Frederick 
 frightens the widow by pretending to be dead, and 
 Dufoy, for being troublesome and spiteful, is confined 
 by his fellow-servants in a tub, with his head and 
 hands stuck out of holes, and stumbles up and down 
 the stage in that disguise. A brief extract will give a 
 notion of the sprightly and picturesque manner of the 
 dialogue. A lady has sent her maid to Sir Frederick's 
 lodgings to remonstrate with him on his boisterousness. 
 
 ^'■Beaufort. Jenny in tears ! what's the occasion, poor girl? 
 Maid. I'll tell you, my Lord.
 
 270 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Sir Fred. Buzz ! Set not her tongue a-going again ; she has 
 made more noise than half a dozen paper-mills ; London Bridge 
 at low water is silence to her ; in a word, rambling last night, 
 we knocked at her mistress's lodging, they denied us entrance, 
 whereat a harsh word or two flew out. 
 
 Maid. These were not all your heroic actions ? pray tell the 
 consequences, how you marched bravely at the rear of an army 
 of linkboys ; upon the sudden, how you gave defiance, and 
 then, having waged a bloody war with the constable, and having 
 vanquished that dreadful enemy, how you committed a general 
 massacre on the glass windows. Are not these most honour- 
 able achievements, such as will be registered to your eternal 
 fame by the most learned historian of Hicks's Hall? 
 
 Sir Fred. Good, sweet Jenny, let's come to a treaty ; do but 
 hear what articles I propose." 
 
 The success of TJie Comical Revenge was unpre- 
 cedented, and it secured its author an instant popu- 
 larity. While it was under rehearsal, it attracted the 
 attention of the young Lord Buckhurst, then distin- 
 guished only as a parliamentary man of promise, but 
 soon to become famous as the poet Earl of Dorset. 
 To him Etheredge dedicated his play, and by him was 
 introduced to that circle of wits, Buckingham, Sedley, 
 and the precocious Rochester, with whom he was to be 
 associated for the rest of his life. 
 
 Four years later he produced another and a better 
 play. Meanwhile English comedy had made great ad- 
 vances. Dryden and Wilson had proceeded ; Sedley, 
 Shadwell, the Howards, had made their first appear- 
 ance ; but none of these, not even the author of The 
 Mulberry Garden^ had quite understood the nature of 
 Etheredge's innovation. In SJie Would if She Could 
 he showed them more plainly what he meant, for he
 
 Sir George Etheredge 271 
 
 had himself come under the influence of a masterpiece 
 of comedy. It is certain to me that the movement of 
 She Would if She Could is founded upon a reminis- 
 cence of Tartuffe, which, however, was not printed 
 until 1669, "une comedie dont on a fait beaucoup de 
 bruit, qui a este longtemps persecutee." Etheredge 
 may have been present at the original performance of 
 the first three acts, at Versailles, in May 1664; but 
 it seems to me more probable that he saw the public 
 representation at Paris in the summer of 1667, and 
 that he hastened back to England with the plot of his 
 own piece taking form in his brain. 
 
 The only direct similarity between the French and 
 English pla3'^s is this, that Lady Cockwood is a female 
 Tartuffe, a woman of loud religious pretensions, who 
 demands respect and devotion for her piety, and who 
 is really engaged, all the time, in the vain prosecution 
 of a disgraceful intrigue. Sir Oliver Cockwood, a 
 boisterous, elderly knight, has come up to town for 
 the season, in company with his pious lady, who leads 
 him a sad life, with an old friend, Sir Jocelyn Jolly, 
 and with the wards of the latter, two spirited girls 
 called Ariana and Gatty. These people have taken 
 lodgings in St. James's Street, at the Black Posts, as 
 Mrs. Sentry, the maid, takes pains to inform young 
 Mr. Courtall, a gentleman of fashion in whom Lady 
 Cockwood takes an interest less ingenuous than she 
 pretends. The scene, therefore, instead of being laid 
 in Arcadia or Cockayne, sets us down in the heart of 
 the West End, the fashionable quarter of the London 
 of 1668. The reader who has not studied old maps,
 
 272 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 or the agreeable books of Mr. Wheatley, is likely to 
 be extremely ill informed as to the limits and scope ot 
 the town two hundred years ago. St. James's Street, 
 which contained all the most genteel houses, ran, a 
 sort of rural road, from Portugal Street, or Piccadilly, 
 down to St. James's Park. One of Charles II.'s first 
 acts was to beautify this district. St. James's Park, 
 which then included Green Park, had been a kind of 
 open meadow. The King cut a canal through it, 
 planted it with lime-trees, and turned the path that 
 led through St. James's Fields into a drive called Pall 
 Mall. In St. James's Street rank and fashion clustered, 
 and young poets contended for the honour of an invi- 
 tation to Mr. Waller's house on the west side. Here 
 also the country gentry lodged when they came up to 
 town, and a few smart shops had recently been opened 
 to supply the needs of people of quality. 
 
 Such was the bright scene of that comedy of fashion- 
 able life of which She Would if She Could gives us 
 a faithful picture. In a town still untainted by smoke 
 and dirt, with fresh country airs blowing over it from 
 all quarters but the east, the gay world of Charles II.'s 
 court ran through its bright ephemeral existence. 
 There is no drama in which the physical surroundings 
 of this life are so picturesquely brought before us as 
 that of Etheredge. The play at present under dis- 
 cussion distinguishes itself from the comic work of 
 Dry den, or W3^cherley, or Shad well, even from that 
 of Congreve, by the little graphic touches, the intimate 
 impression, the clear, bright colour of the scenes. The 
 two girls. Sir Jocelyn's wards, finding life dreary with
 
 Sir George Etheredge 273 
 
 Lady Cockwood and her pieties, put on vizards, and 
 range the Parks and the Mall without a chaperon. 
 This is an artful contrivance, often afterwards imitated 
 — as notably by Lord Lansdowne in his She Gallants 
 — but original to Etheredge, and very happy, from the 
 opportunity it gives of drawing out naive remarks on 
 familiar things; for in the second act the girls find 
 their way to the Mulberry Garden, a public place of 
 entertainment, adjoining Lord Arlington's mansion of 
 Goring House, afterwards Buckingham Palace, and 
 much frequented by a public whom Cromwell's sense 
 of propriety had deprived of their favourite Spring 
 Garden. Here Ariana and Gatty meet Lady Cock- 
 wood's recalcitrant spark Courtall, walking with his 
 friend Freeman, and from behind their masks carry 
 on with them a hazardous flirtation. The end of this 
 scene, when the two sprightly girls break from their 
 gallants and appear and reappear, crossing the stage 
 from opposite corners, amid scenery that reminded 
 every one in the theatre of the haunt most loved by 
 Londoners, must have been particularly delightful and 
 diverting to witness ; and all these are circumstances 
 which we must bear in mind if we wish the drama of 
 the Restoration to be a living thing to us in reading 
 it. It was a mundane entertainment, but in its earthly 
 sincerity it superseded something that had ceased to 
 be either human or divine. 
 
 The two old knights are "harp and violin — nature 
 has tuned them to play the fool in concert," and their 
 extravagances hurry the plot to its crisis. They 
 swagger to their own confusion, and Lady Cockwood 
 
 s
 
 274 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 encourages their folly, that she herself may have an 
 opportunity of meeting Courtall. She contrives to 
 give him an appointment in the New Exchange, which 
 seems to have been a sort of arcade leading out of the 
 Strand, with shops on each side. When the curtain 
 rises for the third act, Mrs. Trinkett is sitting in the 
 door of her shop inviting the people of quality to step 
 in : " What d'ye buy ? What d'ye lack, gentlemen ? 
 Gloves, ribbands, and essences ? ribbands, gloves, and 
 essences ? " She is a w'oman of tact, who, under the 
 pretence of selling "a few fashionable toys to keep the 
 ladies in countenance at a play or in the park," passes 
 letters or makes up rendezvous between people of 
 quality. At her shop the gallants "scent their eye- 
 brows and periwigs with a little essence of oranges or 
 jessamine ; " and so Courtall occupies himself till Lady 
 Cockwood arrives. Fortunately for him, Ariana and 
 Gatty, who are out shopping, arrive at the same 
 moment; so he proposes to take them all in his coach 
 to the Bear in Drury Lane for a dance. The party at 
 the Bear is like a scene from some artistically-mounted 
 drama of our own day. Etheredge, with his singular 
 eye for colour, crowds the stage with damsels in sky- 
 blue, and pink, and flame-coloured taffetas. To them 
 arrive Sir Oliver and Sir Jocelyn ; but as Sir Oliver 
 was drunk overnight, Lady Cockwood has locked up 
 all his clothes except his russet suit of humiliation, in 
 which he is an object of ridicule and persecution to all 
 the bright crowd, who 
 
 "Wave the gay wreathe, and titter as they prance."
 
 Sir George Etheredge 275 
 
 In this scene Etheredge introduces a sword, a velvet 
 coat, a flageolet, a pair of bands, with touches that 
 remind one of Metzu or Gheraerdt Douw. Sir Oliver, 
 who is the direct prototype of Vanbrugh's Sir John 
 Brute, gets very drunk, dances with his own wife in 
 her vizard, and finally brings confusion upon the whole 
 company. The ladies rush home, whither Freeman 
 comes to console Lady Cockwood ; a noise is heard, 
 and he is promptly concealed in a cupboard. Courtall 
 enters, and then a fresh hubbub is heard, for Sir Oliver 
 has returned. Courtall is hurried under a table just in 
 time for the old knight to come in and perceive nothing. 
 But he has brought a beautiful China orange home to 
 appease his wife, and as he shows this to her it drops 
 from his fingers, and runs under the table where 
 Courtall lies. The maid, a girl of resource, promptly 
 runs away with the candle, and, in the stage dark- 
 ness, Courtall is hurried into the cupboard, where he 
 finds Freeman. The threads are gradually unravelled ; 
 Courtall and Freeman are rewarded, for nothing in 
 particular, by the hands of Ariana and Gatty, and Lady 
 Cockwood promises to go back to the country and 
 behave properly ever after. The plot of so slight a 
 thing is a gossamer fabric, and scarcely bears analysis ; 
 but the comedy was by far the most sprightly per- 
 formance at tliat time presented to any audience in 
 Europe save that which was listening to Moliere. 
 
 Etheredge had not dedicated SJie Would if She 
 Cojild to any patron ; but the grateful town accepted 
 it with enthusiasm, and its author was the most 
 popular of the hour. It was confidently hoped that he
 
 276 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 would give his energies to the stage ; but an indolence 
 that was habitual to him, and against which he never 
 struggled, kept him silent for eight years. During 
 this time, however, he preserved his connection with 
 the theatres, encouraged Medbourne the actor to trans- 
 late Tartuffe, and wrote an epilogue for him when 
 that play was produced in England in 1670. He 
 wrote, besides, a great number of little amatory pieces, 
 chiefly in octosyllabics, which have never been col- 
 lected. Oldys says, in one of his manuscript notes, 
 that he once saw a Miscellany ^ printed in 1672, 
 almost full of verses by Etheredge, but without his 
 name. I have not been able to trace this ; but most 
 of the numerous collections of contemporary verse 
 contained something of his, down to the Miscellany 
 of 1701. If any one took the trouble to extract 
 these, at least fifty or sixty poems could be put 
 together ; but they are none of them very good. 
 Etheredge had but little of the lyrical gift of such 
 contemporaries as Dryden, Rochester, and Sedley; 
 his rhymed verse is apt to be awkward and languid. 
 This may be as good an opportunity as any other of 
 quoting the best song of his that I have been able 
 to unearth : — 
 
 " Ye happy swains, whose hearts are free 
 
 From love's imperial chain, 
 Take warning and be taught by me 
 
 To avoid th' enchanting" pain ; 
 Fatal the wolves to trembling flocks, 
 
 Fierce winds to blossoms prove, 
 To careless seamen, hidden rocks, 
 
 To human auiet — love.
 
 Sir George Etheredge 277 
 
 " Fly the fair sex, if bliss you prize — 
 
 The snake's beneath the flower ; 
 Who ever gazed on beauteous eyes 
 
 And tasted quiet more? 
 How faithless is the lovers' joy 1 
 
 How constant is their care ! 
 The kind with falsehood do destroy, 
 
 The cruel with despair," 
 
 We learn from Shadwell, in the preface to The 
 Humorists of 1671, that the success of She Would if 
 She Could was endangered by the slovenly playing of 
 the actors. This may have helped to disgust the 
 fastidious Etheredge. At all events, the satirists 
 began to be busy with the name of so inert a popular 
 playwright; and, in 1675, Rochester expressed a 
 general opinion in the doggerel of his Session of the 
 Poets : — 
 
 ' Now Apollo had got gentle George in his eye, 
 And frankly confessed that, of all men that writ, 
 There's none had more fancy, sense, judgment, and wit ; 
 But i' the crying sin, idleness, he was so hardened 
 That his long seven years' silence was not to be pardoned." 
 
 " Gentle George " gave way, and composed, with all 
 the sparkle, wit, and finish of which he was capable, 
 his last and best-known piece, TJie Man of Mode, or 
 Sir Fopling Flutter, brought out at the Duke's Theatre 
 in the summer of 1676. Recollecting his threatened 
 fiasco in 1668, Etheredge determined to put himself 
 under powerful patronage, and dedicated his new play 
 to Mary of Modena, the young Duchess of York, who 
 remained his faithful patroness until fortune bereft 
 her of the power to give. Sir Car Scroope wrote the
 
 278 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 prologue, Dryden the epilogue, and the play was acted 
 by the best company of the time — Betterton, Harris, 
 Medbourne, and the wife of Shadwell, while the part of 
 Belinda was in all probability taken by the matchless 
 Mrs. Barry, the new glory of the stage. 
 
 The great merit of The Man of Mode rests in the 
 brilliance of the writing and the force of the char- 
 acterisation. There is no plot. People of the old 
 school, like Captain Alexander Radcliffe, who liked 
 plot above all other things in a comedy, decried the 
 manner of Etheredge, and preferred to it " the manly 
 art of brawny Wycherley," the new writer, whose 
 Country Wife had just enjoyed so much success ; but, 
 on the whole, the public was dazzled and delighted 
 with the new types and the brisk dialogue, and united 
 to give Sir Fopling Flutter a warmer welcome than 
 greeted any other stage-hero during Charles II.'s 
 reign. There was a delightful heroine, with abundance 
 of light-brown hair, and lips like the petals of "a 
 Provence rose, fresh on the bush, ere the morning sun 
 has quite drawn up the dew ; " there was a shoemaker 
 whom every one knew, and an orange-woman whom 
 everybody might have known — characters which 
 Dickens would have laughed at and commended ; 
 there was Young Bellair, in which Etheredge drew his 
 own portrait; there was the sparkling Dorimant, so 
 dressed that all the pit should know that my Lord 
 Rochester was intended ; there was Medley, Young 
 Bellair's bosom friend, in whom the gossips discovered 
 the portrait of Sir Charles Sedley ; above all, there 
 was Sir Fopling Flutter, the monarch of all beaux and
 
 Sir George Etheredge 279 
 
 dandies, the froth of Parisian affectation — a delightful 
 personage, almost as alive to us to-day as to the 
 enchanted audience of 1676. During two acts the 
 great creature was spoken of, but never seen. Just 
 arrived from France, all the world had heard about 
 him, and was longing to see him, " with a pair of 
 gloves up to his elbows, and his periwig was more 
 exactly curled than a lady's head newly dressed for a 
 ball." At last, in the third act, when curiosity has 
 been raised to a fever, the fop appears. He is intro- 
 duced to a group of ladies and gentlemen of quality, 
 and when the first civilities are over he begins at once 
 to criticise their dress : — 
 
 '"'' Lady Townley. Wit, I perceive, has more power over you 
 than beauty, Sir Fopling, else you would not have let this lady 
 stand so long neglected. 
 
 Sir Fopling {to Emilia). A thousand pardons, madam 1 Some 
 civilities due of course upon the meeting a long-absent friend. 
 The eclat of so much beauty, I confess, ought to have charmed 
 me sooner. 
 
 Emilia. The brilliant of so much good language, sir, has 
 much more power than the little beauty I can boast. 
 
 Sir Fop. I never saw anything prettier than this high work, 
 on yonr point d'Espagne. 
 
 Emilia. 'Tis not so rich as poittt de Venise. 
 
 Sir Fop. Not altogether, but looks cooler, and is more proper 
 for the season. Dorimant, is not that Medley ? 
 
 Dori. The same, sir. 
 
 Sir Fop. Forgive me, sir, in this embarras of civilities, I 
 could not come to have you in my arms sooner. You under- 
 stand an equipage the best of any man in town, I hear ! 
 
 Medley. By my own you would not guess it. 
 
 Sir Fop. There are critics who do not write, sir. Have you 
 taken notice of the caleche I brought over.?
 
 28o Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Medley. O yes ! it has quite another air than the English 
 make. 
 
 Sir Fop. 'Tis as easily known from an English tumbrel as 
 an inns-of-court man is from one of us. 
 
 Dori. Truly there is a bel-air in calhhes as well as men. 
 
 Medley. But there are few so delicate as to observe it. 
 
 Sir Fop. The world is generally very g^rossier here indeed. 
 
 Lady Townlcy. He's very fine {looking at Sir Fop.). 
 
 Emilia. Extreme proper. 
 
 Sir Fop. O, a slight suit I had made to appear in at my first 
 arrival — not worthy your admiration, ladies. 
 
 Dori. The pantaloon is very well mounted. 
 
 Sir Fop. The tassels are new and pretty. 
 
 Medley. I never saw a coat better cut. 
 
 Sir Fop. It makes me look long-waisted, and, I think, 
 slender. 
 
 Lady Toivnley. His gloves are well-fingered, large and 
 graceful. 
 
 Sir Fop. I was always eminent for being bien-ganf/. 
 
 Efnilia. He must wear nothing but what are originals of the 
 most famous hands in Paris ! 
 
 Sir Fop. You are in the right, madam. 
 
 Lady Townley. The suit ? 
 
 Sir Fop. Barroy. 
 
 Emilia. The garniture ? 
 
 Sir Fop. Le Gras. 
 
 Medley. The shoes? 
 
 Sir Fop. Piccat. 
 
 Dori. The periwig ? 
 
 Sir Fop. Chedreux. 
 
 Lady Toivnley and Emilia {together). The gloves ? 
 
 Sir Fop. Orangerie {holding up his hands to them). You 
 know the smell, ladies ? " 
 
 The hand that throws in these light touches, in a 
 key of rose-colour on pale gray, no longer reminds us 
 of Moliere, but exceedingly of Congreve. A recent 
 critic has very justly remarked that in mere wit, the
 
 Sir George Etheredge 281 
 
 continuity of brilliant dialogue in which the action does 
 not seek to advance, MoHere is scarcely the equal of 
 Congreve at his best, and the brightest scenes of TJte 
 Man of Mode show the original direction taken by 
 Etheredge in that line which was more specially to 
 mark the triumph of English comedy. But the author 
 of Love for Love was still in the nursery when The 
 Man of Mode appeared, as it were, to teach him how to 
 write. Until Congreve reached manhood, Etheredge's 
 example seemed to have been lost, and the lesson he 
 attempted to instil to have fallen on admiring hearers 
 that were incapable of repeating it. 
 
 The shallowness, vivacity, and vanity of Sir Fopling 
 are admirably maintained. In the scene of which part 
 has just been quoted, after showing his intimate know- 
 ledge of all the best tradesmen in Paris, some one 
 drops the name of Bussy, to see if he is equally at 
 home among literary notabilities. But he supposes 
 that Bussy d'Ambois is meant, and is convicted of 
 having never heard of Bussy Rabutin, This is a curi- 
 ously early notice of a famous writer who survived it 
 nearly twenty years ; it does not seem that any French 
 critic has observed this. Sir Fopling Flutter is so 
 eminently the best of Etheredge's creations that we are 
 tempted to give one more sample of his quality. He 
 has come with two or three other sparks to visit Dori- 
 mant at his rooms, and he dances ^pas seul. 
 
 " Young Bellair. See ! Sir Fopling is dancing ! 
 Sir Fop. Prithee, Dorimant, why hast thou not a glass hung 
 up here ? A room is the dullest thing without one. 
 Y. Bell. Here is company to entertain you.
 
 282 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 St'r Fop. But I mean in case of being alone. In a glass a 
 man may entertain himself, 
 
 Dorl, The shadow of himself indeed. 
 
 Sir Fop. Correct the errors of his motion and his dress. 
 
 Medley. I find, Sir Fopling, in your solitude you remember 
 the saying of the wise man, and study yourself ! 
 
 Sir Fop. 'Tis the best diversion in our retirements. Dori- 
 mant, thou art a pretty fellow, and wearest thy clothes well, but 
 I never saw thee have a handsome cravat. Were they made 
 up like mine, they'd give another air to thy face. Prithee let 
 me send my man to dress thee one day. By heavens, an 
 Englishman cannot tie a ribband. 
 
 DoH. They are something clumsy-fisted. 
 
 Sir Fop. I have brought over the prettiest fellow that ever 
 spread a toilet ; he served some time under Merille, the greatest 
 g^?iie in the world for a valet de chambre. 
 
 Dori. What, he who formerly belonged to the Duke of 
 Candolle ? 
 
 Sir Fop. The very same — and got him his immortal re- 
 putation. 
 
 Dori. You've a very fine brandenburgh on, Sir Fopling ! 
 
 Sir Fop. It serves to wrap me up after the fatigue of a ball. 
 
 Medley. I see you often in it, with your periwig tied up. 
 
 Sir Fop. We should not always be in a set dress ; 'tis more 
 en cavalier to appear now and then in a deshabille." 
 
 In these wholly fastastical studies of manners we feel 
 less than in the more serious portions of the comedy 
 that total absence of moral purpose, high aim, or even 
 honourable instinct which was the canker of the age. 
 A negligence that pervaded every section of the upper 
 classes, which robbed statesmen of their patriotism and 
 the clergy of their earnestness, was only too exactly 
 mirrored in the sprightly follies of the stage. Yet even 
 there we are annoyed by a heroine who is discovered 
 eating a nectarine, and who, rallied on buying a
 
 Sir George Etheredge 283 
 
 "filthy nosegay," indignantly rebuts the accusation, 
 and declares that nothing would induce her to smell 
 such vulgar flowers as stocks and carnations, or 
 anything that blossoms, except orange-flowers and 
 tuberose. It is a frivolous world, Strephon bending 
 on one knee to Cloe, who fans the pink blush on her 
 painted cheek, while Momus peeps, with a grimace, 
 through the curtains behind her. They form an 
 engaging trio, mais ce n^ est pas de la vie huniaine. 
 
 The Man of Mode was licensed on June 3, 1676 ; it 
 enjoyed an unparalleled success, and before the month 
 was out its author was fleeing for his life. We learn 
 this from the Hatton Correspondence, first printed in 
 1879. It seems that in the middle of June, Etheredge, 
 Rochester, and two friends. Captain Bridges and Mr. 
 Downes, went to Epsom on a Sunday night. They 
 were tossing some fiddlers in a blanket for refusing to 
 play, when a barber, who came to see what the noise 
 was, as a practical joke induced them to knock up the 
 constable. They did so with a vengeance, for they 
 smashed open his door, entered his house, and broke 
 his head, giving him a severe beating. At last they 
 were overpowered by the watch, and Etheredge having 
 made a submissive oration, the row seemed to be at an 
 end, when suddenly Lord Rochester, like a coward as 
 he was, drew his sword on the constable, who had dis- 
 missed his men. The constable shrieked out " Murder ! " 
 and the watch returning, one of them broke the skull 
 of Downes with his staff. The others ran away, and 
 the watchmen were left to run poor Downes through 
 with a pike. He lingered until the 29th, when Charles
 
 284 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Hatton records that he is dead, and that Etheredge and 
 Rochester have absconded. 
 
 Four years afterwards the Hatton Correspondence 
 gives us another gHmpse of our poet, again in trouble. 
 On January 14, 16S0, the roof of the tennis-court in 
 the Haymarket fell down, " Sir George Etheredge 
 and several others were very dangerously hurt. Sir 
 Charles Sidley had his skull broke, and it is thought 
 it will be mortal." Sidley, or Sedley, flourished for 
 twenty years more ; but we may note that here, for the 
 first time, our dramatist is " Sir George." It is evident 
 that he had been knighted since 1676, when he was 
 plain " George Etheredge, Esq." In a manuscript 
 poem called The Present State of Matrimony, he is 
 accused of having married a rich widow to facilitate 
 his being knighted, and with success. The entries in 
 The Letterbook give me reason to believe that he was 
 not maligned in this. But he seems to have lived on 
 very bad terms with his wife, and to have disgraced 
 himself by the open protection of Mrs. Barry, after 
 Rochester's death in 1680. By this famous actress, 
 whose name can no more be omitted from the history 
 of literature than that of Mrs. Gwynn from the 
 history of statecraft, he had a daughter, on whom he 
 settled five or six thousand pounds, but who died 
 young. 
 
 The close of Etheredge's career was spent in the 
 diplomatic service. When this commenced is more 
 than I have been able to discover. From The Letter- 
 book it appears that he was for some time envoy of 
 Charles II. at the Hague. It would even seem that he
 
 Sir George Etheredge 285 
 
 was sent to Constantinople, for a contemporary satirist 
 speaks of 
 
 " Ovid to Pontus sent for too much wit, 
 Etheredge to Turkey for the want of it." 
 
 Certain expressions in The Letterbook make me 
 suspect that he had been in Sweden. But it is not 
 until the accession of James II. that his figure comes 
 out into real distinctness. In this connection I think 
 it would be hard to exaggerate the value of The Letter- 
 book, which I am about to introduce to my readers. 
 After reading it from end to end I feel that I know Sir 
 George Etheredge, hitherto the most phantasmal of the 
 English poets, better than I can know any literary man 
 of his time, better than Dryden, better, perhaps, than 
 Milton. 
 
 In February 1685, James II. ascended the throne, 
 and by March, Mary of Modena had worked so as- 
 siduously for her favourite that this warrant, for the 
 discovery of which I owe my best thanks to Mr. Noel 
 Sainsbury, was entered in the Privy Signet Book : — 
 
 "Warrant to pay Sir Geo. Etheredge (whom his Maj. has 
 thought fit to employ in his service in Germany), 3/. per diem." 
 
 On March 5 The Letterbook was bought, and 
 Etheredge and his secretary started for the Continent. 
 Why they loitered at the Hague and in Amsterdam 
 does not appear, but their journey was made in so 
 leisurely a manner that they did not arrive in Ratisbon 
 until August 30. It does appear, however, that the 
 dissipated little knight behaved very ill in Holland,
 
 286 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 and spent one summer's night dead drunk in the streets 
 of the Hague. On his arrival at Ratisbon, he had two 
 letters of recommendation, one from Barillon to the 
 French ambassador, the other from the Spanish 
 ambassador to the Burgundian minister.* The first 
 of these he used at once, and cultivated the society at 
 the French Embassy in a Vi^ay that would have been 
 extremely impolitic if it had not, without doubt, been 
 entered upon in accordance with instructions from 
 home. It was doubtless known to Etheredge, although 
 a secret at the German court, that James had com- 
 menced his reign by opening private negotiations with 
 France. The poet settled in a very nice house, with a 
 garden running down to the Danube, set up a carriage 
 and good horses, valets, and " a cook, though I cannot 
 hope to be well served by the latter " in this barbarous 
 Germany. On December 24 he wrote two letters, 
 parts of which may be quoted here. To Lord Sunder- 
 land he writes : — 
 
 " Since my coming here I have had a little fever, which has 
 been the reason I have not paid my duty so regular as I ought 
 to do to your Lordship. I am now pretty well recovered, and 
 hope I am quit at a reasonable price for what I was to pay on 
 the change of climate, and a greater change in my manner of 
 living. Is it not enough to breed an ill habit of body in a man 
 who was used to sit up till morning to be forced, for want of know- 
 ing what to do with himself, to go to bed in the evening ; one 
 who has been used to live with all freedom, never to approach any 
 
 * There was no Burgundy known to histoiy at this date. Mr. 
 Samuel R. Gardiner suggests to me that this was an agent of the 
 Spanish governor at Brussels, the Spanish Netherlands being part of 
 the old circle of Burgundy.
 
 Sir George Etheredge 287 
 
 one without ceremony ; one who has been used to run up and 
 down to find variety of company, to sit at home and entertain 
 himself in solitude? One would think the Diet had made a 
 Reichsgutachten to banish all pastimes in the city. Here was 
 the Countess of Nostitz, but malice would not let her live in 
 quiet, and she is lately removed to Prague. Good company 
 met at her house, and she had a little hombre to entertain them. 
 A more commode lady, by what I hear, never kept a basset 
 [table] in London. If I do well after all this, you must allow 
 me to be a great philosopher ; and I dare affirm Cato left not 
 the world with more firmness of soul than I did England." 
 
 And to a friend in Paris, on the same date : — 
 
 " Le divertissement le plus galant du pays cet hiver c'est le 
 trameau, ou Ton se met en croupe de quelque belle Allemande, 
 de maniere que vous ne pouvez ni la voir, ni lui parler, k cause 
 d'un diable de tintamarre des sonnettes dont les harnais sont 
 tous garnis." 
 
 In short, he very soon learned the hmitations of the 
 place. His letters are filled with complaints of the 
 boorish manners of the people, the dreary etiquette 
 which encumbers the Court and the Diet, and the 
 solitude he feels in being separated from all his literary 
 friends. The malice of the secretary informs us that 
 Sir George soon gave up his precise manner of living, 
 and adopted a lazier style. He seldom rose until two 
 or three p.m., dined at five or six, and then went to 
 the French ambassador's for three or four hours. 
 Finding time hang heavy on his hands, he took to 
 gaming with any disreputable Frenchman that hap- 
 pened to pass through the town. Already, early in 
 1686, a scoundrel called Purpurat, from Vienna, has 
 got round him by flatteries and presents of tobacco,
 
 288 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 and has robbed him of ten thousand crowns at cards. 
 When, however, things have come to this pass, 
 Etheredge wakes up, and on the suggestion of M. 
 Purpurat that he will be going back to Vienna, detains 
 Iiim until he has won nearly all his money back again, 
 and finally is quit with the loss of a pair of pistols, 
 with his crest upon them, which Purpurat shows in 
 proof of his ascendency over the English ambassador. 
 
 These matters occupy the spring and summer of 
 1686, but there is nothing said about them in the 
 letters home. These letters, however, are cheerful 
 enough. In January he encloses, with his despatches 
 to the Earl of Middleton, a long squib in octosyllabic 
 verse, which the English minister, who is ill at these 
 numbers, gets Dryden to answer in kind. A cancelled 
 counlet in the first draft of the former remarks : — 
 
 *' Let them who live in plenty flout ; 
 I must make shift with sauer kraut." 
 
 In June 1686 he writes to Middleton that he has 
 "not this week received any letter from England, 
 which is a thing that touches me here as nearly as 
 ever a disappointment did in London with the woman 
 I loved most tenderly." Middleton comforts him by 
 telling him that the king, after a performance of 
 The Man of Mode, remarked to him that he expected 
 Etheredge to put on the sock, and write a new comedy 
 while he was at Ratisbon. Once or twice, in subse- 
 quent letters, the poet refers to this idea; but the 
 weight of afi'airs, combined with his native indolence, 
 prevented his attempting the task. Meanwhile, he does
 
 Sir George Etheredge 289 
 
 not seem to have neglected his duty as it was understood 
 in those days. He writes, so he says at least, twice 
 every week about state matters to Middleton, and, not- 
 withstanding all the spiteful messages sent home about 
 him, he does not seem to have ever lost the confidence 
 of James and his ministers. These latter were most 
 of them his private friends, and in his most official 
 communications he suddenly diverges into some wag- 
 gish allusion to old times. His attitude at Ratisbon 
 was not what we should now demand from an envoy. 
 The English people, the English Parliament, do not 
 exist for him ; his one standard of duty is the per- 
 sonal wish of the king. By indulging the bias of 
 James, which indeed was his own bias, an excessive 
 partiality for all things French, he won himself, as we 
 shall see, the extreme ill-will of the Germans. But 
 the only really serious scrape into which he got, an 
 affair which annoyed him throughout the autumn and 
 winter of 1686, does not particularly redound to his 
 discredit. 
 
 It is a curious story, and characteristic of the times ; 
 The Letterbook, by giving Etheredge's own account, and 
 also the secretary's spiteful rendering, enables us to 
 follow the circumstances pretty closely. A troop of 
 actors from Nuremberg came over to Ratisbon in the 
 summer of 1686, with a star who seems to have been 
 the leading actress of her time in South German}'. 
 This lady, about whom the only biographical fact that 
 we discover is that her Christian name was Julia, seems 
 to have been respectability itself. Even the enemies of 
 Etheredge did not suggest that any immoral connection
 
 290 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 existed between them, and on the last day of the year, 
 after having suffered all sorts of annoyance on her 
 behalf, he still complains that she is disfiere as she is fair. 
 But actors were then still looked upon in Germany, as to 
 some extent even in France, as social pariahs, vagabonds 
 whom it was disgraceful to know, except as servants 
 of a high order; artistic menials, whose vocation it 
 was to amuse the great. But England was already 
 more civilised than this ; Etheredge was used to meet 
 Betterton and his stately wife at the court of his monarch, 
 and even the sullied reputation of such lovely sinners 
 as Mrs. Barry did not shut them out of Whitehall. 
 Etheredge, therefore, charmed in his Abdera of letters 
 by the art and wit and beauty of Julia, paid her a state 
 visit in his coach, and prayed for the honour of a visit 
 in return. Ratisbon was beside itself with indigna- 
 tion. Every sort of social insult was heaped upon 
 the English envoy. At a fete champetre the lubberly 
 Germans crowded out their elbows so as to leave him 
 no place at table ; the grand ladies cut him in the 
 street when their coaches met his, and it was made 
 a subject of venomous report to England that, in spite 
 of public opinion, he refused to quit the acquaintance of 
 the comedienne, as they scornfully named her. 
 
 At last, on the evening of November 25, a group of 
 students and young people of quality, who had heard 
 that Julia was dining with the English ambassador to 
 meet the French envoy and one or two guests, sur- 
 rounded Etheredge's house in masks, threw stones at 
 the windows, shouted "Great is Diana of the English 
 envoy ! " and, on Etheredge's appearing, roared to him
 
 Sir George Etheredge 291 
 
 to throw out to them the coviMienne. The plucky 
 little poet answered by arming his lacqueys and his 
 maids with sword-sticks, pokers, and whatever came 
 to hand, and by suddenly charging the crowd at the 
 head of his little garrison. The Germans were routed 
 for a moment, and Etheredge took advantage of his 
 success to put Julia into his coach, jump in beside 
 her, and conduct her to her lodging. The crowd, 
 however, was too powerful for him ; and though she 
 slept that night in safety, next day she was thrown 
 into prison by the magistrates, for causing a disturb- 
 ance in the streets. 
 
 Etheredge, not knowing what to do, wrote this 
 epistle to the ringleader of the attack on his house, 
 the Baron Von Sensheim : — 
 
 " J'estois surpris d'apprendre que ce joly gentil-homme 
 travesty en Italien hier au soir estoit le Baron de Senheim. Je 
 ne savois pas que les honnetes gens se meloient avec des 
 lacquais ramassez pour faire les fanfarons, et les batteurs de 
 pavez. Si vous avez quelque chose k me dire, faites le moy 
 savoir comme vous devez, et ne vous amusez plus k venir 
 insulter mes Domestiques ni ma maison, soyez content que 
 vous I'avez echappe belle et ne retournez plus chercher les 
 rdcompences de telles follies pour vos beaux compagnons. 
 J'ay des autres mesures k prendre avec eux." 
 
 To this he received a vague and impertinent reply 
 in German. Opinion in the town was so strongly 
 moved, that for some time Etheredge never went out 
 without having a musketoon in his coach, and each 
 of his footmen armed with a brace of pistols ready 
 charged. Eventually the lady was released, on tlie 
 understanding that she and her company should leave
 
 292 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 the town, which they did, proceeding in the last days 
 of 1686 across the Danube to Bnyrischenhoff,* where 
 Etheredge visited them. It was in the midst of this 
 turmoil that Etheredge composed some of his best 
 occasional verses. I do not think they have ever been 
 printed before : — 
 
 " Upon the downs when shall I breathe at ease, 
 Have nothing else to do but what I please, 
 In a fresh cooling shade upon the brink 
 Of Arden's spring, have time to read and think. 
 And stretch, and sleep, when all my care shall be 
 For health, and pleasure my philosophy ? 
 When shall I rest from business, noise, and strife, 
 Lay down the soldier's and the courtier's life, 
 And in a little melancholy seat 
 Begin at last to live and to forget 
 The nonsense and the farce of what the fools call great." 
 
 There is something strangely Augustan about this 
 fragment; we should expect it to be dated 1716 rather 
 than 1686, and to be signed by some Pomfret or Tickell 
 of the school of Addison. 
 
 On New-Year's Day, 1687, Etheredge encloses in a 
 letter to the Earl of Middleton a French song, inspired 
 by Julia, which may deserve to be printed as a 
 curiosity. I give it in the author's spelling, which 
 shone more in French than English : — 
 
 " Garde le secret de ton ame, 
 Et ne te laisse pas flatter, 
 Qu'Iris espargnera ta flamme, 
 Si tu luy permets d'eclater ; 
 
 That is to say, I suppose, the modern Stadt-am-Hof.
 
 Sir George Etheredge - 293 
 
 Son Humeur, h. I'amour rebelle, 
 
 Exile tous ses doux desirs, 
 Et la tendresse est criminelle 
 
 Qui veut luy parler en soupirs. 
 
 " Puis que tu vis sous son empire, 
 
 II faut luy cacher ton destin, 
 Si tu ne veux le rendre pire 
 
 Perce du trait de son d^dain ; 
 D'une rigeur si delicate 
 
 Ton cceur ne peut rien esperer, 
 Derobe done h. cette ingrate 
 
 La vanite d'en trionfer." 
 
 In February a change of ministry in London gives 
 him something else to think about; he hears a report 
 that he is to be sent to Stockholm ; he writes eagerly 
 to his patrons for news. On the eleventh of the month 
 he receives a tremendous snub from the Treasury 
 about his extravagance, and is told that in future his 
 extra expenses must never exceed fifty pounds every 
 three months. He is, indeed, assailed with many 
 annoyances, for his wife writes on the subject of the 
 comedienne from Nuremberg, and roundly calls him a 
 rogue. Upon this Etheredge writes to the poet, Lord 
 Mulgrave, and begs him to make up the quarrel, send- 
 ing by the same post, on March 13, 1687, this judicious 
 letter to Lady Etheredge : — 
 
 "My Lady, — I beg your pardon for undertaking to advise 
 you. I am so well satisfied by your last letter of your prudence 
 and judgment that I shall never more commit the same error. 
 I wish there were copies of it in London that it might serve 
 as a pattern to modest wives to write to their husbands ; you 
 shall find me so careful hereafter how I offend you that I 
 will no more subscribe myself your loving, since you take it 
 ill, but,— Madam, Y^ most dutyfull husband, G. E."
 
 294 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 His letters of 1687 are very full of personal items 
 and scraps of literary gossip. It would be impossible 
 on this, the first introduction of Tlie Letterbook, to 
 do justice to all its wealth of allusion. He carefully 
 repeats the harangue of the Siamese ambassadors on 
 leaving the German court; he complains again and 
 again of the neglect of the Count of Windisgratz, who 
 represents the Prince of Nassau, and is all-powerful 
 in the Palatinate ; he complains still more bitterly of 
 the open rudeness of the Countess Windisgratz ; he 
 is anxious about the welfare of Nat Lee, at that time 
 shut up in a lunatic asylum, but about to emerge for 
 the production of The Princess of Cleve, in 1689, and 
 then to die ; he writes a delightful letter to Betterton, 
 on May 26, 1687, asking for news of all kinds about 
 the stage. He says that his chief diversion is music, 
 that he has three musicians living in the house, that 
 they play all the best operas, and that a friend in Paris 
 sends him whatever good music is published. One 
 wonders whether Etheredge knew that Jean Baptiste 
 Lully had died a week or two before this letter was 
 written. News of the success of Sedley's Bellaniira 
 reaches him in June 1687, and provokes from him 
 this eloquent defence of his old friend's genius : — 
 
 " I am glad the town has so good a taste as to give the same 
 just applause to S'. Charles Sidley's writing which his friends 
 have always done to his conversation. Few of our plays can 
 boast of more wit than I have heard him speak at a supper. 
 Some barren sparks have found fault with what he has formerly 
 done, only because the fairness of the soil has produced so big 
 a crop. I daily drink his health, my Lord Dorset's, your own, 
 and all our friends'."
 
 Sir George Etheredge 295 
 
 A few allusions to famous men of letters, all made in 
 1687, may be placed side by side : — 
 
 " Mr. Wynne has sent me The Hind and the Panther^ by 
 which I find John Dryden has a noble ambition to restore 
 poetry to its ancient dignity in wrapping up the mysteries of 
 religion in verse. What a shame it is to me to see him a 
 saint, and remain still the same devil [myself]. 
   "Dryden finds his Macflecknoe does no good: I wish him 
 better success with his Hind and Panther. 
 
 " General Dryden is an expert captain, but I always thought 
 him fitter for execution than council. 
 
 "Remind my Lord Dorset how he and I carried two 
 draggled-tailed nymphs one bitter frosty night over the Thames 
 to Lambeth. 
 
 " If he happens in a house with Mr. Crown, John's songs will 
 charm the whole family," 
 
 A letter from Dryden, full of pleasant chat, informs 
 Etheredge in February that Wycherley is sick of an 
 apoplexy. The envoy begs leave, later in the year, to 
 visit his friend, the Count de Thun, whose acquaintance 
 he made in Amsterdam, and who is now at Munich, but 
 permission is refused. In October the whole Electoral 
 College invites itself to spend the afternoon in Sir 
 George Etheredge's garden, and he entertains them so 
 lavishly, and with so little infusion of Danube water in 
 the wine, that next morning he is ill in bed. His in- 
 disposition turns to tertian ague, and towards the end 
 of the month he asks to be informed how quinine should 
 be prepared. He compares himself philosophically to 
 Falstaff, however, and by Christmas time grows pensive 
 at the thought of the " plum-pottage " at home, and is 
 sohcitous about a black laced hood and pair of scarlet
 
 296 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 stockings which he has ordered from London. In 
 January 1688 he laments that Sedley has grown 
 temperate and Dorset uxorious, but vows that he will 
 be on his guard, and remain foppish. The last extract 
 that has any literary interest is taken from a letter 
 dated March 8, 1688:— 
 
 " Mrs. Barry bears up as well as I myself have done ; my 
 poor Lord Rochester [VVilmot, not Hyde] could not weather 
 the Cape, and live under the line fatal to puling constitutions. 
 Though I have given up writing plays, I should be glad to read 
 a good one, wherefore pray let Will Richards send me Mr. 
 Shadwell's [^The Squire of Alsatia] as soon as it is printed, 
 that I may know what is being done. . . . Nature, you know, 
 intended me for an idle fellow, and gave me passions and 
 qualities fit for that blessed calling, but fortune has made a 
 changeling of me, and necessity now forces me to set up for 
 a fop of business." 
 
 Three days after this he writes the last letter pre- 
 served in The Letterbook, and, but for an appendix to 
 that volume, we might have believed the popular story 
 that Etheredge fell downstairs at Ratisbon and broke 
 his neck. But the treacherous secretary continues to 
 write in 1689, and gives us fresh particulars. He 
 states that his quarrel with Sir George was that he had 
 been promised £60 per annum, and could only get £dp 
 out of his master. He further declares that to the last 
 Etheredge did not know ten words of Dutch (German), 
 and had not merely to make use of a French interpreter, 
 but had to entrust his private business to one or other 
 of his lacqueys ; and that moreover he spent a great 
 part of his time "visiting all the alehouses of the town, 
 accompanied by his servants, his valet de chambre, his
 
 Sir George Etheredge 297 
 
 hoffmaster, and his dancing and fighting master, all 
 with their coats turned inside outwards." 
 
 In his anger he lets us know what became of Ether- 
 edge at the Revolution, for in a virulent Latin harangue 
 at the close of The Lettcrbook he states that after a 
 stay at Ratisbon of " tres annos et sex menses," 
 accurately measured, for the secretary's cry is a cry 
 for gold, Etheredge fled to Paris. This flight must 
 therefore have taken place early in March 1689. 
 " Quando hinc abijt ad asylum apud Gallos quaerendum," 
 the poet left his books behind him, a proof that his 
 taking leave was sudden and urgent. The secretary 
 gives a list of them, and it is interesting to find the only 
 play-books mentioned are Shakespeare's Works and 
 the CEicvres de Aloliere, in two vols., probably the 
 edition of 1682. I note also the works of Sarrazin 
 and of Voiture. 
 
 At this point, I am sorry to say, the figure of 
 Etheredge at present eludes me. There seems no clue 
 whatever to the date of his death, except that in an 
 anonymous pamphlet, written by John Dennis, and 
 printed in 1722, Etheredge is spoken of as having been 
 dead "nearly thirty years." Dennis was over thirty 
 at the Revolution, and is as trustworthy an authority 
 as we could wish for. By this it would seem that 
 Etheredge died about 1693, nearer the age of sixty than 
 fifty. But Colonel Chester found the record of ad- 
 ministration to the estate of a Dame Mary Etheredge, 
 widow, dated Feb. i, 1692. As we know of no other 
 knight of the name, except Sir James Etheredge, who 
 died in 1736, this was probably the poet's relict; and it
 
 298 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 may yet appear that he died in 169 1. He was a short, 
 brisk man, with a quantity of fair hair, and a fine com- 
 plexion, which he spoiled by drinking. He left no 
 children, but his brother, who long survived him, left 
 a daughter, who is said to have married Aaron Hill. 
 
 [It is to the kindness of my friend Mr. Edward Scott that I owe the 
 discovery of The Letterbook. I have also to acknowledge valuable help 
 from Mr. W. Noel Sainsbury, who has examined the State Papers for 
 me. The late Colonel Joseph Chester courteously consented to search 
 his invaluable catalogues of the registers. I have acknowledged in the 
 body of the chapter my debt to Oldys' manuscript notes and conjec- 
 tures. To protect myself from the charge of plagiarism, I may add 
 that the anonymous article on Etheredge in the new edition of the 
 Encyclopedia Britamtica, in which the critical view I have here taken 
 was first propounded in outline, is from my pen. In all cases my dates 
 are new style.]
 
 THOMAS OTWAY 
 
 WE gaze at the range of wooded hills that rises 
 between us and the sky, and we think we 
 perceive clearly enough of what the blue-grey 
 wall consists. It appears to be a single mass, diversi- 
 fied no doubt by upland and hollow, but in its general 
 character solid and complete. Yet we approach nearer 
 and nearer, we scale a line of hills, we descend into a 
 valley, and still the old loftier range is before us. We 
 begin to understand that what seemed a solitary barrier 
 was in fact only a series of independent ranges, each 
 distinct in itself, but all melted together in the har- 
 monious perspective. So it is in literature. But even 
 as the apparent extent of a mountain range, though 
 not strictly accurate, is yet a good general type of 
 the tendency of incline in the particular district, so 
 the wide groups that form themselves in the history 
 of letters, though curiously inexact to the minute 
 observer, are yet excellent landmarks in the large 
 field of study. 
 
 In reviewing the dramatic literature of England we 
 are accustomed to speak loosely of the drama of the 
 Restoration, as of a school of playwrights flourishing 
 from 1660 to 1700, and we attribute certain quahties 
 
 without much distinction to all the plays of this wide 
 
 299
 
 300 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 period. We are not incorrect in this rough classifica- 
 tion ; there are certain obvious features which all the 
 dramatists who survived the first date and were born 
 within the second unite in displaying. A Galilean vein 
 runs through tragedy and comedy, just as surely as an 
 Italian vein ran through the Elizabethan drama. 
 
 From Davenant to Gibber the aims are the same, 
 the ideal the same, the poetic sentiment the same. But 
 when we look a little closer, we are ready to forget that 
 this general coincidence exists. When the drama was 
 publicly reinstituted under Gharles II. it was a pompous 
 and gorgeous thing, with a new panoply of theatrical 
 display. Under the auspices of Davenant, a set of 
 fashionables wrote stilted pieces of parade which hardly 
 belonged to literature at all. The two families of the 
 Killigrews and the Howards were the main supporters 
 of this rustling, silken school, and the year 1665 was 
 the approximate date of its decay. Dryden sprang, a 
 somewhat tawdry Phoenix, from its ashes, and, in 
 company with Etheredge, Wilson, and Shadwell, re- 
 called the drama to something like good sense. This 
 was the first epoch of the Restoration, and for five 
 years these four names were the only tolerable ones 
 in English drama. 
 
 Between 1670 and 1675 this group received a sudden 
 accession of number so remarkable, that it has had no 
 parallel since the days of Marlowe. Within four years 
 Growne, Aphra Behn, Wycherley, George, Duke of 
 Buckingham, Lacy, Settle, Otway, and Lee published 
 each his first play, and in company with these more 
 or less distinguished men, a whole army of forgotten
 
 Thomas Otway 301 
 
 playwrights burst upon the world. After this efflor- 
 escence, this aloe-blossoming of bustling talent, twenty 
 years passed quietly on without a single new writer, 
 except Southerne, who belonged in age to the earlier, 
 and by genius to the later, school. Then, again, 
 between 1693 ^^^ I700> there ripened simultaneously 
 a new crop of dramatists, — Congreve, Gibber, Mary 
 Fix, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, and Rowe. It is plain that 
 some designation should distinguish the first group 
 from the second. 
 
 I would propose retaining the name of Restoration 
 dramatists for the men of the earlier period, to entitle 
 the contemporaries of Congreve the Orange dramatists : 
 thus getting rid of the deceptive impression that the 
 excesses and the elegances of these last writers were 
 in any way connected with the reign of Charles II., 
 who died when most of them were children. It will 
 be found that something of the bluff wit of Jonson still 
 lingered about the humour of Wycherley and Shadwell; 
 there was not a trace of it in the modern and delicate 
 sparkle of Congreve ; the tragedians, too, even such 
 dull dogs as Crowne, retained a tradition of the sudden 
 felicities and barbaric ornament of the Elizabethan, 
 though in an extremely modified form : a roughness 
 which has entirely disappeared from the liquid periods 
 of Tamerlane and TJie Mourning Bride. It may be 
 shortly said that the younger school were as easily 
 supreme in comedy as the elder in tragedy, since Con- 
 greve represents the one and Otway the other. 
 
 Thomas Otway was the son of the Rev. Humphrey 
 Otway, rector of Woolbeding, a parish near Midhurst,
 
 302 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 in the western division of Sussex. The poet was born 
 at Trotton, on March 3, 165 1, in the midst of the Civil 
 War, a few months before the decisive battle of 
 Worcester. An error in geography has crept into our 
 literary history, to the effect that Otway was born on 
 the banks of the poetic Arun — 
 
 " But wherefore need I wander wide 
 To old Ilissus' distant side, 
 
 Deserted stream, and mute? 
 Wild Arun, too, has heard thy strains, 
 And Echo, 'midst my native plains, 
 
 Been soothed by Pity's lute. 
 
 " There first the wren thy myrtles shed 
 On gentlest Otway's infant head, 
 
 To him thy cell was shown ; 
 And while he sang the female heart, 
 With youth's soft notes unspoiled by art, 
 Thy turtles mixed their own." 
 
 So Collins sang, addressing Pity ; but, unhappily for 
 this charming fancy, Trotton is a hamlet on the north 
 bank of the Rother, embowered in the billowy woods 
 of Woolmer Forest. There remain no traditions of 
 the boy's early life. A brief passage in one of his 
 poems is all we possess : — 
 
 " My Father was (a thing now rare) 
 
 Loyal and brave : my Mother chaste and fair. 
 The pledge of marriage-vows was only I ; 
 Alone I lived their much-loved fondled boy ; 
 They gave me generous education ; high 
 They strove to raise my mind, and with it grew their joy." 
 
 He was sent to school at Winchester, and in 1669 he 
 was entered as a commoner of Christ Church College,
 
 Thomas Otway 303 
 
 Oxford. His early life at the University was so easy 
 and brilliant, that in the bitterness of after days it 
 seemed in retrospect to have been without a shadow. 
 He was loved, courted, and flattered ; his quick parts 
 pleased his teachers and attracted to him the dangerous 
 society of young wits belonging to a richer station 
 than his own. Lord Falkland and the Earl of Ply- 
 mouth were among his intimate friends at Oxford ; we 
 know their names, while others are forgotten, because 
 they remained true to their companion in after life. It 
 was probably among these golden youths that Otway 
 gained and nourished a taste for pleasure and the 
 lighter arts of life. Already he versified, and no 
 doubt there were plenty of flatterers ready to promise 
 him a career in the newly reawakened literary life of 
 London. 
 
 It was probably in the Long Vacation, 167 1, being 
 twenty years of age, that he managed, we cannot tell 
 how, to introduce himself at the Duke's Theatre, in 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields. His first literary friend seems 
 to have been Aphra Behn, and to her he confided his 
 intense desire to appear on the public stage. His face 
 and figure, for he was singularly comely, were greatly 
 to his advantage, and the heart of the good-natured 
 poetess was touched. She gave him a part in her new 
 tragi-comedy of TJie Fordd Marriage. The circum- 
 stances were amusing. Betterton, already an actor in 
 the prime of life, had to enter as a young lover ; Otway, 
 the tender undergraduate, posed as the venerable king. 
 Yet the choice of the part showed the kindl}' tact of the 
 shrewd Mrs. Behn. The king had to speak the few
 
 304 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 first words, to which the audience never listens, to make 
 some brief replies in the first scene, and then not to 
 speak again until the end of the fourth act. In the fifth 
 act he had to make rather a long speech to Betterton, 
 explaining that he was " old and feeble, and could not 
 long survive," and this is nearly all he had to say till 
 the very end, where he was in great force as the kind 
 old man who unites the couples and speaks the last 
 words. It was quite a crucial test, and Otway proved 
 his entire inability to face the public. He trembled, 
 was inaudible, melted in an agony, and had to leave 
 the stage. The part was given to Westwood, a pro- 
 fessional actor, and Otway never essayed to tread the 
 boards again. 
 
 After this blow to his vanity he went back to 
 Oxford again, somewhat crestfallen, we cannot doubt. 
 But this visit must have produced an immense im- 
 pression on his character. To have been spoken to 
 on terms of equality by Mr. and Mrs. Betterton, even 
 though they may have laughed at him behind his back, 
 was a great distinction for the ambitious lad, and to 
 have been received by Mrs. Behn, the greatest female 
 wit since Orinda, this must indeed have marked an 
 epoch. And he had tasted the fierce, dehcious wine of 
 theatrical life, he had seen the green-room, associated 
 with actors, trodden the sacred boards themselves. No 
 doubt this early escapade in 1671 (Downe incorrectly 
 dates it 1672) set the seal upon his glittering and 
 melancholy career. He himself darkly alludes to the 
 death of a friend, whom he calls Senander, as deeply 
 moving him about this time ; but all we know, even by
 
 Thomas Otway 305 
 
 hearsay, is that he finally deserted the University in 
 1674, having refused an opening in the Church which 
 was offered him if he would take holy orders. He 
 obtained instead a cornetcy in a troop of horse, in 
 that year, and sold it again before twelve months 
 were over. 
 
 It seems that somewhat about this date he visited 
 Duke, the poet, at Cambridge, and this in all proba- 
 bility originated the rumour that he became a scholar 
 of St. John's College in that University. At all events 
 we find him, in 1675, settled in London, without 
 collegiate honours, and with no visible care to gain 
 a livehhood by any honest means. That the poor lad 
 was gulled by flatterers and idle companions is plain 
 enough ; it is obvious, also, that at first he must have 
 possessed some fortune or received a liberal allowance 
 from his father, for he tried to retain his aristocratic 
 friends and vie with them in extravagance as long as 
 he could. It was natural that he should gravitate to 
 his old friends at the Duke's Theatre, and though they 
 remembered his ill-success as an actor, they were ready 
 to receive him as a poet. In 1675 each of the theatres 
 accepted a tragedy from an unfledged dramatist; one 
 was the Alcibiades of Otway, the other the Nero of Nat 
 Lee, a youth of only twenty, but of precocious talent. 
 
 "We must pause a few moments to review the con- 
 dition of the stage in England since the Restoration. 
 During the last years of the Commonwealth, Sir 
 William Davenant had managed, by a clever subter- 
 fuge, to introduce in London lyrico-dramatic entertain- 
 ments, which he called "operas," a new word to the 
 
 u
 
 3o6 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 English public. These were given somewhat under 
 the rose, but when Charles II. arrived, Davenant posed 
 as the guardian of the drama, and claimed exclusive 
 privileges. The King took counsel with Clarendon, 
 and it was decided that only two theatres should be 
 licensed, one under his own direct patronage and the 
 other under that of the Duke of York. The King's 
 Theatre was placed under the censorship of Sir 
 Thomas Killigrew, and the Duke's was put in Dave- 
 nant's hands. In April 1663 the former company took 
 up their abode in Drury Lane, and Dryden thereupon 
 was regularly attached as dramatist to their house after 
 1667, until which time he sometimes wrote for Dave- 
 nant also. In 1668 Davenant died, and the house in 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields came into the far abler hands of 
 Betterton, a young actor of remarkable energy, who 
 had studied carefully at the Theatre Frangais with the 
 definite prospect of taking the command of the Duke's 
 company. It is true that for a short time Dr. Charles 
 Davenant, the amiable son of the late poet-laureate, 
 nominally undertook the direction, but Betterton was 
 the life and soul of the concern. 
 
 This great actor and excellent man was one of the 
 brightest characters of his time. In that jarring age 
 of quarrelling, debauchery, and disloyalty, the modest 
 and serene figure of Betterton appears in the centre of 
 the noisy, boisterous crowd, always erect, always un- 
 stained. The greatest actor the English stage saw 
 until Garrick, it was the singular art of Betterton to 
 give nobility and life to the pompous and shadowy 
 figures of mere lath and paper which the poor tragedians
 
 Thomas Otway 307 
 
 of the day called heroes : a thankless task which he 
 fulfilled with such amazing success, that the pit shrieked 
 applause at the trembling conscious poet whom the 
 genius of the actor had saved from being damned. 
 Hence Betterton was ahke the darling of the world 
 before and behind the foot -lights. In 1670 he 
 strengthened his position by marrying Mrs. Sanderson, 
 an actress of the company, whom in time he trained 
 to play most admirably. Mrs. Betterton was a woman 
 worthy of her husband, and under their conjoint 
 supervision the Duke's Theatre rivalled the King's in 
 success, despite the attractions of Mr. Hart, the 
 tragedian, and the lovely Mrs. Eleanor Gwynn. The 
 style of acting patronised at Lincoln's Inn Fields was 
 pure and severe. It was a saying of Betterton's that 
 he, when he was acting a good part, " preferred an 
 attentive silence to any applause," and it is by such 
 slight phrases as these, handed down by casual 
 auditors, that we learn how to value the sincerity and 
 artistic devotion of the man. 
 
 When Otway visited the Duke's Theatre in 1675, 
 the company was familiar to him. One girl, known 
 in theatrical history as Mrs. Barry, had indeed been 
 received in 1674, but her delivery was so harsh and 
 her gait so uncouth, that she had been dismissed at 
 the end of the season. Her beauty, however, was 
 rapidly ripening, and she contrived to fascinate the 
 worst roue of the day, the notorious John Wilmot, 
 Earl of Rochester. It is probable that Rochester may 
 have made himself specially useful to the Duke's com- 
 pany in the 5^ear 1675. In order to spite Dryden, the
 
 3o8 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 object of his animosity for the moment, the fretful 
 young Earl had adopted the rival cause of John 
 Crowne, and his exertions with the Queen had induced 
 the latter to commission that poet to produce an opera 
 for performance at court. Calzsto, or the Chaste 
 Nymph was the result of this unholy alliance, and it 
 was brought out with great pomp at the palace. The 
 daughters of the Duke of York performed the principal 
 parts, and in order to give eclat to the affair, Betterton 
 was invited to undertake the rehearsals and Mrs. 
 Betterton to train the young amateurs. The princesses 
 entered with spirit into the thing, Calisto was a great 
 success, and Crowne a happy man. This was in 
 1675, ^"*^ ^^ seems likely that the immediate re-engage- 
 ment of Mrs. Barry followed as a personal compliment 
 to Rochester. It was no common chance by which 
 her first appearance was arranged to be in Otway's 
 Alcibiades. These two persons, who were to play 
 Manon Lescaut and the Chevalier des Greux with a 
 difference, began life together and after a strangely 
 similar initial failure. 
 
 We may learn much of the under-current of feeling 
 from prologues and epilogues, but the prologue of 
 Alcibiades is a mere nervous experiment. The poet 
 tries to conceal his trepidation by affecting indifference; 
 he shows a want of tact and experience in ridiculing 
 the labours of his predecessors. But there was noth- 
 ing in his own play that could excuse such arrogance. 
 Young Nat Lee, with his blood-and-thunder tragedy 
 of Nero at the King's, was giving far better promise 
 than this. It was the fashion of the hour to write
 
 Thomas Otway 309 
 
 tragedies in rhyme, and Alcibiades accordingly is in 
 tagged couplets. Nothing could be flatter than the 
 versification, nothing tamer than the action, nothing 
 more conventional than the sentiments of this tiresome 
 play. So entirely without salient features is it, that 
 one has to hurry down one's impression of it imme- 
 diately one closes it, for in five minutes not a waif of it 
 remains in the memory. Charles Lamb remarked that 
 nobody could say of Mrs. Conrady's countenance that 
 it would be better if she had but a nose. No one 
 could say of Alcibiades that it would be better if it 
 had but a plot. Its entire deficiency in every kind of 
 quality gives it quite a unique air of complete insi- 
 pidity, which no positive fault could increase. If it 
 were even indecent, it would lose its typical dulness ; 
 on the contrary, its extreme propriety gave much 
 offence to the pit. But Betterton, we cannot doubt, 
 clothed the poet's lay figure of Alcibiades with majesty, 
 and in the small part of Draxilla, the hero's sister, the 
 exquisite Mrs. Barry, now carefully trained to her 
 business, won the applause of the audience. More 
 than this, she won the weak and feverish heart of the 
 young poet, who from this time fluttered like a moth 
 towards the flame or star of her beauty. 
 
 Mrs. Barry was an ignoble, calculating woman ; no 
 generous act, even of frailty, is recorded of her. 
 Whether or not, in rivalry with Mrs. Gwynn, she set 
 her cap at royalty, she had a well-balanced sense of 
 her own value, and smiled at nothing lower than an 
 earl. Of the letters addressed to her through the 
 remainder of his brief life by Otway, we possess only
 
 3IO Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 the few last, written, it is probable b}' internal evidence, 
 in 1682. We learn from these strange letters, which 
 throb through and through with passion under the 
 rhetorical ornament of fashionable expression, that for 
 seven years she kept him in the torture of suspense. 
 It is easy to understand why such a woman should 
 reject a humble and penniless lover, and at the same 
 time why she should have done her best, by little 
 courtesies and partial coquettings, to keep by her side 
 the poet who wrote the parts best suited to advance 
 her fame. It was universally acknowledged that no 
 characters became Mrs. Barry so well as those which 
 Otway wrote for her, and thus the poor tortured lover 
 had the agony of weaving out of his own brain the 
 robes that made his mistress lovely to his rivals. The 
 alliance between Mrs. Barry and Lord Rochester was 
 probably sufficient to keep the poet at a distance at 
 first, but as his passion grew and absorbed all other 
 thoughts, he dared to lay his heart at her feet. Like 
 Propertius, standing in tears in the street, while 
 Cynthia takes deep draughts of Falernian with her 
 lover, amid peals of laughter, so is the picture we form 
 of the unfortunate Otway, incurably infatuated, haunt- 
 ing the gay precincts of the Duke's Theatre. As long 
 as life and fortune lasted, he never abandoned the 
 company of the Bettertons, and they acted in every 
 play he wrote. 
 
 Although Alcibiades had been a partial failure, 
 Betterton accepted another tragedy from the 3"oung 
 author in the following year. Don Carlos is as great 
 an advance on its predecessor as it could possibly be.
 
 Thomas Otway 311 
 
 It is difficult to believe that they were written by the 
 same hand. The rhyming tragedies were on their 
 last legs, but Don Carlos was a crutch that might have 
 supported the failing fashion for years. The supple, 
 strong verse, un-English in character, but worthy of 
 Corneille or at least of Rotrou, assists instead of 
 hampering the dramatic action : the plot is well con- 
 sidered, tragical, and moving ; the characters, stagey 
 though they be, are vigorously designed and sustained. 
 I think we should be justified in calling Don Carlos 
 the best English tragedy in rhyme ; by one leap the 
 young Oxonian sprang ahead of the veteran Dryden, 
 who thereupon began to " weary of his long-loved 
 mistress, rhyme." The story is familiar to all readers 
 of Schiller; in Otway's play the intrigue is simpler 
 and less realistic, the object being, as always in 
 tragedies of this class, to amuse and excite rather than 
 to startle and to melt the audience. 
 
 The opening scene of Don Car-las is a fine declama- 
 tory piece of stage-business. The King, in full court, 
 lavishes affection on the Queen, in order to excite 
 jealousy in Don Carlos, and we are plunged at once 
 in the middle of things. We soon become familiar 
 with the two types which Otway incessantly presents 
 to us. The Queen, a soft and simple creature, be- 
 wildered in the etiquette of a Spanish court, full of 
 tenderness anc womanly pity, is the spiritual sister 
 of Monimia, Belvidera, and Lavinia. The hero is still 
 more exactly the type which Otway drew, I cannot but 
 believe, from his own heart. " An untamed, haughty, 
 hot and furious youth," Don Carlos is yet full of
 
 312 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 feminine weakness, irresolute, fevered, infatuate, unable 
 to give up the woman he loves though she is in the 
 hands of another man, yet lacking the force and temerity 
 to cut the Gordian knot by violence. Unstable as 
 water, it is impossible that he should avoid the tragical 
 end that awaits him. Such is Don Carlos, such again 
 in the Orphan is Castalio; but the very prototype 
 of the character is Jaffier in Venice Preserved. This 
 poetic, passionate, childish nature, born to sorrow as 
 the sparks fly upward, is as clearly depicted in the 
 love letters to Mrs. Barry as in the tragedies. The 
 poet dipped his pen in his own heart. 
 
 The modern reader bears with impatience the rhetoric 
 of the Restoration. But, if only to justify the statement 
 that Don Carlos is the best of the rhymed tragedies, 
 I must quote a few lines as an example of the nervous 
 English of the piece. Don John, the King's profligate 
 brother, for whom Rochester probably sat, is speaking : — 
 
 " Why should dull Law rule Nature, who first made 
 That Law by which herself is now betray'd ? 
 Ere Man's corruptions made him wretched, he 
 Was born most noble that was born most free ; 
 Each of himself was lord, and unconfined 
 Obeyed the dictates of his godlike mind. 
 Law was an innovation brought in since 
 When fools began to love obedience, 
 And called their slavery, safety and defence. 
 My glorious father got me in his heat. 
 When all he did was eminently great. 
 When warlike Belgia felt his conquering power 
 And the proud Germans called him Emperor. 
 Why should it be a stain then on my blood 
 Because I came not by the common road. 
 But born obscure and so more like a god ? "
 
 Thomas Otway 313 
 
 This is not the language of nature, to be sure, but 
 it is vigorous, muscular verse, and the form was that 
 in which the age most delighted. The contemporaries 
 of Otway and Dryden would have scorned us for 
 objecting to this artificial diction as much as we 
 should ridicule a barbarian for finding fault with a 
 prima donna for singing instead of speaking. These 
 things go by fashion. It is an accepted idea nowadays 
 that a tragedy hero must talk as much as possible like 
 an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances. 
 The same idea, fortunately, prevailed in the time of 
 Shakespeare. But always in France, and during the 
 Restoration in England also, a certain poetic phrase- 
 ology was demanded from a tragedian, just as musical 
 expression is demanded from an actor at the opera; 
 and we must, if we would judge the productions of 
 that age, submit them to the standard which their own 
 time recognised. It is very interesting, too, to see the 
 flesh and blood peeping out under the rouge and tinsel. 
 The parting between the Queen and Don Carlos, at 
 the end of the third act, despite its staginess, is full 
 of passion and fervour. It was played by Betterton 
 and Mrs. Mary Lee; Mrs. Barry, for an unexplained 
 reason, having no part given her in this drama. The 
 wife of Shadwell the poet took the part of the 
 Countess of Eboli, and it was perhaps on this occasion 
 that Otway became acquainted with the man-mountain 
 who so much hated Dryden. 
 
 The Duke of York, it is difficult to conceive why, 
 had admired Alcibiades, and Don Carlos was dedicated 
 to him. The play was an immense success, and
 
 314 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 brought in more money than any tragedy of the 
 period. The folks at the King's Theatre became 
 jealous, and one legend says that Dryden had the 
 characteristic rashness to say spitefully, that he 
 *' knew not a Hne in it he would be author of." 
 Otway, with schoolboy sprightliness, repHed that he 
 knew a comedy — probably the Marriage-d-la-Mode — 
 that had not so much as a quibble in it which he would 
 be the author of. We may see the Mephistopheles 
 hand of Rochester encouraging the youth to this 
 impertinence ; but at all events Otway was the suc- 
 cessful poet of the season, and wonderful!}^ flush of 
 money. It was the one fortunate hour of his life, 
 and even this, we may believe, was spoiled by the 
 female Mordecai in the gate. A slight reference to 
 the Fallen Angels, in the fourth act of Don Carlos, 
 is worth noting. It seems to show consciousness 
 of the great epic of the poet who had just passed 
 away. 
 
 It is quite impossible to unravel the threads of per- 
 sonal animosity which confuse the dramatic history 
 of this period. Everybody's hand was against every- 
 body else, and no friendship seemed to last beyond 
 a year. Almost the only writer who stood aloof from 
 the imbroglio was Mrs. Aphra Behn. She kept on 
 good terms with every one ; the busiest litterateur 
 of the period had no time to defame the characters 
 of her contemporaries. Settle had been the first of 
 Rochester's puppets, put up to annoy Dryden, and a 
 few years later, when the arch troubler was safe under- 
 ground. Settle still was sullenly firing blank cartridges
 
 Thomas Otway 315 
 
 at the Laureate. But dire discord broke out in this 
 joyous camp of assailants in the year 1676, Otway was 
 then the reigning favourite with Rochester, Crowne 
 was snubbed for having been too successful with his 
 Conquest of Jeriisakm^ and Elkanah Settle was quietly 
 dropped. But although "Doeg" had endured the in- 
 sults of Crowne, the upstart Otway was more than his 
 spirit could bear. He challenged Otway to a duel, 
 and, if we may believe Shadwell, this terrible contest 
 actually came off. Unhappily no lampooner and no 
 caricaturist of the period seized the heroic moment for 
 the laughter of ensuing generations. 
 
 Otway was better engaged in 1677, on the translation 
 of a tragedy of Racine and a farce of Moliere, which 
 were performed the same night, and published in a 
 single quarto. Titus and Berenice was affectionately 
 dedicated to Lord Rochester. It is useless to analyse 
 a play which owed little to its English garb. The 
 versification is flowing and smooth, a little less vigorous, 
 perhaps, than that oi Don Carlos. There are only three 
 important persons in the play, and Mrs. Barry took the 
 unimportant part of PhcEnice, Berenice's maid. Mrs. 
 Lee was still the leading lady of the company. As an 
 example of inanity and careless workmanship, the four 
 opening lines of Titus and Berenice are worthy of a 
 crown : — 
 
 " Thou, my Arsaces, art a stranger here ; 
 This is tK Aparhne7it of the charmi/ig Fair, 
 That Berenice, whom Titus so adores, 
 The universe is his, and he is hers." 
 
 But I hasten to confess that they are by far the worst
 
 3i6 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 in the whole play. TJie Cheats of Scapin has not lost 
 all its wit in crossing the Channel, and in this Mrs. 
 Barry was allowed the best part, Mrs. Lee not appearing 
 at all. 
 
 Otway's preface, with its incense burned before 
 Rochester, had scarcely issued from the press, when 
 he incurred the violent hatred of that dangerous person. 
 The physical condition of the Earl of Rochester had 
 by this time become deplorable. For some years he 
 had scarcely known what it was to be sober, and at the 
 age of twenty-nine he was already a worn-out, fretful 
 old man. His excellent constitution, which he had 
 supported by temperance until the unfortunate affair 
 with the Earl of Mulgrave had undermined his self- 
 respect, had now almost given way under the attacks 
 of a frantic sensuality. Lord Rochester had become a 
 plague-spot in English literature and English society. 
 He had begun by being an amiable debauchee, but he 
 had ended as a petulant and ferocious rake, whose 
 wasting hold on life only increased his malevolent 
 licence. The nominal cause of the split with Otway 
 was the pretty Mrs. Barry. As the Earl became more 
 violent and more abominable, the agony that Otway 
 felt in seeing her associated with him became unbear- 
 able, and the young poet was forced to sever his con- 
 nection with the theatre. To stay in London and not 
 to be near the idol of his infatuation, was impossible. 
 He applied to his old college friend, the Earl of 
 Plymouth, for a post in the army. Although the Treaty 
 of Westminster, in 1674, had brought the war with 
 Holland to a nominal close, fighting still went on on
 
 Thomas Otway 317 
 
 the Continent, and the Duke of Monmouth had an 
 army at the service of the King of France. Otway 
 obtained a cornet's commission under the Duke, and 
 went over in a new regiment to fight in Flanders. 
 He left behind him a comedy, which his quarrel 
 with Rochester did not prevent Betterton from pro- 
 ducing. 
 
 With the exception of Etheredge, who lived apart 
 and seldom wrote, no very excellent comic dramatist 
 flourished in the Restoration period, properly so called. 
 But there were several poets who produced no one 
 consummate work, but a bulk of comedies which in 
 the aggregate were a notable addition to literature. 
 Of these, three names will occur to every reader 
 as the most praiseworthy. Wycherley had wit, Shad- 
 well had humour, Aphra Behn had vivacity. In all 
 these qualities the two principal tragedians, Dryden 
 and Otway, were inferior to each of these writers 
 in his or her own vein, and in point of fact Otway 
 made a very bad second to Dryden, even in this 
 inferior rank. Otway's three original comedies are 
 simply appalling. The old comedy of whimsicality 
 had died with Shirley and Jasper Mayne, and 
 though Etheredge had invented or introduced the 
 new comedy of intrigue, it had taken no root, and 
 was to be inaugurated afresh by Congreve. There is 
 no drearier reading than a series of early Restora- 
 tion comedies. The greatest reward the reader can 
 expect is a grain of wit here and there, a lively situa- 
 tion, a humorous phase of successful rascality. The 
 general character of the pieces is given by Otway,
 
 3i8 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 with singular frankness, through the mouth of his 
 Lady Squeamish : — 
 
 " And then their Comedies nowadays are the filthiest things, 
 full of nauseous doings, which they mistake for raillery and 
 intrigue : besides, they have no wit in 'em neither, for all their 
 gentlemen and men of wit, as they style 'em, are either silly 
 conceited impudent coxcombs, or else rude unmannerly drunken 
 fellows, faugh ! " 
 
 The artificial comedy of the next generation was 
 loose and frivolous, indeed without any sense of 
 morality or immorality at all, but it was innocuous in 
 its fantastic and airy unearthliness, so that no one could 
 really be much injured by it, and only a pedant much 
 scandalised. In Otway's atrocious comedies there is 
 equally little fear of injury to the moral sense of the 
 auditor or reader, for the characters bear scarcely the 
 faintest resemblance to human creatures, and their sins 
 fill us with the mere loathing of an ugly thing drawn 
 by an unskilful hand. The horrible puppets, in fact, 
 like the figures in the base prints of the period, gibber 
 and skip over the stage with imbecile gestures and a 
 grin on their impossible faces. 
 
 The only legitimate raison-d^ ctre of the persons in an 
 artificial comedy is that they should amuse. The light 
 creations of Congreve and Vanbrugh completely justify 
 their creation, for they do amuse us heartily all through 
 — those of us, that is, who in this day of the worship of 
 realism can venture to be amused by pure literature 
 at all. But Otway's comedies — and they are typical of 
 a class — do not perform the one slender function for 
 which they came into existence. No faint shadow of
 
 Thomas Otway 319 
 
 a smile passes over our faces as we drag through the 
 dreary and repulsive scenes of Friendship in Fashion. 
 It is the saddest fooling, and we wish at every scene 
 that this were the last, and that the poor little 
 marionettes might be decently shut up again in their 
 box and forgotten. And yet there is evidence on 
 record that this was an extremely successful play. It 
 was revived in 1749, but the audience of that date 
 could not endure it for an hour, and it was hissed off 
 the stage for good and all. 
 
 There are some interesting points, however, con- 
 nected with Friendship in FasJiion. When it was 
 printed, in 1678, it was dedicated to the Earl of Dorset; 
 in this dedication Otway speaks of himself as work- 
 ing hard for his daily bread, and as surrounded by 
 slanderous enemies. His tone is at once timorous and 
 defiant, and he speaks of himself as worse treated by 
 the critics than a bear is by the Bankside Butchers. 
 The play was probably acted and printed while Otway 
 was away in Flanders, for so autobiographical a writer 
 could not have omitted to mention the sufferings of 
 that ill-starred adventure. It seems that he was widely 
 accused of libelling some person or persons in Fi'iend- 
 ship in Fashion ; he strenuously denies the charge, and 
 in an air so heavy with invective it would be difficult 
 to determine the exact ground of the rumour. Those 
 who will take the pains to read this tedious drama 
 will perceive that Congreve deigned to remember it in 
 the composition of his exquisite masterpiece. Love for 
 Love. The hero in each case is named Valentine, and 
 Malagene, Otway's tiresome button-holer and secret-
 
 320 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 monger, is a clumsy protot3"pe of the inimitable 
 Tattle. But the resemblance is very slight, and I 
 almost owe the genius of Congreve an apology for 
 suggesting it. 
 
 Otvvay's military excursion proved a lamentable 
 failure. As we had declared peace with Holland, it 
 was only in an underhand and unofficial manner that 
 English soldiers could fight in the Low Countries as 
 auxiliaries of France. On the lOth of August hostilities 
 finally closed with the Peace of Nijmegen, signed in 
 the Raadhuis between Louis XIV., Charles of Spain, 
 and the States General. The English troops under 
 the Duke of Monmouth were treated with infamous 
 neglect ; they were disbanded, and allowed to go 
 whither they would, no means of transport home being 
 provided. They were paid not in money, but with 
 debentures, which it was extremely difficult to get 
 cashed, and which are frequently ridiculed in the 
 political lampoons of the period. The unluck}^ Otway 
 got back to London, ragged and starved, with his 
 tattered garments full of vermin, an unsavoury par- 
 ticular which was not missed by his rhyming enemies. 
 The Earl of Rochester in particular had the indecency 
 to introduce this mishap and its consequences into a 
 doggerel Session of the Poets, which did equal discredit 
 to his heart and head. Otway, however, was not yet 
 crushed by adverse fate, and he sat down to write 
 another comedy for his faithful allies at the Duke's 
 Theatre. The Soldier's Fortune, acted probably in 
 1679, but not printed until 1681, is perhaps the only 
 play of the time which is not dedicated to a person of
 
 Thomas Otway 321 
 
 quality. It is merely inscribed to Mr. Bentley, the 
 stationer, or as we should now say, the publisher. 
 
 " I am not a little proud," Otway says, "that it has happened 
 into my thoughts to be the first who in these latter years has 
 made an Epistle Dedicatory to his Stationer. It is a compH- 
 ment as reasonable as it is just. For, Mr. Bentley, you pay 
 honestly for the copy, and an epistle to you is a sort of acquit- 
 tance, and may probably be welcome ; when to a person of 
 higher rank and order, it looks like an obligation for praises, 
 which he knows he does not deserve, and therefore is very 
 unwilling to part with ready money for." 
 
 It was the habit for every person of high rank to 
 whom a book was dedicated to present the author with 
 a gift of money. This noisome custom did not die out 
 until late in the following century. In this instance 
 the courtesies were reversed, for the prologue, very 
 tolerably written, was contributed by Otway's old 
 college friend, Lord Falkland. In the epilogue Otway 
 describes himself as 
 
 " Full of those thoughts that make the unhappy sad, 
 And by imagination half grown mad, 
 
 and pours out a querulous complaint about "starving 
 poets" wrecked by cruel fate, which must have struck 
 a jarring chord at the close of a frivolous comedy. The 
 play is full of autobiographical allusions to disbanded 
 soldiers, debentures, ill food, and the hardships of war; 
 but perhaps the most curious point of all is in the 
 preface, where, in answer to some great lady who 
 objected to the indecency of the plot, he quotes Mrs. 
 Behn, of all possible females, in defence of its propriety. 
 " I have heard a lady, that has more modesty than any 
 
 X
 
 322 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 of these she-critics, and I am sure more wit, say she 
 wondered at the impudence of any of her sex who 
 would pretend to an opinion on such a matter." Poor 
 Mrs. Behn, good honest creature, has come, in the 
 whiriigig of time, to be looked upon as the last person 
 in all known literature to mark the standard of dra- 
 matic delicacy. And yet there was a time when a 
 copy of light verses was considered in good taste if 
 the fastidious Astraea could approve of it. 
 
 Hitherto Otway had subsisted upon the proceeds of 
 one play a year. In 1680 he seems to have made a 
 supreme effort to free himself from his liabilities, for 
 in it he produced two plays and his only important 
 poem. Moreover, one of these plays is so immeasurably 
 superior to anything he had hitherto produced, as to 
 justify his admirers in hoping that he had taken a new 
 lease of his genius. His rival and enemy, the hated 
 Rochester, had for some months been sinking under 
 delirium tremens ; and, haunted by the terrors of his 
 complaint, had sought ghostly comfort from Bishop 
 Burnet. On July 26 he died, having ceased to be 
 troublesome since the beginning of the year. There 
 is an unusual sprightly hopefulness about the prologue 
 and preface of TJie Orphan^ as if a weight had been 
 removed and the poet was nearing the fulfilment of 
 his wishes. The dedication was accepted by " Her 
 R.H. the Dutchess;" not, of course, the Duchess of 
 Cleveland, as Voltaire oddly enough supposed, but 
 Mary d'Este, the unlucky Duchess of York. 
 
 The poetical reputation of Otway rests, or should 
 rest, on his three best tragedies ; and of these it may
 
 Thomas Otway 323 
 
 be said that The Orphan is as far superior to Don 
 Carlos as Venice Preserved is superior to it. The 
 epoch of rhymed tragedies had passed away since Don 
 Carlos was written. Dryden had inaugurated the 
 return to blank verse with his All for Love ^ in 1678, 
 and Lee with Mithridates in the same year. Otway 
 followed their good example, and with no less zeal; 
 for he also carefully studied the fountain-head of 
 dramatic blank verse in Shakespeare. In The Orphan 
 we feel at once that we breathe a freer air and tread 
 on firmer ground; there is less rhetoric and more 
 nature, less passion and more tenderness. The plot 
 of this once so famous play is nowadays sufficiently 
 unfamiliar to justify me in briefly analysing it. A 
 retired nobleman, Acasto, lives at his country seat 
 with his two sons Castalio and Polydore, men of great 
 ambition and fiery purpose, but still very young and 
 curbed by their father's authority. They have, more- 
 over, a sister — Serina. A young girl, Monimia, the 
 orphan daughter of an old friend of Acasto's, has been 
 brought up with these children, and is now a woman 
 of the gentlest beauty. Castalio and Polydore have 
 each fallen unawares into love with their father's ward, 
 and in the opening scenes of the play we are introduced 
 to their trustful mutual affection and then to the dis- 
 turbing influence of this awakened passion. Castalio 
 and Monimia, however, have secretly come to an 
 understanding; but Castalio, from a foolish desire to 
 let his brother down gently, feigns comparative indiffer- 
 ence to Monimia, and even gives Polydore leave to 
 win her if he can. At this moment Chamont, the
 
 324 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 brother of Monimia, appears on the scene and claims 
 the ready hospitality of Acasto. He is a bluff, honest, 
 but brutal and petulant soldier, and his presence is 
 disturbing in the quiet household. He has formed a 
 suspicion that Monimia has been wronged by one of 
 the young men, and he annoys her with his rude and 
 tactless questions. Meanwhile Acasto is taken suddenly 
 ill, and Castalio and Monimia take advantage of the 
 confusion to be privately married by the chaplain. 
 Polydore, believing his brother to have no serious 
 claim upon Monimia, happening to overhear them pro- 
 posing a tryst in the night, comes beforehand in the 
 darkness to Monimia's chamber, and is not discovered. 
 Castalio, coming later, is excluded, and curses his wife 
 for her supposed heartlessness and insubordination. 
 The sequel may well be imagined. Ruin and anguish 
 fall upon the brothers, but most of all on the innocent 
 and agonised Monimia, who finally takes poison, while 
 Castalio stabs himself, 
 
 There are many faults in the construction of this 
 plot, besides the indelicacy of the main situation, which 
 has long banished it from the stage. The foolish pre- 
 tence of Castalio, the want of perception shown by 
 Monimia, the impossible and ruffianly crime of Poly- 
 dore — for which no just preparation is made in the 
 sketch of his character — all these are radical faults 
 which go near to destroy the probability of the story. 
 But if we once accept these weak points and forget 
 them, the play is full of delicate and charming turns of 
 action, of decisive characterisation, and of intense and 
 tear-compelling pathos. The old patriot Acasto, a study
 
 Thomas Otway 325 
 
 drawn, it is said, from the first Duke of Ormonde, is 
 a noble figure of a patriotic servant of his country, 
 shrinking in old age from the frivolity of a court, and 
 studying rather a simple and patriarchal life among his 
 tenantry. In the noisy soldier Chamont, a fierce and 
 turbulent but not ill-meaning person, Otway produced 
 a highly-finished portrait of a t3^pe with which his 
 foreign adventures had no doubt made him only too 
 familiar. Castalio is the veering, passionate, hot- 
 headed man whom Otway invariably draws as his 
 hero. This time the character is even more fervid 
 and perverse than ever, and we are on the point of 
 scorning him for his want of resolution, when the 
 insupportable tide of sorrows that overwhelms him 
 enforces our pity and sympathy'. 
 
 Over the character of Monimia probably more tears 
 have been shed than over that of any stage heroine. 
 As long as the laxity of public speech still permitted 
 the presentation of The Orphan, no audience of any 
 sensibility could endure the fourth and fifth acts of 
 this play without melting into audible weeping. It 
 was one of Mrs. Barry's most celebrated parts, and it 
 would seem as though Otway had wilfully put his 
 breast to the torture by heaping up, with lingering 
 hands, all the turns and phrases which could enhance 
 the trembling agony and helpless beauty of his 
 mistress. He, like poor Castalio, was left outside to 
 the night and the storm ; and he tried to console him- 
 self by vainly imagining that his exquisite Monimia was 
 unconscious of the wrong she did him. 
 
 The force of Otway's language does not consist in
 
 326 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 flowery beauties that can be detached in quotation; 
 he is not a poet from whom much of a very effective 
 nature can be selected. His stroke was broad and 
 bold, and when he did succeed, it was in figures of 
 an heroic size and on a grand scale. The peculiar 
 tenderness, and still more the lingering passion of 
 grief which steep the whole play, are felt more in- 
 tensely at a second reading than a first. The Orphan 
 is not a masculine work, but it might be the crowning 
 memorial of some woman whom great ambition and 
 still greater sorrow had forged into a poet. 
 
 The other tragedy of the same year. The History 
 and Fall of Caius 3Iarms, is merely a kind of cento, 
 the language of Shakespeare being transferred whole- 
 sale into the mouths of Otway's characters. There 
 was no bad faith in this; the author announced in 
 the prologue, which was a reverent eulogy on his 
 great predecessor, that the audience would find that 
 he had rifled Shakespeare of half a play — in point of 
 fact, of Romeo and Juliet, with reminiscences oi Julius 
 Ccssar. Of course such a performance is scarcely to 
 be mentioned among the original works of Otway, 
 and it has no further importance than belongs to the 
 curious fact that for a couple of generations it super- 
 seded Romeo and Juliet on the English stage. It was 
 dedicated to the Earl of Falkland in a preface which 
 contains a graceful allusion to the venerable Waller, 
 the last survivor of the poets who had lived in Siiake- 
 speare's lifetime. Lavinia, the principal character, who 
 spoke the words written for Juliet, was acted to per- 
 fection by Mrs. Barry, who had now attained that
 
 Thomas Otway 327 
 
 majestic beauty and serenity, which she still retained 
 even in Colley Gibber's earl}^ days. From the epilogue 
 we learn that the poet usually had his benefit on the 
 third night, and that sometimes he mortgaged his 
 gains before they came into his pocket. The lines 
 are melancholy enough in all conscience. 
 
 " Our Poet says, one day to a play ye come 
 Which serves you half a year for wit at home, 
 But which among you is there to be found 
 Will take his third day's pawn for fifty pound ? 
 Or, now he is cashier'd, will fairly venture 
 To give him ready money for's debenture ? 
 Therefore, when he received that fatal doom, 
 This play came forth, in hope his friends would come 
 To help a poor disbanded soldier home." 
 
 In the same year, 1680, the " poor disbanded soldier " 
 published a poem in quarto, entitled TJie Poefs Com- 
 plaint of his Muse, which gives some vague memoir of 
 himself, and much violent satire of his enemies. The 
 opening of his poem is vigorous and picturesque, like 
 a roughly-etched bit of barren landscape. 
 
 " To a high hill, where never yet stood tree, 
 Where only heath, coarse fern, and furzes grow. 
 
 Where, nipt by piercing air. 
 The flocks in tattered fleeces hardly graze, 
 
 Led by uncouth thoughts and care. 
 Which did too much his pensive mind amaze, 
 A wandering Bard, whose Muse was crazy grown, 
 Cloy'd with the nauseous follies of the buzzing town, 
 Came, look'd about him, sighed, and laid him down." 
 
 The Bard, who is plainly Mr. Thomas Otway, 
 presently proceeds to give an account of his own early
 
 328 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 life, and the tyrannous empire of his Muse, at once his 
 mistress and his fate. He then proceeds to denounce, 
 under thin disguises, his principal enemies, and in the 
 forefront, Rochester, Shadwell, and Settle. The poem 
 thus develops into a series of tolerably transparent 
 political allegories, and closes with a passionate eulogy 
 of the Duke of York, and a mournful description of 
 his leaving England. The M^hole poem, which is well 
 written and interesting, literally teems with the excite- 
 ment of the Popish plots, then at the height of their 
 vogue, and Otway was now a Tory, like Dryden. 
 
 There is still the same troubled sense of Titus Oates 
 and his meaner brood of terrorists in the title of 
 Otway's next play, Venice Preserved, or a Plot Dis- 
 covered, which was produced in February 1682. The 
 author only half deprecates such a belief in the pro- 
 logue, as he briefly reviews the events that had excited 
 popular apprehension. His preface does not tell us 
 how he had been employed since 1680, but, in address- 
 ing the Duchess of Portsmouth, he extols her bounty, 
 extended to her poet in his extremity. We are there- 
 fore justified in concluding that Otway had begun to 
 suffer the last miseries of poverty. There is no dimi- 
 nution of power, however, in this drama, written out 
 of the depths. In fact, as we all know, it is simply 
 the greatest tragic drama between Shakespeare and 
 Shelley. Out of the dead waste of the Restoration, 
 with all its bustling talent and vain show, this one 
 solitary work of supreme genius rose unexpected and 
 unimitated. 
 
 There is nothing in any previous writing of Otway's,
 
 Thomas Otway 329 
 
 nothing even in the moving and feminine pathos of The 
 Orphan, which would lead us to await so noble and so 
 solid a masterpiece as Venice Preserved. The poetic 
 glow and irregular beauty of Elizabethan tragedy, its 
 lyric outbursts, its fantastic and brilliant flashes of 
 insight, its rich variety and varied melody, give the 
 early plays a place in our affections which surpasses 
 what is purely owing to their theatrical excellence. In 
 Venice Preserved the poetic element is always severely 
 subordinated to the dramatic ; there are no flowers of 
 fancy, no charming episodes introduced to give literary 
 gusto to a reader. All is designed for the true home 
 of the drama, the stage, and without being in the least 
 stagey, this theatrical aim is carried out with the most 
 complete success. There are few plays in existence 
 so original and so telling in construction as this ; the 
 plot is in almost every respect worthy to be Shake- 
 speare's. The only point in which any weakness can 
 be traced is the motive actuating Jaffier to join the 
 conspirators. The revenge of a merely private wrong 
 upon a whole commonwealth is scarcely sane enough 
 for the dignity of tragedy. 
 
 The story may be briefly given. Jaffier, a noble 
 young Venetian, had secretly married Belvidera, the 
 daughter of a proud and wealthy senator, Priuli, who 
 in consequence disowns her. The young couple fall 
 into great poverty, and at the opening of the piece 
 Jaffier is begging Priuli to assist them, but his en- 
 treaties are met with injurious insults. His pride is 
 up in arms, and at that moment he meets his friend 
 Pierre, a soldier to whom the Senate of Venice has
 
 330 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 refused his just rewards, and who is embittered against 
 the state. He enflames Jaffier by describing the fate 
 of Belvidera, the injuries done to Jaffier, and the 
 sorrows that will fall upon their children. They part 
 with a promise to meet at midnight and consult still 
 further. At midnight Jaffier accordingly meets Pierre 
 on the Rialto, and after testing the temper of his friend, 
 Pierre confides to him that a plot is on the eve of 
 being hatched, and offers to introduce him to the con- 
 spirators. This is accordingly done, but as they are 
 jealous of the honesty of the new-comer, Jaffier gives 
 Belvidera into the charge of the leader, an old man 
 named Renault. As it is impossible to explain the 
 reason of this to Belvidera, she goes off in great 
 distress, and as in the course of the night Renault 
 offers to insult her, she breaks away, and flying to her 
 husband, entreats him to explain to her his cruel and 
 unaccountable conduct. He has sworn not to divulge 
 the plot, but as she begs him to do so, and assures him 
 of her complete devotion to his will, he gradually loses 
 his self-control, and at last confides to her the secret. 
 Her first thought is that her father is one of the 
 Senate, and is therefore to be among the victims. 
 She implores Jaffier to relent, and at last persuades 
 him, much against his will, to go to the Senate and 
 reveal the plot, claiming as his reward the lives of 
 the conspirators. 
 
 Jaffier is finally convinced that it is his duty to do 
 this, and, much as he loathes his bad faith, he actually 
 goes before the Senate, and declares the plot. The 
 conspirators are in consequence arrested in time, and
 
 Thomas Otway 331 
 
 their design completely paralysed. At first the friends, 
 seeing Jaffier bound, believe him to be the partner of 
 their misfortune, but, discovering their mistake, they 
 load him with the heaviest reproaches, and, scornfully 
 rejecting pardon, they claim an instant death. Pierre 
 especially pours out the vials of his v^rath on Jaffier, 
 and the unfortunate man breaks down in an agony 
 of humiliation and remorse. The faithless senators 
 decree a cruel death to the conspirators, and Jaffier 
 threatens Belvidera that he with his own hands will 
 stab her unless she forces a pardon for them from her 
 father Priuli. Her charms prevail, but Priuli's inter- 
 vention comes too late. Belvidera goes mad ; Jaffier 
 struggles to the foot of the scaffold where Pierre is 
 about to be executed, and stabs his friend first and 
 then himself to the heart with a dagger. Belvidera 
 dies of a broken heart at their feet, and the scene 
 closes. 
 
 To give an idea of the vigour and beauty of this 
 play, it would be necessary to quote a longer fragment 
 than could conveniently be given here. A single 
 speech of Belvidera and the reply of Jaffier must 
 suffice; they are considering the necessity of a life in 
 poverty and exile. 
 
 " Bel. O I will love thee, even in madness love thee ! 
 Tho' my distracted senses should forsake me, 
 I'd find some intervals, when my poor heart 
 Should 'swage itself, and be let loose to thine. 
 Tho' the bare earth be all our resting-place, 
 Its roots our food, some clift our habitation, 
 I'll make this arm a pillow for thy head ; 
 And as thou sighing ly'st, and swelled with sorrow,
 
 2^2 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 Creep to thy bosom, pour the balm of love 
 Into thy soul, and kiss thee to thy rest, 
 Then praise our God, and watch thee till the morning. 
 /ci^. Hear this, you Heavens! and wonder how you 
 made her ; 
 Reign, reign, ye monarchs that divide the world : 
 Busy rebellion ne'er will let you know 
 Tranquillity and happiness like mine ; 
 Like gaudy ships, the obsequious billows fall 
 And rise again, to lift you in your pride ; 
 They wait but for a storm, and then devour you : 
 I, in my private bark already wrecked, — 
 Like a poor merchant, driven on unknown land. 
 That had by chance packed up his choicest treasure 
 In one dear casket, and saved only that, — 
 Since I must wander farther on the shore, 
 Thus hug my little, but my precious store, 
 Resolv'd to scorn, and trust my fate no more." 
 
 The character of Belvidera is one of the most ex- 
 quisite, most lovable in literature. A thorough woman 
 in her impulse, her logic, and her intensity of passion, 
 she rules her husband by her very sweetness, and 
 melts the scruples that no violence could have divided. 
 The scene in which she persuades him that duty calls 
 him to betra}' the conspirators, because her own heart 
 yearns to save her father, is one of consummate skill 
 and truth, and the gradual yielding of Jaffier's irre- 
 solute will before her feminine reasoning and absolute 
 conviction is worthy of Shakespeare himself. No 
 praise can possibly be withheld from the most delicate 
 and vivid passages in Venice Preserved ; it is only 
 where the interest of necessity flags, and above all 
 in the nauseous comic passages, that we miss the 
 presence of a great lyrical and a great humorous
 
 Thomas Otway 333 
 
 genius. Yet even here opinion may be divided, since 
 no less a critic than M. Taine has found a Shake- 
 spearian excellence in the comic scenes of this play. 
 Throughout, the spirit of the drama is domestic and 
 mundane; there are no flights into the spiritual 
 heavens, no soundings of the dark and subtle secrets 
 of the mind. The imagination of the poet is lucid, 
 rapid, and direct ; there is the utmost clarity of state- 
 ment and reflection ; in short, a masterpiece of genius 
 is not obscured, but certainly toned down, b}'- a uni- 
 versal tinge or haze of the commonplace. The political 
 bias of Venice Preserved is most clearly marked in the 
 comic character of Antonio, a lecherous old senator, in 
 whom the hated Shaftesbury was held up to ridicule, 
 the portrait being exact enough even to include that 
 statesman's weak ambition to be elected King of 
 Poland. 
 
 For the acting rights of The Orphan and for Venice 
 Preserved, two of the most brilliantly successful plays 
 of the period, Otway only received ;^ioo a piece ; what 
 is still more astonishing is, that for the copyright of 
 the latter Jacob Tonson gave him only £\^. He 
 probably made a few pounds by a prologue for Mrs. 
 Behn's City Heiress, which was separately printed on 
 a single sheet, in 1682. In Monimia and Belvidera 
 Mrs. Barry simply took the town by storm. Her 
 acting was by this time perfection, and her personal 
 attractions were at their zenith. " She had," we are 
 told by Gibber, "a presence of elevated dignity, her 
 mien and motion were superb and gracefully majestick, 
 and her voice was clear, full, and strong." It seems
 
 334 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 to have been in this year, 16S2, that Otway made a 
 last effort to secure the love of this cold and beautiful 
 woman, whose worldly success he had done so much 
 to enhance : the letters we possess are six in number, 
 a waif preserved perhaps by accident, and first printed 
 long after his death. In the first two he reminds her 
 of his unbroken constancy, of his patience and passion, 
 his indulgence and hope, and entreats her to take 
 mercy on a lover who has suffered the agonies of 
 desire for seven weary years. He tells her that her 
 cruelty has driven him to find solace in noisy pleasures 
 and in wine, but that with solitude and sobriety her 
 torturing image has never ceased to return and tor- 
 ment him. The third letter, sprightly and fantastic, 
 contrasts with the yearning and melancholy appeal of 
 the former two. He rallies her on an idle threat to 
 leave the world, and takes upon himself, as a member 
 of that world, to divert her from so ill-natured an 
 inclination. The fourth is brief and passionate ; he 
 wrestles with her, as though he would force her 
 frivolous coquetry into a serious declaration of love, 
 and he tells her he can bear no longer the alternation 
 of kind looks and cruel denials. The fifth letter is 
 rough and inelegant in language ; he storms at her 
 with violent indignation, and denounces her vanity 
 and selfishness with the sharpest irony. The sixth, 
 the shortest of all and the saddest, quietly remarks 
 that, in accordance with her promise to meet him in 
 the Mall, he was there at the appointed hour, but she 
 never came, and that he now begs her for the favour 
 of one genuine assignation, that he may really know
 
 Thomas Otway 335 
 
 whether he may "hereafter, for your sake, either bless 
 all your bewitching sex, or, as often as I henceforth 
 think of you, curse womankind for ever." 
 
 Here this tantalising but priceless fragment of corre- 
 spondence ceases, but we know that the answer was 
 for cursing and not for blessing. From this point 
 Otway's ruin was but a question of months; his genius 
 did not long survive his passion. He had now few 
 friends left to help him. His one faithful ally, the 
 Earl of Plymouth, had died in 1680. Otway's con- 
 version to the Tory party had softened Dryden's 
 animosity a little, but not to the extent of any very 
 warm recognition. Plunged in drunken misery, Otway 
 remains almost invisible to us until 1684, when he 
 seemed to make a final effort to regain a place in 
 societ3\ He wrote in that year a prologue to Lee's 
 Constajttine the Great, and produced a play of his own. 
 The Atheist. This, his last drama, is a comedy, a 
 sequel to The Soldier's Fortune, with the same char- 
 acters, the vile company of the Dunces and Sir Jolly 
 being happily excluded. It is, however, a very poor 
 performance. The gross adulation of the preface to 
 the eldest son of the Marquis of Halifax is enough to 
 show how low the poet had fallen; the epilogue was 
 written by Duke. 
 
 Charles II. died early in February 1685, and Otway 
 instantly seized the opportunity to publish a quarto 
 poem entitled Windsor Castle, in which he praised the 
 dead king and exulted over the accession of James. 
 He had been always loyal to the Duke of York, and 
 he hoped now to be remembered, but scarcely was his
 
 336 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 poem published than he sank under the weight of 
 destitution. He found it impossible to borrow any- 
 more money; he was already ;^400 in the debt of 
 Captain Symonds, a vintner. It appears that he spent 
 his last days in a wretched spunging-house on Tower 
 Hill, a place known by the sign of the Bull. Accord- 
 ing to one account he ventured out at the point of 
 starvation, and begged a passer-by for alms, saying at 
 the same time, " I am Otway the poet ! " The gentle- 
 man, shocked to see so great a genius in such a con- 
 dition, gave him a guinea, with which Otway rushed 
 to the nearest baker's, ravenously swallowed a piece 
 of bread, and died at once, choked by the first mouth- 
 ful. This occurred on April 14, 1685. 
 
 Many years afterwards, apparently to cover the 
 scandalous fact that the greatest tragic poet of the age 
 was allowed to starve to death in London in his thirty- 
 fourth year, a new story was circulated to the effect 
 that Otway died of a fever caught by chasing the 
 murderer of a friend of his from London to Dover on 
 foot. There seems no foundation, however, for this. 
 No newspaper of the period is known to have announced 
 his death. In 1686 there appeared a sorry piece of 
 hackwork under his name. The History of the Trium- 
 virate^ translated from the French ; and in November 
 of the same year Betterton advertised for a tragedy 
 by Mr. Otway, of which four acts were known to be 
 written when he died. During the winter of the same 
 year the great manager repeated his advertisements, 
 and then there was no more heard of this lost play. 
 But more than thirty years later, in 1719, two obscure
 
 Thomas Otway 337 
 
 booksellers issued a tragedy, Hei'oick Friendship, which 
 they attributed on the title-page to " the late Mr. 
 Otwa}'." They gave no sort of explanation of the 
 means by which they obtained it, and their publication 
 was at once discredited, and has been ridiculed by 
 every editor of Otway. I lay myself open, I fear, to 
 the charge of credulity if I confess that I am not quite 
 ready to accept this universal verdict. 
 
 The play called Heroick Friendship is in blank verse 
 of very unequal merit ; some of it is of the very basest 
 flatness, some of it has buoyancy and rhetorical vigour 
 to a remarkable degree. It is most vilely edited, evi- 
 dently from a cursive manuscript or first draft; on 
 every page there are passages which the transcriber 
 has misread, and phrases that are feebly finished, as 
 though an unskilful hand had patched them. There 
 are not a few lines that are absolutely unintelligible, 
 and it is a noticeable fact that these corruptions occur 
 only in the most poetical passages ; the flat and insipid 
 scenes are clear enough. If this play had been put 
 before us without an author's name, we should be in- 
 clined to pronounce that two persons had been at 
 work on it, and that it had been printed from a tran- 
 script of a rough, unfinished manuscript, the tran- 
 script being by the same person who completed the 
 play. I do not think that it has been noticed that 
 Betterton had not been long dead when this tragedy 
 was printed by Mears and King. My own impression 
 is that those booksellers obtained it by some under- 
 hand means from persons who had access to the effects 
 of Betterton, and this would account for their silence 
 
 Y
 
 ^38 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 when called upon to show the credentials of the play. 
 If it be asked why had Betterton concealed it for a 
 quarter of a century, when he had eagerly advertised 
 for it, the answer I would suggest would be that he 
 received the rough manuscript in answer to his advertise- 
 ment, set to work as well as he could to copy it out 
 and to complete it, and when he had finished was so 
 little pleased with the result that he put it on one side. 
 In an uncritical age no one cared for imperfect works 
 by a great man, unless they could be completed and 
 used. There were no bibliographers to secure the 
 manuscript of Dryden's Ladies d la Mode, and no 
 interest would have been felt in a rough draft by 
 Otway. 
 
 So much for external speculation ; of internal evi- 
 dence I have also something to bring forward. Im- 
 perfect as the execution is, the plot and idea of Heroick 
 Friendship are exceedingly characteristic of Otway. 
 The story is briefly told: it concerns itself with the 
 Roman occupation of Britain. A mythical King 
 Arbelline has a brother Guiderius, of whose claim to 
 the throne he is jealous ; this brother loves a British 
 lady, Aurosia, to whom the king makes overtures. In 
 her terror she urges her lover to rebellion, to which 
 he is further pressed by his dearest friend, Decimus, 
 a Roman. Arbelline, discovering the love of Aurosia 
 for Guiderius, determines on his ruin. He is arrested 
 and sentenced to death. In order that he may take a 
 farewell of his mistress, Decimus offers to take his 
 place in prison for a night and a day, which his 
 friend spends with Aurosia. At the end of that time
 
 Thomas Otway 339 
 
 Guiderius hurries back to release Decimus, but is 
 followed and over-persuaded by Aurosia, who cannot 
 bear to part with him. This vacillating lover, ever 
 convinced against his will by feminine blandishments, 
 is the fellow-creation, surely, of Castalio and Jaffier. 
 The first act, I am convinced, is all Otway's, though 
 doubtless patched and tagged by an inferior hand. 
 The following passage, for instance, in spite of some 
 textual confusion in the end of the first speech, is most 
 characteristic of the author, who triumphs in a lover's 
 parting : — 
 
 '■'' Atcr. Go then, be every influence propitious, 
 And all the stars as fond of thee as I am ! 
 May the Gods join with thee, and justly move 
 Against a tyrant in the cause of love, 
 Drive him to death, and when he breathless lies, 
 Lead the dear victor to the Elysian Gardens. 
 There on the river's brink, within his view, 
 Haste, haste his way for me to crown his conquest. 
 
 Guid. But should the King by force ! — by force ! — O Gods ! 
 
 Aur. Though everything should aid his hated passion, 
 Doubt not Aurosia's spirit nor her faith ; 
 But I must go, or be suspected here, — 
 A worser evil, if a worse can be. 
 Than that of parting with thee ; oh farewell ! 
 
 Guid. Stay ! Let me take a lover's farewell of thee ! — 
 One dear embrace, finn as my faith 1 O blessing ! 
 Thou balmy softness, as the morning sweet, 
 When the glad lark with mounting music charms 
 The mild unclouded heavens." 
 
 The rest of the play is unworthy of the first act, but 
 there are passages throughout the second and third 
 acts which may be confidently attributed to Otway. If
 
 340 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 the works of the poet are edited again, Heroick Fricnd- 
 ship should by no means be omitted. 
 
 In person Otway was handsome and portly, with a 
 fine air. Dryden, in tardy acknowledgment, admitted 
 that " charming his face was, charming was his verse ; " 
 and the best accredited portrait that we possess of 
 him, that by John Ryley in the Chesterfield Collection, 
 shows that "charming" was exactly the right adjective 
 to use. The face is of a full clear oval, suave and 
 bright. We see before us the countenance of a 
 gracious, amorous person, with more wit than wisdom, 
 unfit to battle with the world, and fallen on troublous 
 times. My own impression of Otway is that he closely 
 resembled the character of Valentine in Love for Love, 
 save that, alas ! no beneficent deity crowned him with 
 fortune and Angelica in the last act. 
 
 Any account of the writings of Otway would be in- 
 complete without some allusion to his relation with the 
 great French dramatists, his contemporaries; and yet 
 to enter into this at all fully would lead us beyond our 
 limits. In point of time he was the coeval of Quinault 
 and Racine, both of whom outlived him, but his intellec- 
 tual kinship is much rather with Rotrou and Corneille. 
 The masterpieces of le grand Coriieille had a profound 
 influence on Betterton, and through him on the Eng- 
 lish poets who wrote for him. Of these Otway kept 
 the closest to the severity of the French classicists. 
 Dryden, in his vain search for novelty, tried every 
 species of tragic subject, and, until near his end, failed 
 in each. Lee, with a great deal of inherent genius, 
 struck at once on the rock of bombast. Otway alone
 
 Thomas Otway 341 
 
 understood the tragic force of pity and tears, and at 
 this point he came very near excelling all the French 
 tragedians. 
 
 It is impossible not to compare with the brief sad life 
 of the young English poet that of the young French 
 poet whose life ceased in such a noble apotheosis six 
 months before Otway's birth. Rotrou and Otway each 
 wrote many dramas ; each produced one of great and 
 another of supreme excellence ; the career of each was 
 cut off in youth by calamity. But while the one was 
 the victim of his own weakness and of public neglect, 
 the other freely surrendered his life to an adorable 
 sentiment of duty. In mental as in moral fibre, the 
 author of Saint-Genest and Venceslas surpassed the 
 poet of The Orphan and Venice Preserved, but there 
 is something similar in the character of their writ- 
 ings, with this curious exception, that in his highest 
 beauties Rotrou approaches the English poetic type, 
 while Otway's finest passages are those in which he is 
 most French. 
 
 These passages led to his being early admired and 
 imitated in Paris; and several French tragedies, parti- 
 cularly the Manlius Capitolinus of Antoine de la Fosse, 
 published in 1698, show the influence which Otway 
 exercised abroad. This partiality was rudely attacked 
 by Voltaire, whose criticism of Otway was at one time 
 famous, and did much to bring the poet into discredit. 
 It is to be found in the same volume of the Melanges 
 Litih-aires which contains the notorious analysis of 
 Hamlet. The plot of 7'he Orphan is what he mainly 
 dwells upon. He has no words sufficiently contemp-
 
 342 Seventeenth Century Studies 
 
 tuous for these clumsy inventions of le tendre Otway^ 
 in whom he is not prepared to admit a single merit. 
 Voltaire, rare and delicate critic as he was, was yet 
 too profoundly out of sympathy with English verse 
 to be able to judge it at all. French criticism in the 
 present century has been far more just to the claims 
 of Otway, and Taine in particular has given him praise 
 which to an English ear sounds excessive.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Page 216. — To this challenge Mr. Lowell replied in 
 words which it gives me a melancholy pleasure to 
 reprint : — 
 
 " Whatever my other shortcomings (and they are plenty, 
 as none knows better than I), want of reflection is not 
 one of them. The poems were all intended for public 
 recitation. That was the first thing to be considered. 
 I suppose my ear (from long and painful practice on 
 <l>. B. K. poems) has more technical experience in this 
 than almost any. The least tedious measure is the 
 rhymed heroic, but this, too, palls, unless relieved by 
 passages of wit or even mere fun. A long series of 
 uniform stanzas (I am always speaking of public recita- 
 tion) with regularly recurring rhymes produces somnolence 
 among the men and a desperate resort to their fans on 
 the part of the women. No method has yet been invented 
 by which the train of thought or feeling can be shunted 
 off from the epical to the lyrical track. My ears have been 
 jolted often enough over the sleepers on such occasions 
 to know that. I know something (of course an American 
 can't know much) about Pindar ; but his odes had the 
 advantage of being chanted. Now, my problem was to 
 contrive a measure which should not be tedious by 
 
 uniformity, which should vary with varying moods, in 
 
 343
 
 344 Appendix 
 
 which the transitions (including those of the voice) should 
 be managed without jar. I at first thought of mixed 
 rhymed and blank verses of unequal measures, like those 
 in the choruses of Samson Agontsies, which are in the 
 main masterly. Of course, Milton deliberately departed 
 from that stricter form of the Greek chorus to which it 
 was bound quite as much (I suspect) by the law of its 
 musical accompaniment as by any sense of symmetry. 
 I wrote some stanzas of the Commemoration Ode on 
 this theory at first, leaving some verses without a rhyme 
 to match. But my ear was better pleased when the 
 rhyme, coming at a longer interval, as a far-off echo 
 rather than instant reverberation, produced the same effect 
 almost, and yet was grateful by unexpectedly recalling 
 an association and faint reminiscence of consonance. I 
 think I have succeeded pretty well, and if you try reading 
 aloud, I believe you will agree with me. The sentiment 
 of the Concord Ode demanded a larger proportion of 
 lyrical movements, of course, than the others. Harmony, 
 without sacrifice of melody, was what I had mainly in 
 view."
 
 INDEX 
 
 Adventure of Five Hours, Tuke's, 
 
 251- 
 Alarum against Usurers, Lodge's, 
 
 7, 10, 13, 22. 
 
 Alchemist, Jonson's, 128. 
 Alcibiades, Otway's, 305, 308-10, 
 
 313- 
 
 Annalia Dubrensia, 113. 
 Apology for Poetry, Sidney's, 7. 
 Appius and Virginia, Webster's, 
 
 71-74. 
 Arnold, Matthew, 175, 24a. 
 As You Like It, 18. 
 Atheist, Tlie, Otway's, 335. 
 Ave CcBsar, Rowlands', loi. 
 
 Baldwin, Prudence, Herrick's ser- 
 vant, 135, 142. 
 Bandello, 61. 
 Barksdale, Clement, 106. 
 Barry, Mrs., 284, 290, 307-10, 312, 
 
 315. 316, 325-27. 333- 
 Bartholomew Fair, Jonson's, 129. 
 Basse, William, 115. 
 Beaumont, Joseph, 160, 166, 183. 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, 50. 
 Behn, Mrs. Aphra, 223, 229, 258, 
 
 303. 304. 314. 317. 321. 333- 
 Belleau, Remy, La Bergerie, 154. 
 Bespotted Jesuit , The, 159. 
 Betterton, Thomas, 278, 303, 304, 
 
 306-309, 336, 337, 340. 
 Braithwaite, 83. 
 Browne, William, 130, 143. 
 
 Caius Marius, History of, Otway's, 
 326. 
 
 Calisto, Crowne's, 308, 
 
 Catharos, Lodge's, 27. 
 
 Catiline, Jonson's, 129, 
 
 Catullus, 152. 
 
 Cavendish, Thomas, 24-27, 
 
 Cervantes, 97. 
 
 Chaucer, 85. 
 
 Cheats of Scapin, The, Otway's, 
 316, 
 
 Christ, The Betraying of, Row- 
 lands', 83. 
 
 Civil War, The Wounds of. 
 Lodge's, 31. 
 
 Claudian, 177. 
 
 Comical Revenge, The, Etheredge's, 
 262, 265-70. 
 
 Congreve, William, 280, 281, 318, 
 
 319. 
 
 Constantia and Philetus, Cowley's, 
 194, 196. 
 
 Corbet, Bishop, 146. 
 
 Corneille's Pomp^e, 248 ; Horace, 
 253 ; Menteur, 266 ; influence, 
 340. 
 
 Cutswold Games, The, Captain 
 Dover's, 103-24. 
 
 Cotterel, Sir Charles, 234, 241, 242, 
 249. 
 
 Cowley, Abraham, 136, 167, 183, 
 186, 191-228, 231, 232 ; birth, 
 192 ; precocity, 193 ; at West- 
 minster School, 193-97 ; '^' Cam- 
 
 345
 
 346 
 
 Index 
 
 bridge, 200; early fame, 202; 
 Oxford transfer, 204 ; court exile, 
 204 ; return, imprisonment, 205 ; 
 studies medicine, 220 ; friends, 
 222 ; retires from court, 222 ; 
 death, 224 ; laudation, 224, 225; 
 eulogy, 227. 
 
 Crashaw, Richard, 157-90, 204, 
 210; birth and parentage, 158; 
 at Cambridge, 159-63 ; influenced 
 by Little Gidding, 165 ; ejection, 
 166 ; convert to Rome, 167 ; in 
 Paris, 183; in Rome, ib., at 
 Loreto, 184, 185, death, 186, 212. 
 
 Crashaw, William, 158. 
 
 Crepundia Siliana, 190. 
 
 Crowne, John, 295, 300, 301, 308, 
 
 315- 
 Cure for a Cuckold, A, Webster's, 
 
 49. 74-79- 
 Ciirtain-D rawer of iJie World, 
 
 Rowlands', 99. 
 Cutter of Coleman Street, The, 
 
 Cowley's, 204. 
 
 Daniel, Samuel, 35, 116. 
 Davenant, Sir William, 210, 227, 
 
 247, 305. 306. 
 Davideis, Cowley's, 204, 218- 
 
 220. 
 Dekker, Thomas, 10, 43, 47, 48, 95. 
 Delights of the Muses, Crashaw's, 
 
 168. 
 Denham, Sir John, 224, 227, 254. 
 Dering, Sir Edward, 250. 
 Devil Conjured, The, Lodge's, 36. 
 DeviFs Law Case, Webster's, 52, 53, 
 
 67-71, 78. 
 Digby, Sir Kenelm, 201. 
 Diogenes' Lanthorriy Rowlands', 92, 
 
 94. 
 Doctor Merryman, Rowlands', 91. 
 Don Carlos, Otway's, 310-14, 323. 
 Don Simonides, Rich's, 8. 
 Donne, Dr. John, 97, 207. 
 
 Dorset, Charles Sackville, Earl of, 
 
 29s, 296. 
 Dover, Captain Robert, 104-124. 
 Downes, 304. 
 
 Drayton, Michael, 8, 35, I15. 
 Dryden, John, 216, 227, 260, 264, 
 
 265, 295, 300, 306, 307, 314, 317, 
 
 323. 340. 
 Duchess of Malfy, Webster's, 50-52, 
 
 59-67, 79. 
 Duke, Richard, 305, 335. 
 Dyce, Alexander, 61, 74. 
 
 Elys, Rev. Edmund, 209, 223. 
 
 England, The Four Ages of, 209, 
 
 England s Helicon, 36, 40. 
 
 England s Parnassus , 40. 
 
 Ephelia, 255-58. 
 
 Epigrammatum Sacrorum Liber, 
 Crashaw's, 163. 
 
 Essays, Cowley's, 223. 
 
 Etheredge, Sir George, 259-98, 
 317; his Letterbook, 260, 285; 
 family history, 261 ; in France, 
 262 ; plays in rhyme, 265 ; intro- 
 duced to the wits, 270; popularity, 
 275 ; in a brawl, 283 ; accident to, 
 284 ; amours, 284 ; ambassador, 
 285 ; life at Ratisbon, 286-96; his 
 end, 297 ; person, 298. 
 
 Euphues, Lyly's, 4, 12, 131. 
 
 Euphues' Shadow, Lodge's, 28. 
 
 Faery Queen, Spenser's, 193, 
 
 Falkland, Earl of, 303, 321, 326. 
 
 Feltham, Owen, 115, 121. 
 
 Ferrar, John, 163. 
 
 Ferrar, Nicholas, 163, 164, 165, 173. 
 
 Fig for Momus, Lodge's, 34, 35. 
 
 Fletcher, John, 130. 
 
 F'ool's Bolt is soon Shot, A, Row- 
 lands', 96. 
 
 Forbonius and Prisceria, Lodge's, 
 II, 12. 
 
 Fared Marriage, The, Behn's, 303.
 
 Index 
 
 347 
 
 Ford, John, 66, 177, 178. 
 Fosse, Antoine de la, 341. 
 Fowler, Katherine. See Philips, 
 
 Mrs. K. 
 Fraunce, Abraham, 4. 
 Friendship in Fashion, Otway's, 
 
 319-20. 
 
 Games, The Cotswold, 103-124. 
 See Annalia Dubrensia. 
 
 Gautier, Th^ophile, 127. 
 
 Gidding, Litile, 163-65. 
 
 Gildon, Charles, 261, 262. 
 
 Glaucus and Scilla. See Scilla's 
 Metamorphosis. 
 
 Gondibert, Davenant's, 210. 
 
 Gongora, 173. 
 
 Good News and Bad News, Row- 
 lands', 97-98. 
 
 Gosson, Rev. Stephen, 6, 7, 9, 21. 
 
 Greene, Robert, 4, 10, 11, 13, 19, 
 22, 27-30, 47, 82, 86. 
 
 Greene's Ghost Haunting Coney- 
 catchers, Rowlands', 87. 
 
 Griffin, Robert, 110, iii. 
 
 Grosart, Rev. A. B., 113, 158, 166, 
 177, 186, 192. 
 
 Guardian, The, Cowley's, 203-4. 
 
 Guise, The, Webster's, 53. 
 
 Guy, Earlof Warwick, TJu Famous 
 History of, Rowlands', 92. 
 
 Gwynn, Mrs. Eleanor, 307, 309. 
 
 Habington, William, 117, 173,207. 
 Hall, Bishop Joseph, 34. 
 Harrison, tragic story of WilUam, 
 
 122. 
 Harvey, Gabriel, 21. 
 Harvey, William, 210. 
 Hekatompathia, Watson's, 4, 16. 
 Hell's Broke Loose, Rowlands', 89. 
 Henslowe, 30. 
 Herbert, George, 168, 175. 
 Heroick Friendship, Otway's, 337- 
 
 340. 
 
 Herrick, Robert, iii, 125-56, 168; 
 birth, 127 ; youth, 128 ; Jonson's 
 influence,i29; at Cambridge, 130; 
 life in Devon, 131, 135-36 ; person 
 and style, 132-34 ; his Julia, 137 ; 
 sources of inspiration, 152-54, 
 last years, 155, 156. 
 
 Herries, William, 161. 
 
 Hesperides, 127, 131, 137-47. 150- 
 
 Heywood, John, 104. 
 
 Heywood, Thomas, 41, 115, 120. 
 
 Higgins, 'ITiomas, 225. 
 
 Hind and the Panther, The, Dry- 
 den's, 295. 
 
 History of the Triumvirate, Otway's, 
 
 336. 
 Horace, Orinda's, 254. 
 Hudibras, 251. 
 Humour s Looking-Glass,'R.O'Vi\&x\i3is' , 
 
 92. 
 Huntley, R. W., 103. 
 
 Idea, Drayton's, 35. 
 Ingleby, Dr. C. M., 30. 
 
 Johnson, Charles, 202. 
 
 Jonson, Ben, 50, 52, 115, 116, 128- 
 
 30, 139, 146, 152, 197, 267, 
 
 301. 
 Josephus, 40. 
 
 Keats, John, 230, 238. 
 Killigrew, Sir Thomas, 306. 
 Knave of Clubs, Rowlands', 94. 
 Knave of Hearts , Rowlands', 95. 
 Knight of tlie Burning Pestle, The, 
 97- 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 55, 69, 717. 
 Lansdowne, George, Lord, 273. 
 Lany, Dr. Benjamin, 160, 161. 
 Lawes, Henry, 250. 
 Laxton, Sir William, 2. 
 Lee, Nat, 294, 305, 308, 323, 335, 
 340-
 
 348 
 
 Index 
 
 Letterbook of Sir G. Etheredge, 260, 
 285-98. 
 
 Letting of Humout's Blood in the 
 Head Vein, Rowlands', 84, 85, 89, 
 
 Life and Death of William Long- 
 beard, Lodge's, 32. 
 
 Life of Robert the Devil, I ^edge's, 22. 
 
 Lodge, Anne, Lady, Epitaph of, 6. 
 
 Lodge, Thomas, 1-46, 85 ; parent- 
 age, 2 ; at Merchant Taylors' 
 School, 3 ; at Oxford, 4-5 ; at- 
 tacks Gosson, 6-9 ; marriages, 9, 
 37 ; religion, 12, 13, 23, 37, 38, 44; 
 influence on Shakespeare, 14, 15 ; 
 adventures, 17, 24-26 ; satire, 34 ; 
 at Leyton, 37-44 ; adopts medi- 
 cine, 40 ; in Low Countries, 43 ; 
 death, 44 ; style, 44-46. 
 
 Look to It, or r II Stab You, Row- 
 lands', 89. 
 
 Looking-G lass for London and Eng- 
 land, Lodge's, 29-31. 
 
 Lope de Vesa, 61. 
 
 Lover's Melancholy, The, Ford's, 
 177. 
 
 Love's Graduate, Webster's, 76, 79. 
 
 Love' s Riddle, Cowley's, 200. 
 
 Lowell's Commemoration Ode, 216, 
 
 343- 
 Lower, Sir William, 264, 266. 
 Lyly, John, 4, 13, 28, 45, 82. 
 
 Macflecknoe, Dryden's, 295. 
 Maid^s Tragedy, 130. 
 Mamillia, Greene's, 11. 
 Man of Mode, TJie, Etheredge's, 
 
 277-83, 288. 
 Margarite of America, Lodge's, 26, 
 
 36, 39, 40. 
 Marini's Strage degli Innocenti, 
 
 173- 
 Marmion, Shackerley, 115, 121. 
 Marlowe, Christopher, 27, 29-31, 
 
 47. SO, 53. 65- 
 Martial's Epigrams, 138, 139, 152. 
 
 Martin Mark-all, Rowlands', 95. 
 Masqi/e of Queens, Jonson's, 129. 
 Mayne, Jasper, 264, 317. 
 Meade, Robert, 194. 
 Melancholy Knight, Rowlands', 
 
 96, 97. 
 Menaphon, Greene's, 19, 47. 
 Mennis, Sir John, 115. 
 Merchant Taylors' School, 3. 
 Merry Meeting, A, Rowlands', 84. 
 Milton, John, 197, 202, 214. 
 Mirror for Magistrates, 226. 
 Miscellanies, Cowley's, 202-10. 
 Mistress, The, Cowley's, 203, 206, 
 
 207, 214. 
 Molifere, 267, 297, 315. 
 More, Dr. Henry, 208. 
 Mulgrave, John, Earl of, 293, 
 
 316. 
 Munday, Anthony, 54. 
 
 Nash, Thomas, 29, 30, 86. 
 Naufragium Joculare, Cowley's 
 
 202. 
 Night Raven, The, Rowlands', 97. 
 Noble Numbers, Herrick's, 133-36, 
 
 147-50- 
 
 Oberon, Jonson's, 129. 
 
 Odes of Anacreon, Cowley's, 214. 
 
 Ogilby, John, 247, 249, 250. 
 
 Oldys, William, 260-62, 276, 298. 
 
 Orinda. See Philips. 
 
 Orinda to Poliarchus, Letter from, 
 
 242. 
 Orphan, The, Otway's, 322-26, 333, 
 
 341- 
 
 Orrery, Roger, Earl of, 224, 246-48, 
 250. 
 
 Otway, Thomas, 299-342 ; parent- 
 age, 301, 302; education, 303; 
 tries stage, 303 ; in London, 305 ; 
 attachment to Mrs. Ban-y, 309,310, 
 334 ; success, 314 ; quarrels with 
 Dryden, 315; enlists, 317; com-
 
 Index 
 
 349 
 
 edies, 318 ; adversity, 320, 328 ; 
 sums paid for his plays, 333 ; 
 ruin, 335 ; death, 336 ; person, 
 340 ; influence of French school, 
 340, 341- 
 
 Pallotta, Cardinal J. B,, 183, 184, 
 
 186. 
 
 Parkes, W., 99. 
 
 Peele, George, 413. 
 
 Philips, Mrs. Katherine, "the 
 matchless Orinda," 223, 229-58 ; 
 birth, 230; marriage, 231; life at 
 Cardigan, 240; in London, 241 ; 
 letters, 242-44, 304 ; in Ireland, 
 245-49 ; pirated, 253 ; death, 
 
 254- 
 
 Phillis, Lodge's, 32. 
 
 Philosophical Poems, More's, 208. 
 
 Phcenix Nest, The, 32. 
 
 Pindarique Odes, Cowley's, 214, 
 216. 
 
 Plague, Treatise of the. Lodge's, 40. 
 
 Poetical Blossoms, Cowley's, 194, 
 198, 200. 
 
 Poet's Complaint of his Muse, The, 
 Otway's, 327. 
 
 Pompey, Waller's, 249, 250. 
 
 Poor Man s Talent, Lodge's, 43, 44. 
 
 Pope, Alexander, 182, 216. 
 
 Porter, Endymion, 107. 
 
 Princess 0/ Cleve, The, Lee's, 294. 
 
 Prolusiones of Strada, 176. 
 
 Promos and Cassandra, Whet- 
 stone's, II. 
 
 Prosopopeia, Lodge's, 38. 
 
 Prjrnne, William, 203, 210. 
 
 Psyche, Joseph Beaumont's, 166. 
 
 Pyramus and Thisbe, Cowley's, 193, 
 195- 
 
 Racine, 315. 
 
 Randolph, Thomas, 115, 117-20, 
 
 198, 200, 201. 
 Return from Parnassus, 41. 
 
 Rich, Barnaby, 8. 
 Rival Ladies, The, Dryden's, 265. 
 Robinson, Rev. Charles J. , 3. 
 Robinson, Clement, 13. 
 Rochester, Wilmot, Earl of, 91, 283, 
 
 296. 307. 316, 320, 322. 
 Rosalynde, Lodge's, 17-23, 31, 33, 
 
 39- 
 
 Roscommon, Wentworth, Earl of, 
 247, 248, 250. 
 
 Rowlands, Samuel, 81-102; his call- 
 ing, 88, 89. 
 
 Rowley, William, 49, 74, 76, 
 
 Sailor's Calendar, Lodge's, 23. 
 Saint-Amant, French poet, 144, 207. 
 St. John of the Cross, 169. 
 Sansovino, 185. 
 
 School of Abuse, The, Gosson's, 6, 7. 
 Scilla's Metamorphosis, Lodge's, 
 
 13. 14- 
 Sedley, Sir Charles, 263, 270, 278, 
 
 2S4, 294, 296. 
 Seldcn, John, 130. 
 Seneca, 43. 
 
 Separatists ; A Satire against, 209. 
 Settle, Elkanah, 314, 315. 
 Shadwell, Thomas, 277, 296, 313, 
 
 317- 
 
 Shakespeare, 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 34, 
 104, no, 130, 146, 297, 323, 326. 
 
 She Gallants, Lansdowne's, 273. 
 
 She Would if She Could, Ether- 
 edge's, 262, 270-75, 277. 
 
 Shorthouse, Mr. J. H., 173, 178; 
 John Inglesant, 158, 184. 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 33 ; Apology for 
 Poetr)', 7. 
 
 Siege of Rhodes, The, Davenant's, 
 265. 
 
 Six London Gossips, Rowlands', 92, 
 
 94- 
 Soldier s Fortune, The, Otway's, 320, 
 
 335- 
 Spanish Masquerade, Greene's, 22,
 
 3S^ 
 
 Index 
 
 Spe, Friedrich, 171, 172. 
 Spenser, Edmund, 21, 144. 
 Spider's VVeb,T/ie, Lodge's, 23. 
 Sprat, Bishop, 215, 222, 225. 
 Spring-Rice, Mr. S. E., 79. 
 Stanley, Thomas, 214. 
 Steps to the Temple, Crashaw's, 
 
 i63. 
 Strada, Famianus, 176. 
 Suckling, Sir John, 121, 125. 
 Swinburne, Mr. Algernon C, xii., 
 
 178, 180. 
 
 Tamburlaine the Great, Marlowe'si 
 
 30- 
 
 Tartuffe, 271, 276. 
 
 Tate, Nahum, 223. 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 232, 240, 245. 
 
 Taylor, John, the water- pott, 99. 
 
 Temple, The, Herbert's, 168. 
 
 Terrible Battle between Time and 
 Death, Rowlands', 90. 
 
 Theatre of Divine Recreation, A, 
 Rowlands', 89. 
 
 ' Tis Merry when Gossips Meet, Row- 
 lands', 85-87, lOI. 
 
 Titus and Berenice, Otway's, 315. 
 
 Tourneur, Cyril, 66. 
 
 Trutz-Nachtigal, Spe's, 172. 
 
 Tuke, Samuel, 251. 
 
 Two Harpies, The, Webster's, 53. 
 Tyrell, James, 247. 
 
 Vandyke, Sir Anthony, 203. 
 Vaughan, Henry, the Silurist, 231. 
 Venice Preserved, Otway's, 323, 
 
 328, 333- 
 Venns and Adonis, 14. 
 Voltaire, 341, 342. 
 
 Walbancke, Mat., 115. 
 
 Waller, Edmund, i£i, 221, 227, 251, 
 
 272, 326. 
 Watson, Thomas, 4, 13, 16, 21, 27^ 
 
 33. 41- 
 Webster, John, 47-80. 
 Whetstone, George, 11. 
 White Devil, The, Webster's, 51. 
 
 54-59. 
 
 Whole Crew of Kind Gossips, Row- 
 lands', 94. 
 
 Windsor Castle, Otway's, 335. 
 
 Winstanley's Lives of the Poets, 155. 
 
 Wit's Misery and the WorlcTs Mad- 
 ness, Lodge's, 37, 38. 
 
 Wood, Anthony k, 2, 3, 40, 106, 
 121, 122. 
 
 Wootton, Sir Henry, 203. 
 
 Wordsworth, William, 14, 141, 226. 
 
 Wycherley, William, 278, 295, 317.
 
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