s: The left house said to the house on the right,


s: "I have marked your rise, O smart newcomer here."


s: Hence haler than you with your cracked old hide,


s: Loose casements, wormy beams, and doors that jam.


s: And water-pipes thread all my chambers through.


s: "--Yours might," mourned the other, "if you held, brother,


s: The Presences from aforetime that I hold.


s: A new house has no sense of the have-beens.


s: Though, strangely, living dwellers who come


s: See not the phantoms all my substance sees!


s: Of these thin elbowers few of the inmates win.


s: Yea, throng they as when first from the 'Byss upfetched.


s: Rich-noted throats and gossamered fingers


s: Of heels; the learned in love-lore and the dunce.


s: Who smile and greet their friends and kin,


s: And down my stairs depart for tracks untried.


s: To them in all its limbs, and light, and atmosphere.


s: In the flesh mid these, with souls unwoke,


s: Of such sylph-like surrounders do not know."


s: And with such spectral guests become acquaint?"


s: And print on thee their presences as on me."


s: Then burst I forth:  "Why such from you?


s: "This world is dark, and where you are,"


s: And more was he wonderstruck as he viewed


s: That were hers on the night when first they met,


s: And he the pick of the club-fire set . . .


s: And he stretched his arms:  "Stay--rest!--"


s: But his arms closed in on his hard bare breast;


s: She had vanished with all he had looked upon


s: To the city to which she had long withdrawn,


s: Is she now here?--young--or such age as she is?"


s: "--She is still here."--"Thank God.  Let her know;


s: Who hemmed, with features frozen and numb,


s: "How strange!--I'd almost forgotten your name! -


s: By some determined deftness; put forth joys


s: Dear as excess without the core that cloys,


s: That girdles us, and fill it full with glee,


s: Blind glee, excelling aught could ever be


s: That limitless recruits from Fancy's pack


s: Shall rush upon your tongue, and tender back


s: That a fresh love-leaf crumpled soon will dry,


s: It is the passing preciousness of dreams;


s: That aspects are within us; and who seems


s: I might have gone, as I have gone this year,


s: And Time have placed his finger on me there:


s: "YOU SEE THAT MAN?"--I might have looked, and said,


s: "O yes:  I see him.  One that boat has brought


s: Which dropped down Channel round Saint Alban's Head.


s: So commonplace a youth calls not my thought."


s: "YOU SEE THAT MAN?"--"Why yes; I told you; yes:


s: Of an idling town-sort; thin; hair brown in hue;


s: And as the evening light scants less and less


s: "YOU SEE THAT MAN?"--"Nay, leave me!" then I plead,


s: "I have fifteen miles to vamp across the lea,


s: And it grows dark, and I am weary-kneed:


s: I have said the third time; yes, that man I see!


s: "Good.  That man goes to Rome--to death, despair;


s: A hundred years, and the world will follow him there,


s: And bend with reverence where his ashes lie."


s: Late on Christmas Eve, in the street alone,


s: And the Seven of the Wain, heard what I said


s: As I bent me there, and voiced, and fingered


s: Upon the strings. . . . Long, long I lingered:


s: I skimmed the strings; I sang quite low;


s: That the house next door was the one now dittied,


s: Not hers, as when I had played unpitied;


s: - Next door, where dwelt a heart fresh stirred,


s: Who had not cared for my notes when heard:


s: My viol sank mute, my tongue stood still,


s: I prayed she would guess of the later, and leave me;


s: She stayed, as though, were she slain by the smart,


s: She would bear love's burn for a newer heart.


s: The tense-drawn moment wrought to bereave me


s: At her finding I'd come to another there.


s: "--O I feel a great gloominess spreading, spreading,


s: Not knowing I'd called.  So I kept out of sight,


s: 'But that cannot be.'--O I'd give him to Carry,


s: Off he coaxed you from Life's mad spinning,


s: I said; and rose, on peradventures bent.


s: The chimes played "Life's a Bumper!" on that day


s: Their sweetness frisked and floated on the lea,


s: As they played out "Life's a Bumper!" there to me.


s: "Awake!" I said.  "I go to take a bride!"


s: As I journeyed townwards from the countryside,


s: Their sweetness swelled in tripping tings of glee


s: And there I lay her who has been my hope,


s: And think, "O may I follow hither soon!"


s: While on the wind the chimes come cheerily,


s: Playing out "Life's a Bumper!" there to me.


s: At the station before the train came in, -


s: The constable looked, and he smiled, too,


s: And the man in the handcuffs suddenly sang


s: And the constable smiled, and said no word,


s: And so they went on till the train came in -


s: Our clock should be the closing flowers,


s: Like mushroom balls on grassy ground . . .


s: With patience time shall not wear through;


s: "Since health has been my lot," you say,


s: Were not, alas, the right ones--the ones meet for him -


s: Though fine and sweet the features, and the feelings all abrim.


s: Were the wrong ones for her, and ever would be so,


s: This bears his missives of life and death


s: And another knows nought of its chilling fall


s: Note.--"The Regent Street beauty, Miss Verrey, the Swiss


s: confectioner's daughter, whose personal attractions have been so


s: Fili hominis, ecce ego tollo a te desiderabile oculorum tuorom in


s: How I remember cleaning that strange picture!


s: I had been deep in duty for my sick neighbour -


s: His besides my own--over several Sundays,


s: Often, too, in the week; so with parish pressures,


s: Baptisms, burials, doctorings, conjugal counsel -


s: All the whatnots asked of a rural parson -


s: Faith, I was well-nigh broken, should have been fully


s: One that in mounting manhood had grown my hobby.


s: This was to delve at whiles for easel-lumber,


s: Stowed in the backmost slums of a soon-reached city,


s: Merely on chance to uncloak some worthy canvas,


s: Panel, or plaque, blacked blind by uncouth adventure,


s: Yet under all concealing a precious art-feat.


s: Such I had found not yet.  My latest capture


s: Came from the rooms of a trader in ancient house-gear


s: Who had no scent of beauty or soul for brushcraft.


s: Gatherings of slow years, thick-varnished over,


s: Never a feature manifest of man's painting.


s: So, one Saturday, time ticking hard on midnight


s: Ere an hour subserved, I set me upon it.


s: Long with coiled-up sleeves I cleaned and yet cleaned,


s: Till a first fresh spot, a high light, looked forth,


s: Then another, like fair flesh, and another;


s: Then a curve, a nostril, and next a finger,


s: Tapering, shapely, significantly pointing slantwise.


s: "Flemish?" I said. "Nay, Spanish . . . But, nay, Italian!"


s: - Then meseemed it the guise of the ranker Venus,


s: Down I knelt before it and kissed the panel,


s: Drunk with the lure of love's inhibited dreamings.


s: Till the dawn I rubbed, when there gazed up at me


s: A hag, that had slowly emerged from under my hands there,


s: Pointing the slanted finger towards a bosom


s: Eaten away of a rot from the lusts of a lifetime . . .


s: - I could have ended myself in heart-shook horror.


s: Stunned I sat till roused by a clear-voiced bell-chime,


s: Fresh and sweet as the dew-fleece under my luthern.


s: "This is a brightsome blaze you've lit good friend, to-night!"


s: "--Aye, it has been the bleakest spring I have felt for years,


s: And nought compares with cloven logs to keep alight:


s: I buy them bargain-cheap of the executioners,


s: As I dwell near; and they wanted the crosses out of sight


s: By Passover, not to affront the eyes of visitors.


s: "Yes, they're from the crucifixions last week-ending


s: At Kranion.  We can sometimes use the poles again,


s: Serve twice when they're let stand.  But if a feast's impending,


s: As lately, you've to tidy up for the corners' ken.


s: "Though only three were impaled, you may know it didn't pass off


s: So quietly as was wont?  That Galilee carpenter's son


s: Who boasted he was king, incensed the rabble to scoff:


s: Yes, it blazes up well if lit with a few dry chips and shroff;


s: Strange, strange that we lived so lightly!


s: From those true tones--of span so brief! -


s: And never I knew or guessed my crime. . .


s: In my feat of change from a coffin-thrall


s: To a dancer in green as leaves on a wall.


s: Thin-urned, I have burrowed away from the moss


s: That covers my sod, and have entered this yew,


s: Am I--this laurel that shades your head;


s: And made them of me; and my leaves now shine,


s: Beneath sun, stars, in blaze, in breeze,


s: - I'm old Squire Audeley Grey, who grew,


s: And in that attire I have longtime gayed


s: - And so they breathe, these masks, to each


s: Who lingers there, and their lively speech


s: Fishes might seem to fin a passage if they list.


s: With the cold listless lustre of a dead man's eye.


s: In her gown of green, by the bobbing fern,


s: Why was she near there if love had fled?


s: Though the gate was whence I had often sped


s: In the mists of morning to meet her, and learn


s: As a book--she mine, as she sometimes said;


s: And passed foot-faint with averted head.


s: That amid such ambitious and elbow-high green


s: Elsewhere the mead is possessed of the neats,


s: The rich rank thicket which brushes their teats,


s: And HER gown, as she waits for her Love.


s: Sir Nameless, once of Athelhall, declared:


s: "These wretched children romping in my park


s: Trample the herbage till the soil is bared,


s: And yap and yell from early morn till dark!


s: Go keep them harnessed to their set routines:


s: For green remembrance there are better means


s: Than offspring, who but wish their sires away."


s: Sculpture must image me when I am gone."


s: - He forthwith summoned carvers there express


s: To shape a figure stretching seven-odd feet


s: With shield, and crest, and casque, and word complete:


s: When done a statelier work was never known.


s: Three hundred years hied; Church-restorers came,


s: And, no one of his lineage being traced,


s: They thought an effigy so large in frame


s: Best fitted for the floor.  There it was placed,


s: Under the seats for schoolchildren.  And they


s: Kicked out his name, and hobnailed off his nose;


s: And, as they yawn through sermon-time, they say,


s: "Who was this old stone man beneath our toes?"


s: These summer landscapes--clump, and copse, and croft -


s: Woodland and meadowland--here hung aloft,


s: Gay with limp grass and leafery new and soft,


s: Seem caught from the immediate season's yield


s: I saw last noonday shining over the field,


s: By rapid snatch, while still are uncongealed


s: The saps that in their live originals climb;


s: Yester's quick greenage here set forth in mime


s: Just as it stands, now, at our breathing-time.


s: But these young foils so fresh upon each tree,


s: Soft verdures spread in sprouting novelty,


s: Are not this summer's, though they feign to be.


s: Last year their May to Michaelmas term was run,


s: Last autumn browned and buried every one,


s: Dear, think not that they will forget you:


s: They may say:  "Why a woman such honour?"


s: That a man heaped this splendour upon her;


s: Sweeping like summertide wind on our ways;


s: Going like wind, too, and rated as nought


s: Out of the years for all flesh, first or last,


s: Yet, all the while, it upbore us like wings


s: Nothing came after:  romance straight forsook


s: Primed for new scenes with designs smart and tall . . .


s: Torn, leaf-strewn, as if scoured by foemen,


s: Once edging fiefs of my forefolk yeomen,


s: That way marched they some are forgetting,


s: White stands the handpost for brisk on-bearers,


s: "Halt!" is the word for wan-cheeked farers


s: Answer the stones.  "Want chit-chat, laughter:


s: By that harpsichord, built on the quaint old plan?


s: And there's not a spark within the grate;


s: Though the winter fire beamed brightly . . . Aye!


s: What I would not then; and the chill old keys,


s: When listening with her to the far-down moan


s: Of the white-selvaged and empurpled sea,


s: And rain came on that did not hinder talk,


s: In turning home, despite the slow wet walk


s: By crooked ways, and over stiles of stone;


s: Fifty years thence, on her monument, that discloses


s: Its graying shape upon the luxuriant green;


s: Fifty years thence to an hour, by chance led there,


s: What might have moved you?--yea, had you foreseen


s: That on the tomb of the selfsame one, gone where


s: The dawn of every day is as the close is,


s: By the light of that lowering sun peering in at the window-pane,


s: How I used to hear tongues ask, as I sat here when I was new:


s: "Who is she playing the organ?  She touches it mightily true!"


s: "She travels from Havenpool Town," the deacon would softly speak,


s: "A handsome girl," he would murmur, upstaring, (and so I am).


s: I went on playing and singing when this I had heard, and more,


s: Though tears half-blinded me; yes, I remained going on and on,


s: His fellow-deacon, who throve as a book-binder over the way.)


s: If, sooth, she's of evil report, what else can we do but dismiss


s: But a day came when they declared it.  The news entered me as a


s: I was broken; so pallid of face that they thought I should faint,


s: But it fell that murmurs again from the flock broke the pastor's


s: Yet God knows, if aught He knows ever, I loved the Old-Hundredth,


s: Above all embraces of body by wooers who sought me and won! . . .


s: "I yield, Gentlemen, without parlance.  But--let me just hymn you


s: They gloomily nodded assent, saying, "Yes, if you care to.  Once


s: And only once more, understand."  To that with a bend I agreed.


s: This evening of Sunday is come--the last of my functioning here.


s: "Such harmonies I never dreamt the old instrument capable of!"


s: Meantime the sun lowers and goes; shades deepen; the lights are


s: (SONG:  Verses 1, 3, key major; verse 2, key minor)


s: In strains that move the toes and heels!


s: Dear girl," I'd say, "whose flame is fled,


s: Stirred but by shakes from Earth's deep core--"


s: That Love who kissed and called thee Sweet! -


s: Should green them gay with waving leaves,


s: And says, "'Twas here the thing was done,


s: Though now not fair, though gray my hair,


s: Sent rhythmic throbbings through the casements


s: Where nighted farers paused and muttered,


s: To shepherds at their midnight lambings,


s: We stand in the dusk of a pine-tree limb,


s: Brought or withheld at the breeze's whim;


s: But our truest heed is to words that steal


s: From the mantled ghost that looms in the gray,


s: As it sighs to the imminent year its say:-


s: Must we avow what we would close confine?


s: Though the frail light shed by a slim young moon


s: For poetry of place:  its weathered face


s: I waited at home all the while they were boating together -


s: Till there entered a woman I loved more than life,


s: And we sat and sat on, and beheld the uprising dark weather,


s: With a sense that some mischief was rife.


s: And I marvelled--my friend's wife?--or was it my own


s: Then I cried in unrest:  "He is free!  But no good is releasing


s: "--But it is," said the woman I loved, quietly.


s: "How?" I asked her.  "--Because he has long loved me too without


s: And it's just the same thing, don't you see."


s: Its floors were criss-crossed by their feet,


s: Mere freshlings are they, blank of brow,


s: I know his face, and the feel of his dawn:


s: The next stands forth in his morning clothes,


s: But a meteor act, that left in its queue


s: Till my leading self to my following self


s: "I have watched you, Heart of mine," I cried,


s: "I go to my old friend's house," he urged,


s: "Well, I will leave you in peace," said I,


s: - "That do I!  And at his green-grassed door


s: - The yew-plumes moved like mockers' beards,


s: And I seemed to go; yet still was there,


s: This song she sung:  "I am fair, I am young!"


s: She sang this song:  "Life, thou'rt too long!"


s: It was that strange freshness you carried


s: In the morning at five on your lonely drive?"


s: Till we've passed where the road lies low,


s: (Or he'd flinch when the Hollow is near)


s: And the drops from the trees in the fog,


s: Little fogs were gathered in every hollow,


s: But the purple hillocks enjoyed fine weather


s: As we marched with our fiddles over the heather


s: - How it comes back!--to their wedding that day.


s: Our getting there brought our neighbours and all, O!


s: Till, two and two, the couples stood ready.


s: And her father said:  "Souls, for God's sake, be steady!"


s: And we strung up our fiddles, and sounded out "A."


s: The groomsman he stared, and said, "You must follow!"


s: But we'd gone to fiddle in front of the party,


s: (Our feelings as friends being true and hearty)


s: And fiddle in front we did--all the way.


s: Yes, from their door by Mill-tail-Shallow,


s: And up Styles-Lane, and by Front-Street houses,


s: Where stood maids, bachelors, and spouses,


s: Who cheered the songs that we knew how to play.


s: The bass-viol Reub--and right well played he! -


s: The serpent Jim; ay, to church and back.


s: I thought the bridegroom was flurried rather,


s: As we kept up the tune outside the chancel,


s: While they were swearing things none can cancel


s: Inside the walls to our drumstick's whack.


s: "Too gay!" she pleaded.  "Clouds may gather,


s: And sorrow come."  But she gave in, laughing,


s: And by supper-time when we'd got to the quaffing


s: Her fears were forgot, and her smiles weren't slack.


s: A grand wedding 'twas!  And what would follow


s: We never thought.  Or that we should have buried her


s: On the same day with the man that married her,


s: A day like the first, half hazy, half clear.


s: Though the purple hillocks enjoyed fine weather,


s: When we went to play 'em to church together,


s: I thought the flower blushed deeplier--aye,


s: Which still the haunting first deranged?


s: And glimpsed my face in the sideboard-glass,


s: Wrenched wrinkled features met my sight,


s: He was sorry, he said, for what he had done,


s: Thing I'd become, each wrinkle and score


s: There it stands, though alas, what a little of her


s: Not her thoughts, that you read like a book.


s: When first she breathed, witless of all;


s: Nothing more.  The still marble, date-graven,


s: I missed one night, but the next I went;


s: She was there, with the look of one ill-content,


s: - "I am sorry last night to have failed you here,


s: And it's long rowing back to the West-Hoe Pier,


s: Why you missed last night, and must now away


s: - " O woman so mocking in mood and mien,


s: And at least I have met you at Cremyll side


s: - "You get small rest--that read I quite;


s: Though there's a rest hid safe from sight


s: She had changed, much changed, it seemed:


s: The sparks of the star in her pupils gleamed,


s: Or had brought the secret of my new Fair


s: Said the man with the oars:  "This news of the lass


s: "Yes:  found this daybreak, stiff and numb


s: To meet her lover last night in the glum,


s: "And she leapt down, heart-hit.  Pity she's dead:


s: That made me call you before the red sunsetting?


s: Something that all this common scene endows


s: With a richened impress there can be no forgetting?"


s: O Sage, that should have made you urge me to enter,


s: Nothing to fire the soul, or the sense to win:


s: Well:  why does your face not shine like the face of Moses?"


s: "--I found no moving thing there save the light


s: And shadow flung on the wall by the outside roses."


s: "--Go yet once more, pray.  Look on a seat."


s: "--I go . . . O Sage, it's only a man that sits there


s: With eyes on the sun.  Mute,--average head to feet."


s: "--No more?"--"No more.  Just one the place befits there,


s: "As the rays reach in through the open door,


s: And he looks at his hand, and the sun glows through his fingers,


s: While he's thinking thoughts whose tenour is no more


s: To me than the swaying rose-tree shade that lingers."


s: Till no sun came, dank fogs the house enfolding;


s: And she saw inside, when the form in the flesh had gone,


s: As a vision what she had missed when the real beholding.


s: "Why are you so bent down before your time,


s: Old mason?  Many have not left their prime


s: So far behind at your age, and can still


s: He pointed to the mansion-front hard by,


s: And to the stones of the quoin against the sky;


s: "Those upper blocks," he said, "that there you see,


s: There stood in the air up to the parapet


s: Crowning the corner height, the stones as set


s: By him--ashlar whereon the gales might drum


s: "I carried them up," he said, "by a ladder there;


s: The last was as big a load as I could bear;


s: But on I heaved; and something in my back


s: "So I got crookt.  I never lost that sprain;


s: And those who live there, walled from wind and rain


s: "They don't know me, or even know my name,


s: But good I think it, somehow, all the same


s: To have kept 'em safe from harm, and right and tight,


s: "Yes; that I fixed it firm up there I am proud,


s: Facing the hail and snow and sun and cloud,


s: And to stand storms for ages, beating round


s: Figure in the night-fog that chills me numb?"


s: "I come to you across from my house up there,


s: And I don't mind the brine-mist clinging to me


s: For I heard him in my chamber, and thought you unaware."


s: That brought you blindly knocking in this middle-watch so drear?"


s: "My sailor son's voice as 'twere calling at your door,


s: And I don't mind my bare feet clammy on the stones,


s: For he only knows of THIS house I lived in before."


s: Woman like a skeleton, with socket-sunk eye."


s: "Ah--nobody's nigh!  And my life is drearisome,


s: And this is the old home we loved in many a day


s: And the salt fog mops me.  And nobody's come!"


s: But smiled, for its purport we did not hide.


s: And would fain have fenced from a waft of care.


s: Should we cloak the tidings, or call her and tell?


s: As we pondered and watched her we loved so well.


s: How long, while seeing what soon must come,


s: And stay the stroke that would blanch and numb?


s: He used to pass, well-trimmed and brushed,


s: "We are fain!  We are fain!" from everywhere


s: "What do I catch upon the night-wind, husband? -


s: What is it sounds in this house so eerily?


s: It seems to be a woman's voice:  each little while I hear it,


s: "'Tis but the eaves dripping down upon the plinth-slopes:


s: Letting fancies worry thee!--sure 'tis a foolish thing,


s: When we were on'y coupled half-an-hour before the noontide,


s: "Yet seems it still a woman's voice outside the castle, husband,


s: "It may be a tree, bride, that rubs his arms acrosswise,


s: If it is not the eaves-drip upon the lower slopes,


s: Or the river at the bend, where it whirls about the hatches


s: "Yet it still seems to me like the crying of a woman,


s: And it saddens me much that so piteous a sound


s: On this my bridal night when I would get agone from sorrow


s: "To satisfy thee, Love, I will strike the flint-and-steel, then,


s: And set the rush-candle up, and undo the door,


s: And take the new horn-lantern that we bought upon our journey,


s: And vanished down the turret; and she heard him pass the postern,


s: She listened as she lay, till she heard his step returning,


s: And his voice as he unclothed him:  "'Twas nothing, as I said,


s: But the nor'-west wind a-blowing from the moor ath'art the river,


s: "Nay, husband, you perplex me; for if the noise I heard here,


s: Awaking me from sleep so, were but as you avow,


s: The rain-fall, and the wind, and the tree-bough, and the river,


s: "And why is thy hand and thy clasping arm so shaking,


s: And thy sleeve and tags of hair so muddy and so wet,


s: And why feel I thy heart a-thumping every time thou kissest me,


s: He lay there in silence for a while, still quickly breathing,


s: Then started up and walked about the room resentfully:


s: "O woman, witch, whom I, in sooth, against my will have wedded,


s: "There was one I loved once:  the cry you heard was her cry:


s: She came to me to-night, and her plight was passing sore,


s: As no woman . . . Yea, and it was e'en the cry you heard, wife,


s: "And now I can't abide thee:  this place, it hath a curse on't,


s: This farmstead once a castle:  I'll get me straight away!"


s: He dressed this time in darkness, unspeaking, as she listened,


s: They found a woman's body at a spot called Rocky Shallow,


s: Where the Froom stream curves amid the moorland, washed aground,


s: And they searched about for him, the yeoman, who had darkly known


s: And the bride left for good-and-all the farmstead once a castle,


s: And in a county far away lives, mourns, and sleeps alone,


s: And thinks in windy weather that she hears a woman crying,


s: And when we walked where breakers dinned


s: To that stone space, but stands deep lined


s: "So back you have come from the town, Nan, dear!


s: Who long since promised to meet me here?"


s: And have seen your lover on sick-leave home -


s: Yet,--in short, he's coming, I heard him say -


s: "--Then I'll wait, I'll wait, through wet or dry!


s: "--Nell, him I have chanced so much to see,


s: And it's here our meeting is planned to be."


s: On the pensive pine when the air is loud


s: They parted--a pallid, trembling I pair,


s: This:  never could I have given him love,


s: 'Twas to greet the new rector I called I here,


s: My old friend, for long years installed here,


s: And I listen, the while that I'm scanning


s: "[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]"


s: "A woman for whom great gods might strive!"


s: I thought of the first with her eating eyes,


s: And I thought of the second with hers, green-gray,


s: And I thought of the third, experienced, wise,


s: And I thought of the fourth who sang all day.


s: And I thought of the fifth, whom I'd called a jade,


s: And I thought of them all, tear-fraught;


s: And that each had shown her a passable maid,


s: So I traced these words on the bark of a beech,


s: "After scanning five; yes, each and each,


s: "I feel some curse.  O, FIVE were there?"


s: At length I came to a Christ-cross stone


s: And I knelt upon the leaves there strown,


s: "Look more," she said.  I looked as bid;


s: And her frail term seemed well-nigh run.


s: Sir John was entombed, and the crypt was closed, and she,


s: Like a soul that could meet no more the sight of the sun,


s: Inclined her in weepings and prayings continually,


s: And to pleasure her in her sorrow, and fix his name


s: As a memory Time's fierce frost should never kill,


s: She caused to be richly chased a brass to his fame,


s: For she bonded her name with his own on the brazen page,


s: As if dead and interred there with him, and cold, and numb,


s: (Omitting the day of her dying and year of her age


s: And implored good people to pray "Of their Charytie


s: For these twaine Soules,"--yea, she who did last remain


s: Forgoing Heaven's bliss if ever with spouse should she


s: Even there, as it first was set, you may see it now,


s: Writ in quaint Church text, with the date of her death left bare,


s: Thereafter some years slid, till there came a day


s: When it slowly began to be marked of the standers-by


s: That she would regard the brass, and would bend away


s: Now the lady was fair as any the eye might scan


s: Through a summer day of roving--a type at whose lip


s: Despite her maturing seasons, no meet man


s: And her heart was stirred with a lightning love to its pith


s: For a newcomer who, while less in years, was one


s: Full eager and able to make her his own forthwith,


s: But she answered Nay, death-white; and still as he urged


s: She adversely spake, overmuch as she loved the while,


s: And showed him the words, ever gleaming upon her pew,


s: Memorizing her there as the knight's eternal wife,


s: Or falsing such, debarred inheritance due


s: He blenched, and reproached her that one yet undeceased


s: Should bury her future--that future which none can spell;


s: And she wept, and purposed anon to inquire of the priest


s: Of her wedding in face of the record.  Her lover agreed,


s: And they parted before the brass with a shudderful kiss,


s: For it seemed to flash out on their impulse of passionate need,


s: Well, the priest, whom more perceptions moved than one,


s: Said she erred at the first to have written as if she were dead


s: Her name and adjuration; but since it was done


s: If she wished anon to reach the coveted goal


s: To erase from the consecrate text her prayer as there prayed


s: Would aver that, since earth's joys most drew her, past doubt,


s: Friends' prayers for her joy above by Jesu's aid


s: Moreover she thought of the laughter, the shrug, the jibe


s: That would rise at her back in the nave when she should pass


s: As another's avowed by the words she had chosen to inscribe


s: And so for months she replied to her Love:  "No, no";


s: While sorrow was gnawing her beauties ever and more,


s: Till he, long-suffering and weary, grew to show


s: And, after an absence, wrote words absolute:


s: That he gave her till Midsummer morn to make her mind clear;


s: And that if, by then, she had not said Yea to his suit,


s: Thence on, at unwonted times through the lengthening days


s: She was seen in the church--at dawn, or when the sun dipt


s: And the moon rose, standing with hands joined, blank of gaze,


s: She thinned as he came not; shrank like a creature that cowers


s: As summer drew nearer; but still had not promised to wed,


s: When, just at the zenith of June, in the still night hours,


s: "The church!" they whispered with qualms; "where often she sits."


s: But feeling the words with her finger, gibbering in fits;


s: And so she remained, in her handmaids' charge; late, soon,


s: Tracing words in the air with her finger, as seen that night -


s: Those incised on the brass--till at length unwatched one noon,


s: And, as talebearers tell, thence on to her last-taken breath


s: Was unseen, save as wraith that in front of the brass made moan;


s: So that ever the way of her life and the time of her death


s: And hence, as indited above, you may read even now


s: The quaint church-text, with the date of her death left bare,


s: In the aged Estminster aisle, where folk yet bow


s: Down that grim steep the coastguard treads,


s: That, after fenweeds, flowers would blow;


s: We went a day's excursion to the stream,


s: Basked by the bank, and bent to the ripple-gleam,


s: I walked in the Sunday sunshine by the road


s: That wound towards the wicket of your abode,


s: Unlooked for I arrived on a rainy night,


s: And you hailed me at the door by the swaying light,


s: And that calm eve when you walked up the stair,


s: Walk down again, struck me as I stood there.


s: He would have said:  "'Twas nothing new;


s: And when he passed there's none can guess,


s: Up there in the world we walked till dead


s: Yes, played thereat far more than enough


s: Its whitewashed bareness more than the sight


s: I have known her long, but this raptured rite


s: - Well, once when her son cast his shadow there,


s: Upon that flame-lit wall.  And the lines


s: And there long stayed his familiar look;


s: "Yes," he said:  "My brush goes on with a rush,


s: When you have to whiten old cots and brighten,


s: But she knows he's there.  And when she yearns


s: She sees him as close at hand, and turns


s: But you heard none say:  "It's the last!"


s: The clock showed the hour and the minute,


s: The dark was thick.  A boy he seemed at that time


s: "I'll tell my tale," he murmured, "for I fancy


s: Then thus he told.  "I reached--'twas for the first time -


s: A dwelling.  Life was clogged in me with care;


s: I thought not I should meet an eyesome maiden,


s: "I entered on the precincts for the second time -


s: 'Twas an adventure fit and fresh and fair -


s: I slackened in my footsteps at the porchway,


s: "I rose and travelled thither for the third time,


s: The hope-hues growing gayer and yet gayer


s: As I hastened round the boscage of the outskirts,


s: "I journeyed to the place again the fourth time


s: As it seemed to me, engrossed about these goings),


s: "When I bent me to my pilgrimage the fifth time


s: (Soft-thinking as I journeyed I would dare


s: A certain word at token of good auspice),


s: "That landscape did I traverse for the sixth time,


s: And dreamed on what we purposed to prepare;


s: I reached a tryst before my journey's end came,


s: "I went again--long after--aye, the seventh time;


s: The look of things was sinister and bare


s: As I caught no customed signal, heard no voice call,


s: "And now I gad the globe--day, night, and any time,


s: And, maybe, I shall nigh me to some nymph-niche,


s: " But how," said I, "has your so little lifetime


s: Given roomage for such loving, loss, despair?


s: A boy so young!"  Forthwith I turned my lantern


s: His head was white.  His small form, fine aforetime,


s: Was shrunken with old age and battering wear,


s: An eighty-years long plodder saw I pacing


s: The face it had lit when a babe's in its cot;


s: And the sun knew not, and the face knew not


s: Through the folding-doors with a laugh from the bed,


s: As he sat by the fire in the outer room,


s: And a cab-hack's wheeze, and the clap of its feet


s: In its breathless pace on the smooth wet street,


s: Were all that came to them now and then . . .


s: And the Spirits behind the curtains heard,


s: "Let's get him made so--just for a whim!"


s: Said the Phantom Ironic.  "'Twould serve her right


s: If we coaxed the Will to do it some night."


s: The Sprite of the Pities.  "She said it in fun!"


s: That what she had called him he next year was;


s: And on such a night, when she lay elsewhere,


s: He, watched by those Phantoms, again sat there,


s: And gazed, as if gazing on far faint shores,


s: At the empty bed through the folding-doors


s: That she had forgotten them where she slept.


s: Being false," they'll say.  I'll bear it;


s: (The following lines are partly made up, partly remembered from a


s: Where populations meet, though seen of none;


s: As though their haunts were nigh around,


s: "O Seers, who well might high ensample show"


s: (Came throbbing past in plainsong small and slow),


s: "Ye scribes, that urge the old medicament,


s: Whose fusty vials have long dried impotent,


s: But breathing threats and slaughters yet


s: Ye grieve Earth's sons and daughters yet


s: "Live there no heedful ones of searching sight,


s: Whose accents might be oracles that smite


s: I never cared for Life:  Life cared for me,


s: It now says, "Cease; at length thou hast learnt to grind


s: That thou didst ask no ill-advised reward,


s: Nor sought in me much more than thou couldst find."


s: The doors.  Yea, sprightlier times were then


s: Where once we rowed, where once we sailed,


s: The paced quadrille, the spry schottische,


s: Sagged seats, the creeper-nails are rust,


s: That evening's shades are stretching out,


s: Who trode their track light-limbed and fast


s: Burnt brightlier towards their setting-day,


s: And ye, red-lipped and smooth-browed; list,


s: Much lore we leave you worth the knowing,


s: Nay, rush not:  time serves:  we are going,


s: A cry from the green-grained sticks of the fire


s: 'Twas my own voice talking therefrom to me


s: On how I had walked when my sun was higher -


s: "Whatsoever was just you were slack to see;


s: Kept not things lovely and pure in view,"


s: That suffereth long and is kind withal,"


s: "You taught not that which you set about,"


s: "That the greatest of things is Charity. . . "


s: - And the sticks burnt low, and the fire went out,


s: {1}  Quadrilles danced early in the nineteenth century.


s: Samuel Johnson, born at Lichfield in the year 1709, on the 7th of


s: Easter Eve.  In 1777 his memorandum, set down among prayers and


s: regarded by the London publishers as an interference with the


s: honorary copyright which booksellers then respected among


s: themselves to call a meeting of proprietors of honorary or actual


s: respectable booksellers in London accepted the invitation to this


s: The meeting of booksellers, happy in the support of Johnson's


s: intellectual power, appointed also a committee to engage the best


s: Milton, the sense of Milton's genius is not less evident than the


s: Agmondesham, in Buckinghamshire, whose family was originally a


s: branch of the Kentish Wallers; and his mother was the daughter of


s: His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him a yearly


s: He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eton; and removed


s: afterwards to King's College, in Cambridge.  He was sent to


s: Parliament in his eighteenth, if not in his sixteenth year, and


s: frequented the court of James the First, where he heard a very


s: remarkable conversation, which the writer of the Life prefixed to


s: formality of Parliament?'  The Bishop of Durham readily answered,


s: nostrils.'  Whereupon the king turned and said to the Bishop of


s: Winchester, 'Well, my Lord, what say you?'  'Sir,' replied the


s: felicity like instinct, a style which perhaps will never be


s: versification was, in his first essay, such as it appears in his


s: afterwards much needed, or much endeavoured, to improve.  Denham


s: corrected his numbers by experience, and gained ground gradually


s: The next poem, of which the subject seems to fix the time, is


s: supposed by Mr. Fenton to be the "Address to the Queen," which he


s: obligations to her frequent pregnancy proves that it was written


s: when she had brought many children.  We have therefore no date of


s: Neither of these pieces that seem to carry their own dates could


s: have been the sudden effusion of fancy.  In the verses on the


s: promises of the king's kindness to the descendants of Buckingham,


s: inheritance, he took care early to grow richer, by marrying Mrs.


s: Being too young to resist beauty, and probably too vain to think


s: himself resistible, he fixed his heart, perhaps half-fondly and


s: appellation of "sugar," and implies, if it means anything, a


s: spiritless mildness, and dull good-nature, such as excites rather


s: Yet he describes Sacharissa as a sublime predominating beauty, of


s: amazement rather than fondness, whose chains he wishes, though in


s: In this part of his life it was that he was known to Clarendon,


s: among the rest of the men who were eminent in that age for genius


s: praises.  Who they were, whom he dignifies with poetical names,


s: imagination, which he who flatters them never can approve.  There


s: supposed by the courtiers not to favour them.


s: When the Parliament was called in 1640, it appeared that Waller's


s: complaints of imaginary grievances:  "They," says he, "who think


s: impediment which naturally we endeavour to remove is penury, and


s: want of things without which we cannot live."


s: The speech is vehement; but the great position, that grievances


s: ought to be redressed before supplies are granted, is agreeable


s: considered by the discontented party as a man sufficiently trusty


s: shows that he did not disappoint their expectations.  He was


s: He was not, however, a bigot to his party, nor adopted all their


s: "There is no doubt but the sense of what this nation had suffered


s: "We have already showed that Episcopacy and the evils thereof are


s: commended in this House, to a proposition of like nature, but of


s: less consequence; they gave no other reason of their refusal but


s: this, 'Nolumus mutare Leges Angliae:' it was the bishops who so


s: answered them; and it would become the dignity and wisdom of this


s: "I see some are moved with a number of hands against the bishops;


s: regare grew quickly to be a Legem ferre:  and after, when their


s: legions had found that they could make a Dictator, they never


s: suffered the Senate to have a voice any more in such election.


s: "There are two reasons chiefly alleged against our Church


s: "First, Scripture, which, as some men think, points out another


s: "Second, the abuses of the present superiors.


s: "For Scripture, I will not dispute it in this place; but I am


s: which seem to favour that, as there are now alleged against the


s: instances of poor men that have received hard measure from their


s: however, to sit in the rebellious conventicle; but "spoke," says


s: which could not be believed, when all men knew what liberty Mr.


s: Waller, as he continued to sit, was one of the commissioners


s: nominated by the Parliament to treat with the king at Oxford; and


s: Oxford:  he was sent with several others to add pomp to the


s: The engagement, known by the name of Waller's plot, was soon


s: afterwards discovered.  Waller had a brother-in-law, Tomkyns, who


s: they might overpower the fury of sedition, by refusing to comply


s: with the ordinance for the twentieth part, and the other taxes


s: levied for the support of the rebel army, and by uniting great


s: Lord Conway joined in the design, and, Clarendon imagines,


s: incidentally mingled, as he was a soldier, some martial hopes or


s: Parliament, and the neutrals.  How far they proceeded does not


s: appear; the result of their inquiry, as Pym declared, was, that


s: within the walls, for one that was for the Royalists, there were


s: three against them; but that without the walls, for one that was


s: times, and more than this, is done without fear; but such was the


s: Sir Nicholas flattered himself with an opinion, that some


s: provocation would so much exasperate, or some opportunity so much


s: This commission could be only intended to lie ready till the time


s: Crispe would undoubtedly have put an end to the session of


s: The discovery of Waller's design is variously related.


s: In "Clarendon's History" it is told, that a servant of Tomkyns,


s: Goode, who stole some of his papers; and if he had not strangely


s: dreamed the night before, that his sister had betrayed him, and


s: power, receiving intelligence from the sister, would employ the


s: servant of Tomkyns to listen at the conference, that they might


s: The plot was published in the most terrific manner.


s: On the 31st of May (1643), at a solemn fast, when they were


s: listening to the sermon, a messenger entered the church, and


s: having yet traced nothing but that letters had been intercepted,


s: They perhaps yet knew little themselves, beyond some general and


s: indistinct notices.  "But Waller," says Clarendon, "was so


s: He undoubtedly confessed much which they could never have


s: Tomkyns was seized on the same night with Waller, and appears


s: likewise to have partaken of his cowardice; for he gave notice of


s: It can raise no wonder that they formed one plot out of these two


s: agent employed in both, and found the commission of array in the


s: hands of him who was employed in collecting the opinions and


s: evidence against them but the confession of Waller, of which


s: therefore I cannot imagine why you should hide it so far as to


s: This persuasion seems to have had little effect.  Portland sent


s: (June 29) a letter to the Lords, to tell them that he "is in


s: One of his arguments with Portland is, that the plot is already


s: The Parliament then proceeded against the conspirators, and


s: committed their trial to a council of war.  Tomkyns and Chaloner


s: were hanged near their own doors.  Tomkyns, when he came to die,


s: said it was a "foolish business;" and indeed there seems to have


s: necessity be communicated to many who could not be expected to be


s: The Earl of Northumberland, being too great for prosecution, was


s: admitted to bail.  Hassel, the king's messenger, who carried the


s: letters to Oxford, died the night before his trial.  Hampden


s: were inserted in the commission of array were not capitally


s: biographer, "condemn him with untempered severity, because he was


s: character included not the poet, the orator, and the hero."


s: At last it became necessary, for his support, to sell his wife's


s: house.  If he would do anything, he could not do less.


s: Cromwell, now Protector, received Waller, as his kinsman, to


s: familiar conversation.  Waller, as he used to relate, found him


s: sufficiently versed in ancient history; and, when any of his


s: He repaid the Protector for his favours (1654) by the famous


s: Panegyric, which has been always considered as the first of his


s: poetical productions.  His choice of encomiastic topics is very


s: judicious; for he considers Cromwell in his exaltation, without


s: inquiring how he attained it; there is consequently no mention of


s: combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world by the


s: advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those, who


s: have long practised perfidy, grow faithless to each other.


s: invite him to the crown, he, after a long conference, refused it,


s: ascribing the highest degree of "power and piety" to Charles the


s: First, then transferring the same "power and piety" to Oliver


s: Cromwell; now inviting Oliver to take the Crown, and then


s: In the first Parliament summoned by Charles the Second (March 8,


s: Bacchanalian assemblies; and Mr. Saville said, that "no man in


s: England should keep him company without drinking but Ned Waller."


s: writer, to a man who, though he lived a great part of a long life


s: however, is said in his account of the year seventy-five, when


s: Waller was only seventy.  His name as a speaker occurs often in


s: Grey's Collections, but I have found no extracts that can be more


s: He did not suffer his reputation to die gradually away, which may


s: never accepted any office of magistracy.


s: alleging that it could be held only by a clergyman.  It is known


s: that of the fifth of November; then, if the Lords and Commons had


s: That he asked anything else is not known; it is certain that he


s: obtained nothing, though he continued obsequious to the court


s: At the accession of King James (in 1685) he was chosen for


s: successively to those whom it may be the fashion to celebrate.


s: When the king knew that he was about to marry his daughter to Dr.


s: Having now attained an age beyond which the laws of nature seldom


s: seems to have turned his mind upon preparation for the decisive


s: hour, and therefore consecrated his poetry to devotion.  It is


s: As the disease increased upon him, he composed himself for his


s: departure; and calling upon Dr. Birch to give him the holy


s: with delight.  He related, that being present when the Duke of


s: have lived long enough to see there is nothing in them; and so, I


s: He died October 21, 1687, and was buried at Beaconsfield, with a


s: He left several children by his second wife, of whom his daughter


s: disinherited, and sent to New Jersey as wanting common


s: understanding.  Edmund, the second son, inherited the estate, and


s: dexterity he had gotten a very rich wife in the city, against all


s: good conversation, where he was received and esteemed with great


s: where he was not the less esteemed for being very rich.


s: He had been even nursed in parliaments, where he sat when he was


s: very young; and so, when they were resumed again (after a long


s: melancholic, inclined him to), he seemed often to speak upon the


s: want of courage to support him in any virtuous undertaking; an


s: offended and provoked; and continued to his age with that rare


s: felicity, that his company was acceptable where his spirit was


s: odious; and he was at least pitied where he was most detested."


s: "He was very little known till he had obtained a rich wife in the


s: That Clarendon might misjudge the motive of his retirement is the


s: thirty.  As his first pieces were perhaps not printed, the


s: succession of his compositions was not known; and Clarendon, who


s: cannot be imagined to have been very studious of poetry, did not


s: rectify his first opinion by consulting Waller's book.


s: procured him admission into the company of the friends of


s: The account of Waller's parliamentary eloquence is seconded by


s: Of his insinuation and flattery it is not unreasonable to believe


s: monarchy.  His deviation towards democracy proceeded from his


s: connexion with Hampden, for whose sake he prosecuted Crawley with


s: It is confessed that his faults still left him many friends, at


s: least many companions.  His convivial power of pleasing is


s: universally acknowledged; but those who conversed with him


s: intimately, found him not only passionate, especially in his old


s: age, but resentful; so that the interposition of friends was


s: His wit and his poetry naturally connected him with the polite


s: writers of his time:  he was joined with Lord Buckhurst in the


s: translation of Corneille's Pompey; and is said to have added his


s: help to that of Cowley in the original draft of the Rehearsal.


s: lived in exile; for we are told, that at Paris he lived in


s: His unlucky plot compelled him to sell a thousand a year; of the


s: first years, and a squanderer in his last.


s: anything ludicrous or familiar.  He seems always to do his best;


s: though his subjects are often unworthy of his care.


s: pleases himself with a performance, which owes nothing to the


s: subject.  But compositions merely pretty have the fate of other


s: pretty things, and are quitted in time for something useful; they


s: Which only can divert his fierce design.


s: What though he frown, and to tumult do incline;


s: With that snow which unmelted lies on thine.


s: He seldom indeed fetches an amorous sentiment from the depths of


s: His thoughts are sometimes hyperbolical and his images unnatural


s: No less than those of old did Orpheus' lyre;


s: If she sit down, with tops all tow'rds her bow'd,


s: They round about her into arbours crowd;


s: Or if she walks, in even ranks they stand,


s: Like some well-marshall'd and obsequious band.


s: While in the park I sing, the listening deer


s: They bow their heads, as if they felt the same.


s: To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers


s: With loud complaints they answer me in showers.


s: More deaf than trees, and prouder than the Heaven!


s: The earth's bold sons' prodigious pride:


s: Heaven with these engines had been scaled,


s: When mountains heap'd on mountains fail'd.


s: Sometimes having succeeded in the first part, he makes a feeble


s: His images of gallantry are not always in the highest degree


s: Her fruit, and state, while no wind blows,


s: In storms from that uprightness swerves;


s: Of these pretty compositions, neither the beauties nor the faults


s: obtain credit from the young and unexperienced, as misleading


s: Of his nobler and more weighty performances, the greater part is


s: panegyrical:  for of praise he was very lavish, as is observed by


s: No satyr stalks within the hallow'd ground,


s: But queens and heroines, kings and gods abound;


s: Glory and arms and love are all the sound.


s: In the first poem, on the danger of the prince on the coast of


s: Spain, there is a puerile and ridiculous mention of Arion at the


s: beginning; and the last paragraph, on the cable, is in part


s: ridiculously mean, and in part ridiculously tumid.  The poem,


s: however, is such as may be justly praised, without much allowance


s: The two next poems are upon the king's behaviour at the death of


s: Made the old heathens frame their gods amiss.


s: In the poem on the Navy, those lines are very noble which suppose


s: "surface," or to say that the empire of the sea would be worth


s: little if it were not that the waters terminate in land.


s: So all our minds with his conspire to grace


s: Those state obscuring sheds, that like a chain


s: Seem'd to confine, and fetter him again:


s: Which the glad saint shakes off at his command,


s: His praise of the Queen is too much exaggerated; and the thought,


s: Of the Battle of the Summer Islands, it seems not easy to say


s: seriousness.  The versification is studied, the scenes are


s: The panegyric upon Cromwell has obtained from the public a very


s: appeared before in the English language.  Of the lines some are


s: grand, some are graceful, and all are musical.  There is now and


s: English on by saluting St. Lucar with cannon, "to lambs awakening


s: Alive, in equal flames of love they burn'd,


s: The verses to Charles, on his return, were doubtless intended to


s: counterbalance the panegyric on Cromwell.  If it has been thought


s: The remaining pieces it is not necessary to examine singly.  They


s: they were the work of Waller's declining life, of those hours in


s: which he looked upon the fame and the folly of the time past with


s: forced to confess superior, is hastening daily to a level with


s: eighty-fifth year improving his chronology, a few days before his


s: eighty-two any part of his poetical power.


s: His Sacred Poems do not please like some of his other works; but


s: before the fatal fifty-five, had he written on the same subjects,


s: Let no pious ear be offended if I advance, in opposition to many


s: authorities, that poetical devotion cannot often please.  The


s: Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human


s: The employments of pious meditation are Faith, Thanksgiving,


s: Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most


s: As much of Waller's reputation was owing to the softness and


s: smoothness of his numbers, it is proper to consider those minute


s: particulars to which a versifier must attend.


s: He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers


s: The critical decision has given the praise of strength to Denham,


s: His excellence of versification has some abatements.  He uses the


s: His rhymes are sometimes weak words:  "so" is found to make the


s: rhyme twice in ten lines, and occurs often as a rhyme through his


s: His double rhymes, in heroic verse, have been censured by Mrs.


s: Phillips, who was his rival in the translation of Corneille's


s: He sometimes uses the obsolete termination of verbs, as "waxeth,"


s: Praise, however, should be due before it is given.  The author of


s: verse many words beginning with the same letter.  But this knack,


s: poets; the deities, which they introduced so frequently, were


s: considered as realities, so far as to be received by the


s: hearing that, as Hercules had his "club" he has his "navy."


s: But of the praise of Waller, though much may be taken away, much


s: justice, of himself and Guarini, when, having perused the Pastor


s: poetry, the reader may judge how much he improved it.


s: Erminia's steed (this while) his mistresse bore


s: Through forrests thicke among the shadie treene,


s: Her feeble hand the bridle raines forelore,


s: Halfe in a swoune she was for fear I weene;


s: But her flit courser spared nere the more,


s: To beare her through the desart woods unseene


s: Of her strong foes, that chas'd her through the plaine


s: And still pursu'd, but still pursu'd in vaine.


s: Like as the wearie hounds at last retire,


s: Windlesse, displeased, from the fruitlesse chace,


s: When the slie beast Tapisht in bush and brire,


s: No art nor paines can rowse out of his place:


s: The Christian knights so full of shame and ire


s: Returned backe, with faint and wearie pace!


s: Yet still the fearfull Dame fled, swift as winde


s: Through thicke and thinne, all night, all day, she driued,


s: Her plaints and teares with euery thought reuiued,


s: She heard and saw her greefes, but nought beside.


s: But when the sunne his burning chariot diued


s: In Thetis wane, and wearie teame vntide,


s: On Iordans sandie banks her course she staid,


s: At last, there downe she light, and downe she laid


s: Her teares, her drinke; her food, her sorrowings,


s: But sleepe (that sweet repose and quiet brings)


s: To ease the greefes of discontented wight,


s: Spred forth his tender, soft, and nimble wings,


s: In his dull armes foulding the virgin bright;


s: And loue, his mother, and the graces kept


s: Strong watch and warde, while this faire Ladie slept


s: The birds awakte her with their morning song,


s: Their warbling musicke pearst her tender eare,


s: The murmuring brookes and whistling windes among


s: The rattling boughes, and leaues, their parts did beare;


s: Her eies vnclos'd beheld the groues along


s: Of swaines and shepherd groomes, that dwellings weare;


s: And that sweet noise, birds, winds, and waters sent,


s: Her plaints were interrupted with a sound,


s: That seem'd from thickest bushes to proceed,


s: Some iolly shepherd sung a lustie round,


s: And to his voice had tun'd his oaten reed;


s: Thither she went, an old man there she found,


s: (At whose right hand his little flock did feed)


s: Sat making baskets, his three sonnes among


s: That learn'd their father's art, and learn'd his song.


s: The seelie man and his were sore dismaid;


s: But sweet Erminia comforted their feare,


s: You happie folke, of heau'n beloued deare,


s: Work on (quoth she) upon your harmless traid,


s: These dreadfull armes I beare no warfare bring


s: To your sweet toile, nor those sweet tunes yon sing.


s: But father, since this land, these townes and towres,


s: Destroied are with sword, with fire and spoile,


s: How may it be unhurt, that you and yours


s: In safetie thus, applie your harmlesse toile?


s: My sonne (quoth he) this pore estate of ours


s: Is euer safe from storm of warlike broile;


s: This wilderneese doth vs in safetie keepe,


s: No thundering drum, no trumpet breakes our sleepe.


s: Haply iust heau'ns defence and shield of right,


s: Doth loue the innocence of simple swains,


s: The thunderbolts on highest mountains light,


s: And seld or neuer strike the lower plaines;


s: So kings have cause to feare Bellonaes might,


s: Not they whose sweat and toile their dinner gaines,


s: O Pouertie, chefe of the heau'nly brood,


s: Dearer to me than wealth or kingly crowne!


s: No wish for honour, thirst of others good,


s: Can moue my hart, contented with mine owne:


s: We quench our thirst with water of this flood,


s: Nor fear we poison should therein be throwne;


s: These little flocks of sheepe and tender goates


s: Giue milke for food, and wool to make us coates.


s: We little wish, we need but little wealth,


s: From cold and hunger vs to cloath and feed;


s: These are my sonnes, their care preserues from stealth


s: Their fathers flocks, nor servants moe I need:


s: Amid these groues I walks oft for my health,


s: And to the fishes, birds, and beastes give heed,


s: How they are fed, in forrest, spring and lake,


s: And their contentment for ensample take.


s: Time was (for each one hath his doting time,


s: These siluer locks were golden tresses than)


s: And from the forrests sweet contentment ran,


s: To Memphis' stately pallace would I clime,


s: And there became the mightie Caliphes man


s: And though I but a simple gardner weare,


s: Yet could I marke abuses, see and heare.


s: I suffred long what did my soule displease;


s: But when my youth was spent, my hope was vaine,


s: I felt my native strength at last decrease;


s: I gan my losse of lustie yeeres complaine,


s: And wisht I had enjoy'd the countries peace;


s: I bod the court farewell, and with content


s: While thus he spake, Erminia husht and still


s: His wise discourses heard, with great attention,


s: His speeches graue those idle fancies kill,


s: Which in her troubled soule bred such dissention;


s: After much thought reformed was her will,


s: Within those woods to dwell was her intention,


s: Till fortune should occasion new afford,


s: She said therefore, O shepherd fortunate!


s: That troubles some didst whilom feele and proue.


s: Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue,


s: In shepherds life, which I admire and loue;


s: Within these plessant groues perchance my hart,


s: Of her discomforts, may vnload some part.


s: If gold or wealth of most esteemed deare,


s: If iewels rich, thou diddest hold in prise,


s: Such store thereof, such plentie haue I seen,


s: As to a greedie minde might well suffice:


s: With that downe trickled many a siluer teare,


s: Two christall streames fell from her watrie eies;


s: Part of her sad misfortunes then she told,


s: And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old.


s: With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare


s: Towards his cottage gently home to guide;


s: His aged wife there made her homely cheare,


s: Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her side.


s: The Princesse dond a poor pastoraes geare,


s: A kerchiefe course vpon her head she tide;


s: But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse)


s: Were such, as ill beseem'd a shepherdesse.


s: Not those rude garments could obscure, and hide


s: The heau'nly beautie of her angels face,


s: Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide,


s: Or ought disparag'de, by those labours bace;


s: Her little flocks to pasture would she guide,


s: And milke her goates, and in their folds them place,


s: Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame


s: Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame.


s: The life of Milton has been already written in so many forms, and


s: estate in the times of York and Lancaster.  Which side he took I


s: His grandfather, John, was keeper of the forest of Shotover, a


s: Welsh family, by whom he had two sons, John, the poet, and


s: scholar considered him as worthy of an epistolary elegy.


s: College, in Cambridge, where he entered a sizar, Feb. 12, 1624.


s: He was at this time eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and he


s: commend the earliness of his own proficiency to the notice of


s: But the products of his vernal fertility have been surpassed by


s: Many of his elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenth


s: translator of Polybius, remark, what I think is true, that Milton


s: undoubtedly applauded; for they were such as few can form:  yet


s: apparently not true; but it seems plain, from his own verses to


s: "Diodati", that he had incurred "rustication," a temporary


s: dismission into the country, with perhaps the loss of a term.


s: Me tenet urbs reflua quam Thamesis alluit unda,


s: Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum


s: Nec duri libet usque minas preferre magistri,


s: Si sit hoc exilium patrias adiisse penates,


s: Non ego vel profugi nomen sortemve recuso,


s: I cannot find any meaning but this, which even kindness and


s: education, inscribed to Hartlib, supersedes all academical


s: instruction, being intended to comprise the whole time which men


s: One of his objections to academical education, as it was then


s: conducted, is, that men designed for orders in the church were


s: bawds, prostituting the shame of that ministry which they had, or


s: This is sufficiently peevish in a man, who, when he mentions his


s: exile from the college, relates, with great luxuriance, the


s: These expressions are, I find, applied to the subscription of the


s: His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yet


s: advanced to a settled resolution of declining it, appears in a


s: letter to one of his friends, who had reproved his suspended and


s: dilatory life, which he seems to have imputed to an insatiable


s: curiosity, and fantastic luxury of various knowledge.  To this he


s: persuade him, that the delay proceeds not from the delights of


s: When he left the University, he returned to his father, then


s: residing at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, with whom he lived five


s: It might be supposed, that he who read so much should have done


s: President of Wales, in 1634; and had the honour of being acted by


s: He is supposed about this time to have written his Arcades; for


s: consent, and Sir Henry Wotton's directions; with the celebrated


s: precept of prudence, i pensieri stretti, ed il viso sciolto;


s: In 1638 he left England, and went first to Paris; where, by the


s: favour of Lord Scudamore, he had the opportunity of visiting


s: Grotius, then residing at the French court as ambassador from


s: perhaps not without some contempt of others, for scarcely any man


s: At Florence he could not indeed complain that his merit wanted


s: distinction.  Carlo Dati presented him with an encomiastic


s: From Rome he passed on to Naples, in company of a hermit, a


s: accomplishments to honour him with a sorry distich, in which he


s: commends him for everything but his religion:  and Milton, in


s: amusements while his countrymen were contending for their rights.


s: Here he reposed as in a congenial element, and became acquainted


s: after an absence of a year and three months.


s: He now hired a lodging at the house of one Russel a tailor in St.


s: allowance was not ample; and he supplied its deficiencies by an


s: sixteen years of age.  Those who tell or receive these stories


s: requires to recall vagrant inattention, to stimulate sluggish


s: indifference, and to rectify absurd misapprehension.


s: The purpose of Milton, as it seems, was to teach something more


s: solid than the common literature of schools, by reading those


s: authors that treat of physical subjects, such as the Georgic, and


s: But the truth is, that the knowledge of external nature, and the


s: sciences which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the


s: great or the frequent business of the human mind.  Whether we


s: materials for conversation; and these purposes are best served by


s: Let me not be censured for this digression as pedantic or


s: Of institutions we may judge by their effects.  From this wonder-


s: That in his school, as in everything else which he undertook, he


s: theology, of which he dictated a short system, gathered from the


s: writers that were then fashionable in the Dutch universities.


s: indulgence with some gay gentlemen of Gray's Inn.


s: Church, being willing to help the Puritans, who were, he says,


s: Hall, Bishop of Norwich, had published an Humble Remonstrance, in


s: learned Usher; and to the confutation Milton published a reply,


s: under the Name of James, Lord Bishop of Armagh."


s: discovers, not with ostentatious exultation, but with calm


s: confidence, his high opinion of his own powers, and promises to


s: utterance and knowledge, and sends out His seraphim, with the


s: steady observation, and insight into all seemly and generous arts


s: He published the same year two more pamphlets, upon the same


s: question.  To one of his antagonists, who affirms that he was


s: simple is the answerer, if he think to obtain with me.  Of small


s: This is surely the language of a man who thinks that he has been


s: incontinence, gives an account of his own purity:  "That if I be


s: The style of his piece is rough, and such perhaps was that of his


s: periods, he greets us with a quantity of thumb-ring posies.--And


s: mentioned in one of his sonnets.  At last Michaelmas arrived; but


s: husband's habitation, and therefore very willingly forgot her


s: In a man whose opinion of his own merit was like Milton's, less


s: This innovation was opposed, as might be expected, by the clergy,


s: From this time it is observed that he became an enemy to the


s: Presbyterians, whom he had favoured before.  He that changes his


s: His wife and her relations now found that Milton was not an


s: lane of St. Martin's-le-Grand, and at one of his usual visits was


s: inclinable to reconciliation than to perseverance in anger or


s: revenge, and partly the strong intercession of friends on both


s: what civil authority shall have previously approved, power must


s: murmurer at government may diffuse discontent, there can be no


s: But whatever were his engagements, civil or domestic poetry was


s: He had taken a larger house in Barbican for the reception of


s: scholars; but the numerous relations of his wife, to whom he


s: friends, and that neither his writings nor his way of teaching


s: Thus laboriously does his nephew extenuate what cannot be denied,


s: warmest friends seem not to have found; they therefore shift and


s: Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him in this state of


s: obstruction to the design."  An event cannot be set at a much


s: greater distance than by having been only "designed, about some


s: Presbyterians, he wrote a treatise to justify it, "and to compose


s: Milton is suspected of having interpolated the book called "Icon


s: The papers which the king gave to Dr. Juxon on the scaffold the


s: regicides took away; so that they were at least the publishers of


s: King Charles the Second, being now sheltered in Holland, employed


s: principles of society or the right of government, undertook the


s: unable to decide whose language was best, or whose arguments were


s: Salmasius, whose doctrine he considers as servile and unmanly, to


s: signifies only a MASK, in a sense not known to the Romans, by


s: applying it as we apply PERSON.  But as Nemesis is always on the


s: those supposed blunders, he says, as Ker, and I think some one


s: That the performance of Salmasius was not dispersed with equal


s: submission; and he had been so long not only the monarch, but the


s: That Salmasius was, from the appearance of Milton's book, treated


s: flattered with the credit of destroying him.


s: That his authority was lawful, never was pretended; he himself


s: services, and his flatteries, to a tyrant, of whom it was evident


s: He had now been blind for some years; but his vigour of intellect


s: About this time his first wife died in childbed, having left him


s: time married Catharine, the daughter of one Captain Woodcock, of


s: Polypragmatici (alias Miltoni) defensionem destructivam Regis et


s: Populi."  Of this the author was not known; but Milton and his


s: nephew Philips, under whose name he published an answer so much


s: corrected by him, that it might be called his own, imputed it to


s: In this second Defence he shows that his eloquence is not merely


s: satirical; the rudeness of his invective is equalled by the


s: aequales inaequalis ipse honores sibi quaerit, aut digniori


s: concessos invidet, aut non intelligit nihil esse in societate


s: hominum magis vel Deo gratum, vel rationi consentaneum, esse in


s: civitate nihil aequius, nihil utilius, quam potiri rerum


s: maximus, et gloriosissimus, dux publici consilii, exercituum


s: Caesar, when he assumed the perpetual dictatorship, had not more


s: servile or more elegant flattery.  A translation may show its


s: virtue, overpowering and resistless, every man gives way, except


s: councils, the leader of unconquered armies, the father of your


s: As secretary to the Protector he is supposed to have written the


s: Declaration of the reasons for a war with Spain.  His agency was


s: considered as of great importance; for, when a treaty with Sweden


s: Milton's indisposition; and the Swedish agent was provoked to


s: Being now forty-seven years old, and seeing himself disencumbered


s: minute inspection and collation.  Nor would Milton probably have


s: begun it, after he had lost his eyes; but, having had it always


s: To compile a history from various authors, when they can only be


s: consulted by other eyes, is not easy, nor possible, but with more


s: For the subject of his epic poem, after much deliberation, long


s: choosing, and beginning late, he fixed upon "Paradise Lost," a


s: It appears, by some sketches of poetical projects left in


s: manuscript, and to be seen in a library at Cambridge, that he had


s: Adam, } with the Serpent     Chorus of Angels.


s: with others;}                Ignorance,  }


s: Mercy,   } debating what should become of man, if he fall.


s: Chorus of Angels singing a hymn of the Creation.


s: Chorus sing the marriage-song, and describe Paradise.


s: Chorus fears for Adam, and relates Lucifer's rebellion and fall.


s: Conscience cites them to God's examination.


s: Chorus bewails, and tells the good Adam has lost.


s: -- -- presented by an angel with Labour, Grief, Hatred, }


s: Hope,    } comfort him and instruct him.


s: Such was his first design, which could have produced only an


s: allegory or mystery.  The following sketch seems to have attained


s: The angel Gabriel, either descending or entering; showing, since


s: Gabriel, as by his name signifying a prince of power, tracing


s: Paradise with a more free office, passes by the station of the


s: Chorus, and, desired by them, relates what he knew of man; as the


s: cites him to the place whither Jehovah called for him.  In the


s: appears, reasons with him, convinces him.  The Chorus admonishes


s: These are very imperfect rudiments of "Paradise Lost;" but it is


s: pleasant to see great works in their seminal state, pregnant with


s: delightful entertainment than to trace their gradual growth and


s: comprehension was extended by various knowledge, and his memory


s: stored with intellectual treasures.  He was skilful in many


s: languages, and had, by reading and composition, attained the full


s: Oliver was now dead; Richard constrained to resign; the system of


s: published, to such men as he thought friends to the new


s: The obstinate enthusiasm of the commonwealth-men was very


s: remarkable.  When the king was apparently returning, Harrington,


s: Restoration, Notes upon a Sermon preached by one Griffiths,


s: But whatever Milton could write, or men of greater activity could


s: office; the importance of his writings, thought it convenient to


s: The king, with lenity of which the world has had perhaps no other


s: immediately co-operated in the murder of the king.  Milton was


s: "Obstructors of Justice," another book of the same tendency, and


s: Not long after (August 19) the flutter of innumerable bosoms was


s: stilled by an Act, which the king, that his mercy might want no


s: Forgotten he was not; for his prosecution was ordered; it must be


s: Morrice, and Sir Thomas Clarges:  and undoubtedly a man like him


s: narration can be traced no higher; it is not known that he hid it


s: punishment which the power of Government can commonly inflict


s: veneration of his abilities, and compassion for his distresses,


s: which made it fit to forgive his malice for his learning.  He was


s: illustrious enemy, depressed by fortune and disarmed by nature?


s: The publication of the "Act of Oblivion" put him in the same


s: condition with his fellow-subjects.  He was, however, upon some


s: attendant; and therefore, by the recommendation of Dr. Paget,


s: married Elizabeth Minshul, of a gentleman's family in Cheshire,


s: life was short.  The third, as Philips relates, oppressed his


s: children in his lifetime, and cheated them at his death.


s: Soon after his marriage, according to an obscure story, he was


s: considered the Latin secretary as exercising any of the powers of


s: ecclesiastical opinions, and from this time devoted himself to


s: from his elevation to rescue children from the perplexity of


s: grammatical confusion, and the trouble of lessons unnecessarily


s: from us in their own countries.  Elwood complied with the


s: In a short time he took a house in the Artillery Walk, leading to


s: Milton's removals and habitations.  He lived longer in this place


s: tragedy.  Voltaire tells a wild and unauthorised story of a farce


s: He long had promised to adorn his native country by some great


s: performance, while he had yet perhaps no settled design, and was


s: stimulated only by such expectations as naturally arose from the


s: survey of his attainments, and the consciousness of his powers.


s: What he should undertake it was difficult to determine.  He was


s: In the intervals of his pain, being made unable to use the common


s: would conveniently retain, to employ some friend in writing them,


s: necessity it must continually go on, or why it might not be laid


s: aside and resumed, it is not easy to discover.


s: This dependence of the soul upon the seasons, those temporary and


s: astris.  The author that thinks himself weather-bound will find,


s: with a little help from hellebore, that he is only idle or


s: exhausted.  But while this notion has possession of the head, it


s: produces the inability which it supposes.  Our powers owe much of


s: success seems attainable, diligence is enforced; but when it is


s: admitted that the faculties are suppressed by a cross wind, or a


s: cloudy sky, the day is given up without resistance; for who can


s: decrepitude of nature.  It was suspected that the whole creation


s: Another opinion wanders about the world, and sometimes finds


s: wholly cleared his head, when he feared lest the CLIMATE of his


s: country might be TOO COLD for flights of imagination.


s: Into a mind already occupied by such fancies, another, not more


s: contemporaries, with the hope of growing every day greater in the


s: Of his artifices of study, or particular hours of composition, we


s: dictate perhaps forty lines in a breath, and then reduce them to


s: Milton called for his daughter "to secure what came," may be


s: disburdening his memory, if his daughter could have performed the


s: What he has told us, and we cannot now know more, is, that he


s: composed much of this poem in the night and morning, I suppose


s: before his mind was disturbed with common business; and that he


s: poured out with great fluency his "unpremeditated verse."


s: thoughts were once adjusted, the words would come at his command.


s: At what particular times of his life the parts of his work were


s: written, cannot often be known.  The beginning of the third book


s: shows that he had lost his sight, and the introduction to the


s: seventh, that the return of the king had clouded him with


s: Milton, being now cleared from all effects of his disloyalty, had


s: But the charge itself seems to be false; for it would be hard to


s: studies or his amusements, without persecution, molestation, or


s: insult.  Such is the reverence paid to great abilities, however


s: When the plague (1665) raged in London, Milton took refuge at


s: particular passages, and among them to the simile of the sun


s: payment of five pounds, with a stipulation to receive five pounds


s: The sale gave him in two years a right to his second payment, for


s: history of "Paradise Lost" a deduction thus minute will rather


s: That in the reigns of Charles and James the "Paradise Lost "


s: received no public acclamations is readily confessed.  Wit and


s: literature were on the side of the court:  and who that solicited


s: regicides?  All that he himself could think his due, from "evil


s: tongues" in "evil days," was that reverential silence which was


s: pleasure or accomplishment, and who buy the numerous products of


s: modern typography, the number was then comparatively small.  To


s: probably did not together make one thousand copies.


s: without assistance; its admirers did not dare to publish their


s: opinion; and the opportunities now given of attracting notice by


s: advertisements were then very few; the means of proclaiming the


s: publication of new books have been produced by that general


s: Revolution put an end to the secrecy of love, and "Paradise Lost"


s: Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton


s: disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit with


s: steady consciousness, and waiting without impatience the


s: vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future


s: Mr. Philips tells us, "that though our author had daily about him


s: languages of whatever book he should, at one time or other, think


s: employment could not be always concealed, but broke out more and


s: more into expressions of uneasiness; so that at length they were


s: all, even the eldest also, sent out to learn some curious and


s: convey meaning.  If few men would have had resolution, to write


s: books with such embarrassments, few likewise would have wanted


s: Three years after his "Paradise Lost" (1667) he published his


s: "History of England," comprising the whole fable of Geoffrey of


s: On this history the licenser again fixed his claws, and before he


s: censures of the Saxon monks were taken away, lest they should be


s: applied to the modern clergy; and a character of the Long


s: Parliament, and Assembly of Divines, was excluded; of which the


s: author gave a copy to the Earl of Anglesea, and which, being


s: The same year were printed "Paradise Regained;" and "Samson


s: Agonistes," a tragedy written in imitation of the ancients, and


s: never designed by the author for the stage.  As these poems were


s: thirteen hundred copies of a volume in quarto, bought for two


s: His last poetical offspring was his favourite.  He could not, as


s: Elwood relates, endure to hear "Paradise Lost" preferred to


s: high value, because he is unwilling to think that he has been


s: fertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, has


s: necessarily most of the grace of novelty.  Milton, however it


s: happened, had this prejudice, and had it to himself.


s: To that multiplicity of attainments, and extent of comprehension,


s: rudiments, now, in the last years of his life, composed a book of


s: concinnata;" that is, "A new Scheme of Logic, according to the


s: His polemical disposition again revived.  He had now been safe so


s: regard conscience which is not grounded in Scripture."


s: He now reprinted his juvenile poems, with some additions.


s: Latin;" to which, being too few to make a volume, he added some


s: academical exercises, which perhaps he perused with pleasure, as


s: Upon his grave there is supposed to have been no memorial; but in


s: inscription bestowed more words upon himself than upon Milton.


s: When the inscription for the monument of Philips, in which he was


s: Milton has the reputation of having been in his youth eminently


s: recommends the use in his book on education.


s: His eyes are said never to have been bright; but, if he was a


s: dexterous fencer, they must have been once quick.


s: His domestic habits, so far as they are known, were those of a


s: delicacy of choice.  In his youth he studied late at night; but


s: exercise for an hour; then dined, then played on the organ, and


s: So is his life described; but this even tenour appears attainable


s: obliquely in an elbow-chair, with his leg thrown over the arm.


s: Fortune appears not to have had much of his care.  In the civil


s: Church, he had grasped an estate of about sixty pounds a year


s: belonging to Westminster Abbey, which, like other sharers of the


s: plunder of rebellion, he was afterwards obliged to return.  Two


s: sold his library before his death, and left his family fifteen


s: hundred pounds, on which his widow laid hold, and only gave one


s: diligence.  The books in which his daughter, who used to read to


s: Euripides is, by Mr. Cradock's kindness, now in my hands:  the


s: margin is sometimes noted; but I have found nothing remarkable.


s: Of the English poets he set most value upon Spenser, Shakespeare,


s: applicable to him, "Magis habuit quod fugeret, quam quod


s: conviction of the truth of Christianity, and to have regarded the


s: Providence, yet grew old without any visible worship.  In the


s: distribution of his hours, there was no hour of prayer, either


s: praying acceptably in the state of innocence, and efficaciously


s: after their fall.  That he lived without prayer can hardly be


s: His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly


s: Milton's Republicanism was, I am afraid, founded in an envious


s: hatred of greatness, and a sullen desire of independence; in


s: that he felt not so much the love of liberty as repugnance to


s: beings.  That his own daughters might not break the ranks, he


s: Of his family some account may be expected.  His sister, first


s: educated; and by her second, two daughters.


s: Milton had children only by his first wife:  Anne, Mary, and


s: Clark, a weaver in Spitalfields, and lived seventy-six years, to


s: To this gentlewoman Addison made a present, and promised some


s: delicate, though temperate, in his diet.


s: In 1750, April 5th, Comus was played for her benefit.  She had so


s: laudable; what he has once written he resolves to preserve, and


s: speak as a critic; but I have heard them commended by a man well


s: qualified to decide their merit.  The Latin pieces are lusciously


s: exquisite imitation of the ancient writers, by the purity of the


s: diction, and the harmony of the numbers, than by any power of


s: Those who admire the beauties of this great poet sometimes force


s: singular.  All that short compositions can commonly attain is


s: One of the poems on which much praise has been bestowed is


s: effusion of real passion; for passion runs not after remote


s: easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting; whatever images it can


s: discoveries; but what image of tenderness can be excited by these


s: We drove afield, and both together heard


s: What time the grey fly winds her sultry horn,


s: Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night.


s: Among the flocks, and copses, and flowers, appear the heathen


s: impiety, of which, however, I believe the writer not to have been


s: Such is the power of reputation justly acquired, that its blaze


s: Of the two pieces, "L'Allegro" and "il Penseroso," I believe,


s: opinion is uniform; every man that reads them, reads them with


s: disposed; but rather how, among the successive variety of


s: The CHEERFUL man hears the lark in the morning; the PENSIVE man


s: hears the nightingale in the evening.  The CHEERFUL man sees the


s: cock strut, and hears the horn and hounds echo in the wood; then


s: plenty, and looks up to the distant tower, the residence of some


s: Both mirth and melancholy are solitary, silent inhabitants of the


s: The man of CHEERFULNESS, having exhausted the country, tries what


s: spectator, as, when the learned comedies of Jonson, or the wild


s: dramas of Shakespeare, are exhibited, he attends the theatre.


s: The PENSIVE man never loses himself in crowds, but walks the


s: Both his characters delight in music; but he seems to think that


s: For the old age of Cheerfulness he makes no provision:  but


s: sufficiently apart.  No mirth can, indeed, be found in his


s: melancholy; but I am afraid that I always meet some melancholy in


s: "Paradise Lost."  Milton appears to have formed very early that


s: system of diction, and mode of verse, which his maturer judgment


s: approved, and from which he never endeavoured nor desired to


s: employed in the praise and defence of virtue.  A work more truly


s: poetical is rarely found; allusions, images, and descriptive


s: together in search of berries too far to find their way back, and


s: This, however, is a defect over-balanced by its convenience.


s: representation, that no precedents can support it.


s: The discourse of the Spirit is too long; an objection that may be


s: enjoyment, and take no dangerous hold on the fancy.


s: The following soliloquies of Comus and the Lady are elegant but


s: tedious.  The song must owe much to the voice if it ever can


s: delight.  At last the Brothers enter with too much tranquillity;


s: and, when they have feared lest their Sister should be in danger,


s: praise of chastity, and the younger finds how fine it is to be a


s: Then descends the Spirit in form of a shepherd; and the Brother,


s: The dispute between the Lady and Comus is the most animated and


s: affecting scene of the drama, and wants nothing but a brisker


s: reciprocation of objections and replies to invite attention, and


s: The songs are vigorous and full of imagery; but they are harsh in


s: inelegantly splendid, and tediously instructive.


s: Those little pieces may be despatched without much anxiety; a


s: Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling


s: therefore relates some great event in the most affecting manner.


s: History must supply the writer with the rudiments of narration,


s: which he must improve and exalt by a nobler art, must animate by


s: dramatic energy, and diversify by retrospection and anticipation;


s: realising fiction.  Nor is he yet a poet till he has attained the


s: seems to have been the process only of Milton; the moral of other


s: arduous:  "to vindicate the ways of God to man;" to show the


s: reasonableness of religion, and the necessity of obedience to the


s: To convey this moral there must be a FABLE, a narration artfully


s: The subject of an epic poem is naturally an event of great


s: importance.  That of Milton is not the destruction of a city, the


s: their original happiness and innocence, their forfeiture of


s: immortality, and their restoration to hope and peace.


s: Of the other agents in the poem, the chief are such as it is


s: Those elements, and arm him with the force


s: superior, so far as human reason can examine them, or human


s: In the examination of epic poems much speculation is commonly


s: employed upon the CHARACTERS.  The characters in the "Paradise


s: exalted and most depraved being."  Milton has been censured by


s: extricated himself with great happiness.  There is in Satan's


s: The other chiefs of the celestial rebellion are very judiciously


s: discriminated in the first and second books; and the ferocious


s: character of Moloch appears, both in the battle and the council,


s: To Adam and to Eve are given, during their innocence, such


s: But with guilt enter distrust and discord, mutual accusation, and


s: marvellous is probable.  The substance of the narrative is truth;


s: human, some slight exceptions may be made; but the main fabric is


s: partake of that good and evil which extend to themselves.


s: topic of critical remarks, here is no room to speak, because


s: everything is done under the immediate and visible direction of


s: Of EPISODES, I think there are only two--contained in Raphael's


s: relation of the war in Heaven, and Michael's prophetic account of


s: To the completeness or INTEGRITY of the design nothing can be


s: mutilation.  Here are no funeral games, nor is there any long


s: The questions, whether the action of the poem be strictly ONE,


s: rather from books than from reason.  Milton, though he entitled


s: Lucan's authority will not be suffered by Quintilian to decide.


s: However, if success be necessary, Adam's deceiver was at last


s: After the scheme and fabric of the poem, must be considered its


s: component parts, the sentiments and the diction.


s: The SENTIMENTS, as expressive of manners, or appropriated to


s: characters, are, for the greater part, unexceptionably just.


s: Splendid passages, containing lessons of morality, or precepts of


s: motions, with the answer returned by Adam, may be confidently


s: opposed to any rule of life which any poet has delivered.


s: degree fervid and active, to which materials were supplied by


s: unrestrained indulgence, and his conceptions therefore were


s: He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to


s: The appearances of nature, and the occurrences of life, did not


s: satiate his appetite of greatness.  To paint things as they are


s: furnish sentiment and action to superior beings; to trace the


s: counsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven.


s: But he could not be always in other worlds; he must sometimes


s: Whatever be his subject, he never fails to fill the imagination.


s: But his images and descriptions of the scenes or operations of


s: nature do not seem to be always copied from original form, nor to


s: elements, like Argo between the Cyanean rocks, or Ulysses between


s: contribute variety to the narration, and produce an alternate


s: expands the adventitious image beyond the dimensions which the


s: telescope, and all the wonders which the telescope discovers.


s: Of his moral sentiments it is hardly praise to affirm that they


s: From the Italian writers it appears that the advantages of even


s: In Milton every line breathes sanctity of thought, and purity of


s: manners, except when the train of the narration requires the


s: forbearance; how confidence of the Divine favour is forfeited by


s: worship proper to a fallen and offending being, we have all to


s: The poet, whatever be done, is always great.  Our progenitors in


s: general and prevailing quality in this poem; sublimity variously


s: modified--sometimes descriptive, sometimes argumentative.


s: The defects and faults of "Paradise Lost"--for faults and defects


s: The generality of my scheme does not admit the frequent notice of


s: author's blindness obliged him to employ; a supposition rash and


s: The plan of "Paradise Lost" has this inconvenience, that it


s: comprises neither human actions nor human manners.  The man and


s: imagination place himself; he has, therefore, little natural


s: restless and insidious enemies in the fallen angels, and in the


s: hell we are surely interested, as we are all to reside hereafter


s: either in the regions of horror or bliss.


s: unaccustomed emotion in the mind; what we knew before, we cannot


s: learn; what is not unexpected, cannot surprise.


s: Of the ideas suggested by these awful scenes, from some we recede


s: salutary inflictions, as counterpoises to our interests and


s: passions.  Such images rather obstruct the career of fancy than


s: Pleasure and terror are indeed the genuine sources of poetry; but


s: content with calm belief and humble adoration.


s: Known truths, however, may take a different appearance, and be


s: conveyed to the mind by a new train of intermediate images.  This


s: mind peculiar to himself.  Whoever considers the few radical


s: positions which the Scriptures afforded him, will wonder by what


s: energetic operation he expanded them to such extent, and ramified


s: But original deficiency cannot be supplied.  The want of human


s: Another inconvenience of Milton's design is, that it requires the


s: show angels acting but by instruments of action; he therefore


s: invested them with form and matter.  This, being necessary, was


s: vapours, he has a body; when he animates the toad, he seems to be


s: contending angels are evidently material.


s: sinning."  This likewise happened to the uncorrupted angels, who


s: cover to be battered.  Uriel, when he rides on a sunbeam, is


s: material; Satan is material when he is afraid of the prowess of


s: The confusion of spirit and matter, which pervades the whole


s: children, and gradually neglected as knowledge is increased.


s: existence.  To exalt causes into agents, to invest abstract ideas


s: Milton's allegory of Sin and Death is undoubtedly faulty.  Sin is


s: To find sentiments for the state of innocence was very difficult;


s: notions, especially when the philosophy is false, might have been


s: deer," before deer were yet timorous, and before Adam could


s: Dryden remarks, that Milton has some flats among his elevations.


s: This is only to say, that all the parts are not equal.  In every


s: work, one part must be for the sake of others; a palace must have


s: soared so high, or sustained his flight so long?


s: Milton, being well versed in the Italian poets, appears to have


s: disgraced his work with the Paradise of Fools; a fiction not in


s: itself ill-imagined, but too ludicrous for its place.


s: His play on words, in which he delights too often; his


s: whole, that they scarcely deserve the attention of a critic.


s: wisdom.  The basis of "Paradise Regained" is narrow; a dialogue


s: without action can never please like a union of the narrative and


s: If "Paradise Regained" has been too much depreciated, "Samson


s: In this tragedy are, however, many particular beauties, many just


s: Milton would not have excelled in dramatic writing; he knew human


s: resemblance to that of any former writer; and which is so far


s: removed from common use, that an unlearned reader, when he first


s: opens his book, finds himself surprised by a new language.


s: This novelty has been, by those who can find nothing wrong in


s: desirous to use English words with a foreign idiom.  This, in all


s: learning the vehicle of so much instruction and so much pleasure,


s: reconcile the nation to Raleigh's wild attempt upon Guiana, and


s: probably written by Raleigh himself.  These petty performances


s: communicate its rules to another; where metre is scanty and


s: which is called the "lapidary style;" has neither the easiness of


s: continuance.  Of the Italian writers without rhyme, whom Milton


s: therefore owes reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind to


s: which all generations must be indebted for the art of poetical


s: poems, only because it is not the first.


s: Abraham Cowley was born in the year one thousand sir hundred and


s: eighteen.  His father was a grocer, whose condition Dr. Sprat


s: suspect that his father was a sectary.  Whoever he was, he died


s: charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet.


s: Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and perhaps


s: sometimes forgotten, produce that particular designation of mind,


s: By his mother's solicitation he was admitted into Westminster


s: This is an instance of the natural desire of man to propagate a


s: wonder.  It is surely very difficult to tell anything as it was


s: heard, when Sprat could not refrain from amplifying a commodious


s: incident, though the book to which he prefixed his narrative


s: contained its confutation.  A memory admitting some things, and


s: being an "enemy to constraint," he spared himself the labour.


s: While he was yet at school he produced a comedy called "Love's


s: Two years after his settlement at Cambridge, he published "Love's


s: At the beginning of the civil war, as the prince passed through


s: Cambridge in his way to York, he was entertained with the


s: representation of "The Guardian," a comedy which Cowley says was


s: About the time when Oxford was surrendered to the Parliament, he


s: correspondence as the royal cause required, and particularly in


s: filled all his days and two or three nights in the week.