Very little is known of the life of this lady-poet. She was born in 1631. Her maiden name was Fowler. She married James Phillips, Esq., of the Priory of Cardigan. Her poems, published under the name of "Orinda," were very popular in her lifetime, although it was said they were published without her consent. She translated two of the tragedies of Corneille, and left a volume of letters to Sir Charles Cotterell. These, however, did not appear till after her death. She died of small-pox —then a deadly disease—in 1664. She seems to have been a favourite alike with the wits and the divines of her age. Jeremy Taylor addressed to her his "Measures and Offices of Friendship;" Dryden praised her; and Flatman and Cowley, besides imitating her poems while she was living, paid rhymed tributes to her memory when dead. Her verses are never commonplace, and always sensible, if they hardly attain to the measure and the stature of lofty poetry,
1 If we no old historian's nameAuthentic will admit,But think all said of friendship's fameBut poetry or wit;Yet what's revered by minds so pureMust be a bright idea sure.
2 But as our immortalityBy inward sense we find,Judging that if it could not be,It would not be designed:So here how could such copies fall,If there were no original?
3 But if truth be in ancient song,Or story we believe;If the inspired and greater throngHave scorned to deceive;There have been hearts whose friendship gaveThem thoughts at once both soft and grave.
4 Among that consecrated crewSome more seraphic shadeLend me a favourable clew,Now mists my eyes invade.Why, having filled the world with fame,Left you so little of your flame?
5 Why is't so difficult to seeTwo bodies and one mind?And why are those who else agreeSo difficultly kind?Hath Nature such fantastic art,That she can vary every heart?
6 Why are the bands of friendship tiedWith so remiss a knot,That by the most it is defied,And by the most forgot?Why do we step with so light senseFrom friendship to indifference?
7 If friendship sympathy impart,Why this ill-shuffled game,That heart can never meet with heart,Or flame encounter flame?What does this cruelty create?Is't the intrigue of love or fate?
8 Had friendship ne'er been known to men,(The ghost at last confessed)The world had then a stranger beenTo all that heaven possessed.But could it all be here acquired,Not heaven itself would be desired.
1 Love, nature's plot, this great creation's soul,The being and the harmony of things,Doth still preserve and propagate the whole,From whence man's happiness and safety springs:The earliest, whitest, blessed'st times did drawFrom her alone their universal law.
2 Friendship's an abstract of this noble flame,'Tis love refined and purged from all its dross,The next to angels' love, if not the same,As strong in passion is, though not so gross:It antedates a glad eternity,And is an heaven in epitome.
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3 Essential honour must be in a friend,Not such as every breath fans to and fro;But born within, is its own judge and end,And dares not sin though sure that none should know.Where friendship's spoke, honesty's understood;For none can be a friend that is not good.
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4 Thick waters show no images of things;Friends are each other's mirrors, and should beClearer than crystal or the mountain springs,And free from clouds, design, or flattery.For vulgar souls no part of friendship share;Poets and friends are born to what they are.
This lady, if not more of a woman than Mrs Phillips, was considerably more of a poet. She was born (probably) about 1625. She was the daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, and became a maid-of-honour to Henrietta Maria. Accompanying the Queen to France, she met with the Marquis, afterwards Duke of Newcastle, and married him at Paris in 1645. They removed to Antwerp, and there, in 1653, this lady published a volume, entitled 'Poems and Fancies.' The pair aided each other in their studies, and the result was a number of enormous folios of poems, plays, speeches, and philosophical disquisitions. These volumes were, we are told, great favourites of Coleridge and Charles Lamb, for the sake, we presume, of the wild sparks of insight and genius which break irresistibly through the scholastic smoke and bewildered nonsense. When Charles II. was restored, the Marquis and his wife returned to England, and spent their life in great harmony. She died in 1673, leaving behind her some beautiful fantasias, where the meaning is often finer than the music, such as the 'Pastime and Recreation of Fairies in Fairy-land.' Her poetry, particularly her contrasted pictures of Mirth and Melancholy, present fine accumulations of imagery drawn direct from nature, and shewn now in brightest sunshine, and now in softest moonlight, as the change of her subject and her tone of feeling require.
Her voice is low, and gives a hollow sound;She hates the light, and is in darkness found;Or sits with blinking lamps, or tapers small,Which various shadows make against the wall.She loves nought else but noise which discord makes,As croaking frogs, whose dwelling is in lakes;The raven's hoarse, the mandrake's hollow groan,And shrieking owls which fly i' the night alone;The tolling bell, which for the dead rings out;A mill, where rushing waters run about;The roaring winds, which shake the cedars tall,Plough up the seas, and beat the rocks withal.She loves to walk in the still moonshine night,And in a thick dark grove she takes delight;In hollow caves, thatched houses, and low cells,She loves to live, and there alone she dwells.
I dwell in groves that gilt are with the sun;Sit on the banks by which clear waters run;In summers hot, down in a shade I lie;My music is the buzzing of a fly;I walk in meadows, where grows fresh green grass;In fields, where corn is high, I often pass;Walk up the hills, where round I prospects see,Some brushy woods, and some all champaigns be;Returning back, I in fresh pastures go,To hear how sheep do bleat, and cows do low;In winter cold, when nipping frosts come on,Then I do live in a small house alone;Although 'tis plain, yet cleanly 'tis within,Like to a soul that's pure, and clear from sin;And there I dwell in quiet and still peace,Not filled with cares how riches to increase;I wish nor seek for vain and fruitless pleasures;No riches are, but what the mind intreasures.Thus am I solitary, live alone,Yet better loved, the more that I am known;And though my face ill-favoured at first sight,After acquaintance, it will give delight.Refuse me not, for I shall constant be;Maintain your credit and your dignity.
Thomas Stanley, like Thomas Brown in later days, was both a philosopher and a poet; but his philosophical reputation at the time eclipsed his poetical. He was the only son of Sir Thomas Stanley of Camberlow Green, in Hertfordshire, and was born in 1620. He received his education at Pembroke College, Oxford; and after travelling for some years abroad, he took up his abode in the Middle Temple. Here he seems to have spent the rest of his life in patient and multifarious studies. He made translations of some merit from Anacreon, Bion, Moschus, and the 'Kisses' of Secundus, as well as from Marino, Boscan, Tristan, and Gongora. He wrote a work of great pretensions as a compilation, entitled 'The History of Philosophy,' containing the lives, opinions, actions, and discourses of philosophers of every sect, of which he published the first volume in 1655, and completed it in a fourth in 1662. It is rather a vast collection of the materials for a history, than a history itself. He is a Cudworth in magnitude and learning, but not in strength and comprehension, and is destitute of precision and clearness of style. Stanley also wrote some poems, which discover powers that might have been better employed in original composition than in translation. His style, rich of itself, is enriched to repletion by conceits, and sometimes by voluptuous sentiments and language. He adds a new flush to the cheek of Anacreon himself; and his grapes are so heavy, that not a staff, but a wain were required to bear them. Stanley died in 1678.
1 Roses in breathing forth their scent,Or stars their borrowed ornament;Nymphs in their watery sphere that move,Or angels in their orbs above;The winged chariot of the light,Or the slow, silent wheels of night;The shade which from the swifter sunDoth in a swifter motion run,Or souls that their eternal rest do keep,Make far less noise than Celia's breath in sleep.
2 But if the angel which inspiresThis subtle flame with active fires,Should mould this breath to words, and thoseInto a harmony dispose,The music of this heavenly sphereWould steal each soul (in) at the ear,And into plants and stones infuseA life that cherubim would choose,And with new powers invert the laws of fate,Kill those that live, and dead things animate.
1 The air which thy smooth voice doth break,Into my soul like lightning flies;My life retires while thou dost speak,And thy soft breath its room supplies.
2 Lost in this pleasing ecstasy,I join my trembling lips to thine,And back receive that life from theeWhich I so gladly did resign.
3 Forbear, Platonic fools! t'inquireWhat numbers do the soul compose;No harmony can life inspire,But that which from these accents flows.
You earthly souls that court a wanton flameWhose pale, weak influenceCan rise no higher than the humble nameAnd narrow laws of sense,Learn, by our friendship, to createAn immaterial fire,Whose brightness angels may admire,But cannot emulate.Sickness may fright the roses from her cheek,Or make the lilies fade,But all the subtle ways that death doth seekCannot my love invade.
1 Yet ere I go,Disdainful Beauty, thou shalt beSo wretched as to knowWhat joys thou fling'st away with me.
2 A faith so bright,As Time or Fortune could not rust;So firm, that lovers mightHave read thy story in my dust,
3 And crowned thy nameWith laurel verdant as thy youth,Whilst the shrill voice of FameSpread wide thy beauty and my truth.
4 This thou hast lost,For all true lovers, when they findThat my just aims were crossed,Will speak thee lighter than the wind.
5 And none will layAny oblation on thy shrine,But such as would betrayThy faith to faiths as false as thine.
6 Yet, if thou chooseOn such thy freedom to bestow,Affection may excuse,For love from sympathy doth flow.
Let's not rhyme the hours away;Friends! we must no longer play:Brisk Lyaeus—see!—invitesTo more ravishing delights.Let's give o'er this fool Apollo,Nor his fiddle longer follow:Fie upon his forked hill,With his fiddlestick and quill;And the Muses, though they're gamesome,They are neither young nor handsome;And their freaks in sober sadnessAre a mere poetic madness:Pegasus is but a horse;He that follows him is worse.See, the rain soaks to the skin,Make it rain as well within.Wine, my boy; we'll sing and laugh,All night revel, rant, and quaff;Till the morn, stealing behind us,At the table sleepless find us.When our bones, alas! shall haveA cold lodging in the grave;When swift Death shall overtake us,We shall sleep and none can wake us.Drink we then the juice o' the vineMake our breasts Lyaeus' shrine;Bacchus, our debauch beholding,By thy image I am moulding,Whilst my brains I do replenishWith this draught of unmixed Rhenish;By thy full-branched ivy twine;By this sparkling glass of wine;By thy Thyrsus so renowned:By the healths with which th' art crowned;By the feasts which thou dost prize;By thy numerous victories;By the howls by Moenads made;By this haut-gout carbonade;By thy colours red and white;By the tavern, thy delight;By the sound thy orgies spread;By the shine of noses red;By thy table free for all;By the jovial carnival;By thy language cabalistic;By thy cymbal, drum, and his stick;By the tunes thy quart-pots strike up;By thy sighs, the broken hiccup;By thy mystic set of ranters;By thy never-tamed panthers;By this sweet, this fresh and free air;By thy goat, as chaste as we are;By thy fulsome Cretan lass;By the old man on the ass;By thy cousins in mixed shapes;By the flower of fairest grapes;By thy bisks famed far and wide;By thy store of neats'-tongues dried;By thy incense, Indian smoke;By the joys thou dost provoke;By this salt Westphalia gammon;By these sausages that inflame one;By thy tall majestic flagons;By mass, tope, and thy flapdragons;By this olive's unctuous savour;By this orange, the wine's flavour;By this cheese o'errun with mites;By thy dearest favourites;To thy frolic order call us,Knights of the deep bowl install us;And to show thyself divine,Never let it want for wine.
This noble-minded patriot and poet, the friend of Milton, the Abdiel of a dark and corrupt age,—'faithful found among the faithless, faithful only he,'—was born in Hull in 1620. He was sent to Cambridge, and is said there to have nearly fallen a victim to the proselytising Jesuits, who enticed him to London. His father, however, a clergyman in Hull, went in search of and brought him back to his university, where speedily, by extensive culture and the vigorous exercise of his powerful faculties, he emancipated himself for ever from the dominion, and the danger of the dominion, of superstition and bigotry. We know little more about the early days of our poet. When only twenty, he lost his father in remarkable circumstances. In 1640, he had embarked on the Humber in company with a youthful pair whom he was to marry at Barrow, in Lincolnshire. The weather was calm; but Marvell, seized with a sudden presentiment of danger, threw his staff ashore, and cried out, 'Ho for heaven!' A storm came on, and the whole company perished. In consequence of this sad event, the gentleman, whose daughter was to have been married, conceiving that the father had sacrificed his life while performing an act of friendship, adopted young Marvell as his son. Owing to this, he received a better education, and was sent abroad to travel. It is said that at Rome he met and formed a friendship with Milton, then engaged on his immortal continental tour. We find Marvell next at Constantinople, as Secretary to the English Embassy at that Court. We then lose sight of him till 1653, when he was engaged by the Protector to superintend the education of a Mr Dutton at Eton. For a year and a half after Cromwell's death, Marvell assisted Milton as Latin Secretary to the Protector. Our readers are all familiar with the print of Cromwell and Milton seated together at the council-table, —the one the express image of active power and rugged grandeur, the other of thoughtful majesty and ethereal grace. Marvell might have been added as a third, and become the emblem of strong English sense and incorruptible integrity. A letter of Milton's was, not long since, discovered, dated February 1652, in which he speaks of Marvell as fitted, by his knowledge of Latin and his experience of teaching, to be his assistant. He was not appointed, however, till 1657. In 1660, he became member for Hull, and was re-elected as long as he lived. He was absent, however, from England for two years, in the beginning of the reign, in Germany and Holland. After- wards he sought leave from his constituents to act as Ambassador's Secretary to Lord Carlisle at the Northern Courts; but from the year 1665 to his death, his attention to his parliamentary duties was unremitting. He constantly corresponded with his constituents; and after the longest sittings, he used to write out for their use a minute account of public proceedings ere he went to bed, or took any refreshment. He was one of the last members who received pay from the town he represented; (2s. a-day was probably the sum;) and his constituents were wont, besides, to send him barrels of ale as tokens of their regard. Marvell spoke little in the House; but his heart and vote were always in the right place. Even Prince Eupert continually consulted him, and was sometimes persuaded by him to support the popular side; and King Charles having met him once in private, was so delighted with his wit and agreeable manners, that he thought him worth trying to bribe. He sent Lord Danby to offer him a mark of his Majesty's consideration. Marvell, who was seated in a dingy room up several flights of stairs, declined the proffer, and, it is said, called his servant to witness that he had dined for three successive days on the same shoulder of mutton, and was not likely, therefore, to care for or need a bribe. When the Treasurer was gone, he had to send to a friend to borrow a guinea. Although, a silent senator, Marvell was a copious and popular writer. He attacked Bishop Parker for his slavish principles, in a piece entitled 'The Rehearsal Transposed,' in which he takes occasion to vindicate and panegyrise his old colleague Milton. His anonymous 'Account of the Growth of Arbitrary Power and Popery in England' excited a sensation, and a reward was offered for the apprehension of the author and printer. Marvell had many of the elements of a first-rate political pamphleteer. He had wit of a most pungent kind, great though coarse fertility of fancy, and a spirit of independence that nothing could subdue or damp. He was the undoubted ancestor of the Defoes, Swifts, Steeles, Juniuses, and Burkes, in whom this kind of authorship reached its perfection, ceased to be fugitive, and assumed classical rank.
Marvell had been repeatedly threatened with assassination, and hence, when he died suddenly on the 16th of August 1678, it was surmised that he had been removed by poison. The Corporation of Hull voted a sum to defray his funeral expenses, and for raising a monument to his memory; but owing to the interference of the Court, through the rector of the parish, this votive tablet was not at the time erected. He was buried in St Giles-in-the-Fields.
'Out of the strong came forth sweetness,' saith the Hebrew record. And so from the sturdy Andrew Marvell have proceeded such soft and lovely strains as 'The Emigrants,' 'The Nymph complaining for the Death of her Fawn,' 'Young Love,' &c. The statue of Memnon became musical at the dawn; and the stern patriot, whom no bribe could buy and no flattery melt, is found sympathising in song with a boatful of banished Englishmen in the remote Bermudas, and inditing 'Thoughts in a Garden,' from which you might suppose that he had spent his life more with melons than with men, and was better acquainted with the motions of a bee-hive than with the contests of Parliament, and the distractions of a most distracted age. It was said (not with thorough truth) of Milton, that he could cut out a Colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones—a task which his assistant may be said to have performed in his stead, in his small but delectable copies of verse.
1 Where the remote Bermudas ride,In the ocean's bosom unespied,From a small boat that rowed along,The listening winds received this song.
2 'What should we do but sing His praiseThat led us through the watery maze,Unto an isle so long unknown,And yet far kinder than our own!
3 'Where he the huge sea-monsters racks,That lift the deep upon their backs;He lands us on a grassy stage,Safe from the storms and prelates' rage.
4 'He gave us this eternal springWhich here enamels everything,And sends the fowls to us in care,On daily visits through the air.
5 'He hangs in shades the orange bright,Like golden lamps in a green night:* * * * *And in these rocks for us did frameA temple where to sound his name.
6 'Oh, let our voice his praise exaltTill it arrive at heaven's vault,Which then perhaps rebounding mayEcho beyond the Mexique bay.'
7 Thus sung they in the English boat,A holy and a cheerful note;And all the way, to guide their chime,With falling oars they kept the time.
The wanton troopers riding byHave shot my fawn, and it will die.Ungentle men! they cannot thriveWho killed thee. Thou ne'er didst aliveThem any harm; alas! nor couldThy death to them do any good.I'm sure I never wished them ill;Nor do I for all this; nor will:But, if my simple prayers may yetPrevail with Heaven to forgetThy murder, I will join my tears,Rather than fail. But, O my fears!It cannot die so. Heaven's KingKeeps register of every thing,And nothing may we use in vain:Even beasts must be with justice slain.
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Inconstant Sylvio, when yetI had not found him counterfeit,One morning (I remember well)Tied in this silver chain and bell,Gave it to me: nay, and I knowWhat he said then: I'm sure I do.Said he, 'Look how your huntsman hereHath taught a fawn to hunt his deer.'But Sylvio soon had me beguiled.This waxed tame while he grew wild,And, quite regardless of my smart,Left me his fawn, but took his heart.Thenceforth I set myself to playMy solitary time awayWith this, and very well contentCould so my idle life have spent;For it was full of sport, and lightOf foot and heart; and did inviteMe to its game; it seemed to blessItself in me. How could I lessThan love it? Oh, I cannot beUnkind to a beast that loveth me!Had it lived long, I do not knowWhether it too might have done soAs Sylvio did; his gifts might bePerhaps as false, or more, than he.But I am sure, for aught that ICould in so short a time espy,Thy love was far more better thanThe love of false and cruel man.With sweetest milk and sugar firstI it at my own fingers nursed;And as it grew, so every dayIt waxed more white and sweet than they:It had so sweet a breath; and oftI blushed to see its foot more softAnd white, shall I say, than my hand?Nay, any lady's of the land.It is a wondrous thing how fleet'Twas on those little silver feet;With what a pretty skipping graceIt oft would challenge me the race;And when't had left me far away,'Twould stay, and run again, and stay;For it was nimbler much than hinds,And trod as if on the four winds.I have a garden of my own,But so with roses overgrown,And lilies, that you would it guessTo be a little wilderness,And all the spring-time of the yearIt only loved to be there.Among the beds of lilies IHave sought it oft where it should lie,Yet could not, till itself would rise,Find it, although before mine eyes;For in the flaxen lilies' shadeIt like a bank of lilies laid;Upon the roses it would feed,Until its lips e'en seemed to bleed;And then to me 'twould boldly trip,And print those roses on my lip.But all its chief delight was stillOn roses thus itself to fill,And its pure virgin limbs to foldIn whitest sheets of lilies cold.Had it lived long, it would have beenLilies without, roses within. * * *
When I beheld the poet blind, yet bold,In slender book his vast design unfold,Messiah crowned, God's reconciled decree,Rebelling angels, the forbidden tree,Heaven, Hell, Earth, Chaos, all; the argumentHeld me a while misdoubting his intent,That he would ruin (for I saw him strong)The sacred truths to fable and old song;(So Sampson groped the temple's posts in spite)The world o'erwhelming to revenge his sight.
Yet as I read, still growing less severe,I liked his project, the success did fear;Through that wild field how he his way should find,O'er which lame Faith leads Understanding blind;Lest he'd perplex the things he would explain,And what was easy he should render vain.
Or if a work so infinite be spanned,Jealous I was that some less skilful hand(Such as disquiet always what is well,And, by ill imitating, would excel)Might hence presume the whole creation's dayTo change in scenes, and show it in a play.
Pardon me, mighty poet, nor despiseMy causeless, yet not impious, surmise.But I am now convinced, and none will dareWithin thy labours to pretend a share.Thou hast not missed one thought that could be fit.And all that was improper dost omit;So that no room is here for writers left,But to detect their ignorance or theft.
That majesty, which through thy work doth reign,Draws the devout, deterring the profane.And things divine thou treat'st of in such stateAs them preserves, and thee, inviolate.At once delight and horror on us seize,Thou sing'st with so much gravity and ease;And above human flight dost soar aloftWith plume so strong, so equal, and so soft.The bird named from that Paradise you sing,So never flags, but always keeps on wing.
Where couldst thou words of such a compass find?Whence furnish such a vast expanse of mind?Just Heaven thee, like Tiresias, to requite,Rewards with prophecy thy loss of sight.
Well mightst thou scorn thy readers to allureWith tinkling rhyme, of thy own sense secure;While the Town-Bays writes all the while and spells,And like a pack-horse tires without his bells:Their fancies like our bushy points appear;The poets tag them, we for fashion wear.I too, transported by the mode, offend,And while I meant to praise thee, must commend.Thy verse created, like thy theme, sublime,In number, weight, and measure, needs not rhyme.
1 How vainly men themselves amaze,To win the palm, the oak, or bays!And their incessant labours seeCrowned from some single herb or tree,Whose short and narrow-verged shadeDoes prudently their toils upbraid;While all the flowers and trees do close,To weave the garlands of repose.
2 Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,And Innocence, thy sister dear?Mistaken long, I sought you thenIn busy companies of men.Your sacred plants, if here below,Only among the plants will grow.Society is all but rudeTo this delicious solitude.
3 No white nor red was ever seenSo amorous as this lovely green.Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,Cut in these trees their mistress' name.Little, alas, they know or heed,How far these beauties her exceed!Fair trees! where'er your barks I wound,No name shall but your own be found.
4 What wondrous life in this I lead!Ripe apples drop about my head.The luscious clusters of the vineUpon my mouth do crush their wine.The nectarine, and curious peach,Into my hands themselves do reach.Stumbling on melons as I pass,Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
5 Meanwhile the mind from pleasure lessWithdraws into its happiness.The mind, that ocean where each kindDoes straight its own resemblance find;Yet it creates, transcending these,Far other worlds and other seas;Annihilating all that's madeTo a green thought in a green shade.
6 Here at the fountain's sliding foot,Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,Casting the body's vest aside,My soul into the boughs does glide;There, like a bird, it sits and sings,Then whets and claps its silver wings,And, till prepared for longer flight,Waves in its plumes the various light.
7 Such was the happy garden state,While man there walked without a mate:After a place so pure and sweet,What other help could yet be meet!But 'twas beyond a mortal's shareTo wander solitary there:Two paradises are in one,To live in paradise alone.
8 How well the skilful gard'ner drewOf flowers and herbs this dial new!Where, from above, the milder sunDoes through a fragrant zodiac run:And, as it works, the industrious beeComputes its time as well as we.How could such sweet and wholesome hoursBe reckoned but with herbs and flowers?
Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land,As but the offscouring of the British sand;And so much earth as was contributedBy English pilots when they heaved the lead;Or what by the ocean's slow alluvion fell,Of shipwrecked cockle and the mussel-shell;This indigested vomit of the seaFell to the Dutch by just propriety.Glad then, as miners who have found the ore,They, with mad labour, fished the land to shore:And dived as desperately for each pieceOf earth, as if't had been of ambergris;Collecting anxiously small loads of clay,Less than what building swallows bear away;Or than those pills which sordid beetles roll,Transfusing into them their dunghill soul.How did they rivet, with gigantic piles,Thorough the centre their new-catched miles;And to the stake a struggling country bound,Where barking waves still bait the forced ground;Building their watery Babel far more highTo reach the sea, than those to scale the sky.Yet still his claim the injured Ocean laid,And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples played;As if on purpose it on land had comeTo show them what's theirmare liberum.A daily deluge over them does boil;The earth and water play at level-coil.The fish oft-times the burgher dispossessed,And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest;And oft the Tritons, and the sea-nymphs, sawWhole shoals of Dutch served up for Cabillau;Or, as they over the new level ranged,For pickled herring, pickled heeren changed.Nature, it seemed, ashamed of her mistake,Would throw their land away at duck and drake,Therefore necessity, that first made kings,Something like government among them brings.For, as with Pigmies, who best kills the crane,Among the hungry he that treasures grain,Among the blind the one-eyed blinkard reigns,So rules among the drowned he that drains.Not who first see the rising sun commands,But who could first discern the rising lands.Who best could know to pump an earth so leak,Him they their lord, and country's father, speak.To make a bank was a great plot of state;Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate.Hence some small dikegrave unperceived invadesThe power, and grows, as 'twere, a king of spades;But, for less envy some joined states endures,Who look like a commission of the sewers:For these half-anders, half-wet and half-dry,Nor bear strict service, nor pure liberty.'Tis probable religion, after this,Came next in order; which they could not miss.How could the Dutch but be converted, whenThe apostles were so many fishermen?Besides, the waters of themselves did rise,And, as their land, so them did re-baptize;Though herring for their God few voices missed,And Poor-John to have been the Evangelist.Faith, that could never twins conceive before,Never so fertile, spawned upon this shoreMore pregnant than their Marg'ret, that laid downFor Hands-in-Kelder of a whole Hans-Town.Sure, when religion did itself embark,And from the east would westward steer its ark,It struck, and splitting on this unknown ground,Each one thence pillaged the first piece he found:Hence Amsterdam, Turk, Christian, Pagan, Jew,Staple of sects, and mint of schism grew;That bank of conscience, where not one so strangeOpinion, but finds credit, and exchange.In vain for Catholics ourselves we bear:The universal church is only there. * * *
This amiable enemy of the finny tribe was born in Stafford, in August 1593. We hear of him first as settled in London, following the trade of a sempster, or linen-draper, having a shop in the Royal Burse, in Cornhill, which was 'seven feet and a half long, and five wide,' and where he became possessed of a moderate fortune. He spent his leisure time in fishing 'with honest Nat and R. Roe.' From the Royal Burse, he removed to Fleet Street, where he had 'one half of a shop,' a hosier occupying the other half. In 1632, he married Anne, the daughter of Thomas Ken of Furnival's Inn, and sister of Dr Ken, the celebrated Bishop of Bath and Wells. Through her and her kindred, he became acquainted with many eminent men of the day. His wife, 'a woman of remarkable prudence and primitive piety,' died long before him. He retired from business in 1643, and lived, for forty years after, a life of leisure and quiet enjoyment, spending much of his time in the houses of his friends, and much of it by the still waters, which he so dearly loved. Walton commenced his literary career by writing a Life of Dr Donne, and followed with another of Sir Henry Wotton, prefixed to his literary remains. In 1653 appeared his 'Complete Angler,' four editions of which were called for before his decease. He wrote, in 1662, a Life of Richard Hooker; in 1670, a Life of George Herbert; and, in 1678, a Life of Bishop Sanderson—all distinguished bynaïvetéand heart. In 1680, he published an anonymous discourse on the 'Distempers of the Times.' In 1683, he printed, as we have seen, Chalkhill's 'Thealma and Clearchus;' and on the 15th of December in the same year, he died at Winchester, while residing with his son-in-law, Dr Hawkins, Prebendary of Winchester Cathedral.
Walton is one of the most loveable of all authors. Your admiration of him is always melting into affection. Red as his and is with the blood of fish, you pant to grasp it and press it to yours. You go with him to the fishing as you would with a bright-eyed boy, relishing his simple-hearted enthusiasm, and leaning down to listen to his precocious remarks, and to pat his curly head. It is the prevalence of the childlike element which makes Walton's 'Angler' rank with Bunyan's 'Pilgrim,' 'Robinson Crusoe,' and White's 'Natural History of Selborne,' as among the most delightful books in the language. Its descriptions of nature, too, are so fresh, that you smell to them as to a green leaf. Walton would not have been at home fishing in the Forth or Clyde, or in such rivers as are found in Norway, the milk-blue Logen, or the grass- green Rauma, uniting, with its rich mediation, Romsdale Horn to the tremendous Witch-Peaks which lower on the opposite side of the valley; —the waters of his own dear England, going softly and somewhat drowsily on their path, are the sources of his inspiration, and seem to sound like the echoes of his own subdued but gladsome spirit. Johnson defined angling as a rod with a fish at one end, and a fool at the other; in Walton's case, we may correct the expression to 'a rod with a fish at one end, and a fine old fellow—the "ae best fellow in the world"—at the other'—
'In wit a man, simplicity a child.'
We have given a specimen of the verse he intersperses sparingly in a book whichis itself a complete poem.
1 I in these flowery meads would be:These crystal streams should solace me,To whose harmonious bubbling noiseI with my angle would rejoice:Sit here and see the turtle-doveCourt his chaste mate to acts of love:
2 Or on that bank feel the west windBreathe health and plenty: please my mindTo see sweet dew-drops kiss these flowers,And then washed off by April showers!Here hear my Kenna sing a song,There see a blackbird feed her young,
3 Or a leverock build her nest:Here give my weary spirits rest,And raise my low-pitched thoughts aboveEarth, or what poor mortals love;Or, with my Bryan[1] and my book,Loiter long days near Shawford brook:
4 There sit by him and eat my meat,There see the sun both rise and set,There bid good morning to next day,There meditate my time away,And angle on, and beg to haveA quiet passage to the grave.
[1] Probably his dog.
We hear of the Spirit of Evil on one occasion entering into swine, but, if possible, a stranger sight is that of the Spirit of Poesy finding a similar incarnation. Certainly the connexion of genius in the Earl of Rochester with a life of the most degrading and desperate debauchery is one of the chief marvels of this marvellous world.
John Wilmot was the son of Henry, Lord Rochester, and was born April 10, 1647, at Ditchley in Oxfordshire. He was taught grammar at the school of Burford. He then 'entered a nobleman' into Wadham College, when twelve years old, and at 1661, when only fourteen, he was, in conjunction with some others of rank, made M.A. by Lord Clarendon in person. Pursuing his travels in France and Italy, he went in 1665 to sea with the Earl of Sandwich, and distinguished himself at Bergen in an attack on the Dutch fleet. Next year, while serving under Sir Edward Spragge, his commander sent him in the heat of an engagement with a reproof to one of his captains—a duty which Wilmot gallantly accomplished amidst a storm of shot. With this early courage some of his biographers have contrasted his subsequent reputation for cowardice, his slinking away out of street-quarrels, his refusing to fight the Duke of Buckingham, &c. This diversity at different periods may perhaps be accounted for on the ground of the nervousness which continued dissipation produces, and perhaps from his poetical temperament. A poet, we are persuaded, is often the bravest, and often the most pusillanimous of men. Byron was unquestionably in general a brave, almost a pugnacious man; and yet he confesses that at certain times, had one proceeded to horsewhip him, he would not have had the hardihood to resist. Shelley, who, in a tremendous storm, behaved with dauntless heroism, and who would at any time have acted on the example of his own character in 'Prometheus,' who, in a shipwreck,
'gave an enemy His plank, then plunged aside to die,'
was yet subject to paroxysms of nervous horror, which made him perspire and tremble like a spirit-seeing steed. Rochester had the same temperament, and a similar creed, with these men, although inferior to them both inmoraleand in genius.
His character was certainly very depraved. He told Burnet on his deathbed that for five years he had not known the sensation of sobriety, having been all that time either totally drunk, or mad through the dregs of drunkenness. He on one occasion, while in this state, erected a stage on Tower Hill, and addressed the mob as a naked mountebank. Even after he became more temperate, he continued and even increased his licentiousness—one devil went out, and seven entered in. He pursued low amours in disguise; he practised occasionally as a quack doctor; and at other times he retired to the country, and, like Byron, amused himself by libelling all his acquaintances—every line in each libel being a lie. Notwithstanding all this, he was a favourite with Charles II., who made him one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber, and comptroller of Woodstock Park. In his lucid intervals he recurred to his studies, wrote occasional verses, read in French Boileau and in English Cowley, and is called by Wood the best scholar among all the nobility.
At last, ere he was thirty-one, the 'dreary old sort of feel,' and the 'rigid fibre and stiffening limbs,' of which Byron and Burns, when scarcely older, complained, began to assail Rochester. He had exhausted his capacity of enjoyment by excess, and had deprived himself of the consolations of religion by infidelity. His unbelief was not like Shelley's—the growth of his own mind, and the fruit of unbridled, though earnest, speculation;—it was merely a drug which he snatched from the laboratories of others to deaden his remorse, and enable him to look with desperate calmness to the blotted Past and the lowering Future. At this stage of his career, he became acquainted with Bishop Burnet, who has recorded his conversion and edifying end in a book which, says Johnson, 'the critic ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety.' To this, after Johnson's example, we refer our readers. Eochester died July 26, 1680, before he had completed his thirty-fourth year. He was married, and left three daughters and a son named Charles, who did not long survive his father. With him the male line ceased, and the title was conferred on a younger son of Lord Clarendon. His poems appeared in the year of his death, professing on the title-page to be printed at Antwerp. They contain much that is spurious, but some productions that are undoubtedly Rochester's. They are at the best, poor fragmentary exhibitions of a vigorous, but undisciplined mind. His songs are rather easy than lively. His imitations are distinguished by grace and spirit. His 'Nothing' is a tissue of clever conceits, like gaudy weeds growing on a sterile soil, but here and there contains a grand and gloomy image, such as—
'And rebel Light obscured thy reverend dusky face.'
His 'Satire against Man' might be praised for its vigorous misanthropy, but is chiefly copied from Boileau.
Rochester may be signalised as the first thoroughly depraved and vicious person, so far as we remember, who assumed the office of the satirist, —the first, although not, alas! the last human imitator of 'Satan accusing Sin.' Some satirists before him had been faulty characters, while rather inconsistently assailing the faults of others; but here, for the first time, was a man of no virtue, or belief in virtue whatever, (his tenderness to his family, revealed in his letters, is just that of the tiger fondling his cubs, and seeming, perhaps, tothema 'much- misrepresented character,') and whose life was one mass of wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores,—a naked satyr who gloried in his shame, —becoming a severe castigator of public morals and of private character. Surely there was a gross anomaly implied in this, which far greater genius than Rochester's could never have redeemed.
1 Too late, alas! I must confess,You need not arts to move me;Such charms by nature you possess,'Twere madness not to love ye.
2 Then spare a heart you may surprise,And give my tongue the gloryTo boast, though my unfaithful eyesBetray a tender story.
1 My dear mistress has a heartSoft as those kind looks she gave me,When with love's resistless art,And her eyes, she did enslave me.But her constancy's so weak,She's so wild and apt to wander,That my jealous heart would breakShould we live one day asunder.
2 Melting joys about her move,Killing pleasures, wounding blisses:She can dress her eyes in love,And her lips can warm with kisses.Angels listen when she speaks,She's my delight, all mankind's wonder;But my jealous heart would break,Should we live one day asunder.
Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, was the son of James Dillon and Elizabeth Wentworth. She was the sister of the infamous Strafford, who was at once uncle and godfather to our poet. In what exact year Dillon was born is uncertain, but it was some time about 1633. His father had been converted from Popery by Usher; and when the Irish Rebellion broke out, Strafford, afraid of the fury of the Irish, sent for his godson, and took him to his own seat in Yorkshire, where he was taught Latin with great care. He was sent afterwards to Caen, where he studied under Bochart. It is said that while playing extravagantly there at the customary games of boys, he suddenly paused, became grave, and cried out, 'My father is dead,' and that a fortnight after arrived tidings from Ireland confirming his impression. Johnson is inclined to believe this story, and we are more than inclined. Since the lexicographer's day, many of what used to be called his 'superstitions' have been established as certain facts, although their explanation is still shrouded in darkness. Roscommon was then only ten years of age.
From Caen he travelled to Italy, where he obtained a profound knowledge of medals. At the Restoration he returned to England, where he was made Captain of the Band of Pensioners, and subsequently Master of the Horse to the Duchess of York. He became unfortunately addicted to gambling, and, through this miserable habit, he got embroiled in endless quarrels, as well as in pecuniary embarassments.
Business compelled him to visit Ireland, where the Duke of Orrnond made him Captain of the Guards. On his return to England in 1662, he married the Lady Frances, daughter of the Earl of Burlington. By her he had no issue. His second wife, whom he married in 1674, was Isabella, daughter of Matthew Beynton of Barmister, in Yorkshire.
Roscommon now began to meditate and execute literary projects. He produced an 'Essay on Translated Verse,' (in 1681,) a translation of Horace's 'Art of Poetry,' and other pieces. He projected, in conjunction with his friend Dryden, a plan for refining our language and fixing its standard, as if Time were not the great refiner, fixer, and enricher of a tongue. While busy with these schemes and occupations, the troubles of James II.'s reign commenced. Roscommon determined to retire to Rome, saying, 'It is best to sit near the chimney when the chamber smokes.' Death, however, prevented him from reaching the beloved and desired focus of Roman Catholic darkness. He was assailed by gout, and an ignorant French empiric, whom he consulted, contrived to drive the disease into the bowels. Roscommon expired, uttering with great fervour two lines from his own translation of the 'Dies Irae,'—
'My God, my Father, and my Friend,Do not forsake me in my end.'
This was in 1684. He received a pompous interment in Westminster Abbey.
Roscommon does not deserve the name of a great poet. He was a man of varied accomplishments and exquisite taste rather than of genius. His 'Essay on Translated Verse' is a sound and sensible, not a profound and brilliant production. In one point he went before his age. He praises Milton's 'Paradise Lost,' although unfortunately he selects for encomium the passage in the sixth book describing the angels fighting against each other with fire-arms—a passage which most critics have considered a blot upon the poem.
Immodest words admit of no defence;For want of decency is want of sense.What moderate fop would rake the park or stews,Who among troops of faultless nymphs may choose?Variety of such is to be found:Take then a subject proper to expound;But moral, great, and worth a poet's voice;For men of sense despise a trivial choice;And such applause it must expect to meet,As would some painter busy in a street,To copy bulls and bears, and every signThat calls the staring sots to nasty wine.
Yet 'tis not all to have a subject good:It must delight us when 'tis understood.He that brings fulsome objects to my view,As many old have done, and many new,With nauseous images my fancy fills,And all goes down like oxymel of squills.Instruct the listening world how Maro singsOf useful subjects and of lofty things.These will such true, such bright ideas raise,As merit gratitude, as well as praise:But foul descriptions are offensive still,Either for being like, or being ill:For who, without a qualm, hath ever lookedOn holy garbage, though by Homer cooked?Whose railing heroes, and whose wounded godsMake some suspect he snores, as well as nods.But I offend—Virgil begins to frown,And Horace looks with indignation down:My blushing Muse with conscious fear retires,And whom they like implicitly admires.
On sure foundations let your fabric rise,And with attractive majesty surprise;Not by affected meretricious arts,But strict harmonious symmetry of parts;Which through the whole insensibly must pass,With vital heat to animate the mass:A pure, an active, an auspicious flame;And bright as heaven, from whence the blessing came:But few, oh! few souls, preordained by fate,The race of gods, have reached that envied height.No rebel Titan's sacrilegious crime,By heaping hills on hills can hither climb:The grizzly ferryman of hell deniedAeneas entrance, till he knew his guide.How justly then will impious mortals fall,Whose pride would soar to heaven without a call!
Pride, of all others the most dangerous fault,Proceeds from want of sense, or want of thought.The men who labour and digest things most,Will be much apter to despond than boast:For if your author be profoundly good,'Twill cost you dear before he's understood.How many ages since has Virgil writ!How few are they who understand him yet!Approach his altars with religious fear:No vulgar deity inhabits there.Heaven shakes not more at Jove's imperial nod,Than poets should before their Mantuan god.Hail, mighty Maro! may that sacred nameKindle my breast with thy celestial flame,Sublime ideas and apt words infuse;The Muse instruct my voice, and thou inspire the Muse!
What I have instanced only in the best,Is, in proportion, true of all the rest.Take pains the genuine meaning to explore!There sweat, there strain: tug the laborious oar;Search every comment that your care can find;Some here, some there, may hit the poet's mind:Yet be not blindly guided by the throng:The multitude is always in the wrong.When things appear unnatural or hard,Consult your author, with himself compared.Who knows what blessing Phoebus may bestow,And future ages to your labour owe?Such secrets are not easily found out;But, once discovered, leave no room for doubt.
Truth stamps conviction in your ravished breast;And peace and joy attend the glorious guest.Truth still is one; Truth is divinely bright;No cloudy doubts obscure her native light;While in your thoughts you find the least debase,You may confound, but never can translate.Your style will this through all disguises show;For none explain more clearly than they know.He only proves he understands a text,Whose exposition leaves it unperplexed.They who too faithfully on names insist,Rather create than dissipate the mist;And grow unjust by being over nice,For superstitious virtue turns to vice.Let Crassus' ghost and Labienus tellHow twice in Parthian plains their legions fell.Since Rome hath been so jealous of her fameThat few know Pacorus' or Monaeses' name.
Words in one language elegantly used,Will hardly in another be excused;And some that Rome admired in Caesar's time,May neither suit our genius nor our clime.The genuine sense, intelligibly told,Shows a translator both discreet and bold.
Excursions are inexpiably bad;And 'tis much safer to leave out than add.Abstruse and mystic thought you must expressWith painful care, but seeming easiness;For truth shines brightest through the plainest dress.The Aenean Muse, when she appears in state,Makes all Jove's thunder on her verses wait;Yet writes sometimes as soft and moving thingsAs Venus speaks, or Philomela sings.Your author always will the best advise,Fall when he falls, and when he rises, rise.Affected noise is the most wretched thing,That to contempt can empty scribblers bring.Vowels and accents, regularly placed,On even syllables (and still the last)Though gross innumerable faults abound,In spite of nonsense, never fail of sound,But this is meant of even verse alone,As being most harmonious and most known:For if you will unequal numbers try,There accents on odd syllables must lie.Whatever sister of the learned NineDoes to your suit a willing ear incline,Urge your success, deserve a lasting name,She'll crown a grateful and a constant flame.But if a wild uncertainty prevail,And turn your veering heart with every gale,You lose the fruit of all your former care,For the sad prospect of a just despair.
A quack, too scandalously mean to name,Had, by man-midwifery, got wealth and fame;As if Lucina had forgot her trade,The labouring wife invokes his surer aid.Well-seasoned bowls the gossip's spirits raise,Who, while she guzzles, chats the doctor's praise;And largely, what she wants in words, supplies,With maudlin eloquence of trickling eyes.But what a thoughtless animal is man!How very active in his own trepan!For, greedy of physicians' frequent fees,From female mellow praise he takes degrees;Struts in a new unlicensed gown, and thenFrom saving women falls to killing men.Another such had left the nation thin,In spite of all the children he brought in.His pills as thick as hand grenadoes flew;And where they fell, as certainly they slew:His name struck everywhere as great a damp,As Archimedes' through the Roman camp.With this, the doctor's pride began to cool;For smarting soundly may convince a fool.But now repentance came too late for grace;And meagre famine stared him in the face:Fain would he to the wives be reconciled,But found no husband left to own a child.The friends, that got the brats, were poisoned too:In this sad case, what could our vermin do?Worried with debts, and past all hope of bail,The unpitied wretch lies rotting in a jail:And there, with basket-alms scarce kept alive,Shows how mistaken talents ought to thrive.
I pity, from my soul, unhappy men,Compelled by want to prostitute their pen;Who must, like lawyers, either starve or plead,And follow, right or wrong, where guineas lead!But you, Pompilian, wealthy, pampered heirs,Who to your country owe your swords and cares,Let no vain hope your easy mind seduce,For rich ill poets are without excuse;'Tis very dangerous tampering with the Muse,The profit's small, and you have much to lose;For though true wit adorns your birth or place,Degenerate lines degrade the attainted race.No poet any passion can excite,But what they feel transport them when they write.Have you been led through the Cumaean cave,And heard the impatient maid divinely rave?I hear her now; I see her rolling eyes;And panting, 'Lo! the God, the God,' she cries:With words not hers, and more than human sound,She makes the obedient ghosts peep trembling through the ground.But, though we must obey when Heaven commands,And man in vain the sacred call withstands,Beware what spirit rages in your breast;For ten inspired, ten thousand are possess'd:Thus make the proper use of each extreme,And write with fury, but correct with phlegm.As when the cheerful hours too freely pass,And sparkling wine smiles in the tempting glass,Your pulse advises, and begins to beatThrough every swelling vein a loud retreat:So when a Muse propitiously invites,Improve her favours, and indulge her flights;But when you find that vigorous heat abate,Leave off, and for another summons wait.Before the radiant sun, a glimmering lamp,Adulterate measures to the sterling stamp,Appear not meaner than mere human lines,Compared with those whose inspiration shines:These, nervous, bold; those, languid and remiss;There cold salutes; but here a lover's kiss.Thus have I seen a rapid headlong tide,With foaming waves the passive Saone divide;Whose lazy waters without motion lay,While he, with eager force, urged his impetuous way.
Hearty, careless 'Charley Cotton' was born in 1630. His father, Sir George Cotton, was improvident and intemperate in his latter days, and left the poet an encumbered estate situated at Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, near the river Dove. This place will recall the words quoted by O'Connell in Parliament in reference to the present Lord Derby:—
'Down thy fair banks, romantic Ashbourne, glidesThe Derby dilly, with its six insides.'
Charles studied at Cambridge; and after travelling abroad, married the daughter of Sir Thomas Owthorp in Nottinghamshire, who does not appear to have lived long. His extravagance keeping him poor, he was compelled to eke out his means by translating works from the French and Italian, including those of a spirit somewhat kindred to his own—Montaigne. At the age of forty, he obtained a captain's commission in the army, and went to Ireland. There he met with his second wife, Mary, Countess Dowager of Ardglass, the widow of Lord Cornwall. She possessed a jointure of £1500 a-year, secured, however, after marriage, from her husband's imprudent and reckless management. He returned to his English estate, where he became passionately fond of fishing,—intimate with Izaak Walton, whom he invited in a poem, although now eighty-three years old, to visit him in the country—and where he built a fishing-house, with the initials of Izaak's name and his own united in ciphers over the door; the walls, too, being painted with fishing scenes, and the portraits of Cotton and Walton appearing upon the beaufet. Poor Charles had a less fortunate career than his friend, dying insolvent at Westminster in 1687.
Careless gaiety and reckless extravagance, blended with heart, sense, and sincerity, were the characteristics of Cotton as a man, and were, as is usually the case, transferred to his poetry. He squandered his pence and his powers with equal profusion. His travestie of the 'Aeneid' is pronounced by Christopher North (who must have read it, however,) a beastly book. Campbell says, with striking justice, of another of Cotton's productions, 'His imitations of Lucian betray the grossest misconception of humorous effect, when he attempts to burlesque that which is ludicrous already.' It is like trying to turn the 'Tale of a Tub' into ridicule. But Cotton's own vein, as exhibited in his 'Invitation to Walton,' his 'New Year,' and his 'Voyage to Ireland,' (which anticipates in some measure the style of Anstey in the 'New Bath Guide,') is very rich and varied, full of ease, picturesque spirit, and humour, and stamps him a genuine, if not a great poet.
1 Whilst in this cold and blustering clime,Where bleak winds howl, and tempests roar,We pass away the roughest timeHas been of many years before;
2 Whilst from the most tempestuous nooksThe dullest blasts our peace invade,And by great rains our smallest brooksAre almost navigable made;
3 Whilst all the ills are so improvedOf this dead quarter of the year,That even you, so much beloved,We would not now wish with us here:
4 In this estate, I say, it isSome comfort to us to suppose,That in a better clime than this,You, our dear friend, have more repose;
5 And some delight to me the while,Though Nature now does weep in rain,To think that I have seen her smile,And haply may I do again.
6 If the all-ruling Power pleaseWe live to see another May,We'll recompense an age of theseFoul days in one fine fishing day.
7 We then shall have a day or two,Perhaps a week, wherein to tryWhat the best master's hand can doWith the most deadly killing fly.
8 A day with not too bright a beam;A warm, but not a scorching sun;A southern gale to curl the stream;And, master, half our work is done.
9 Then, whilst behind some bush we waitThe scaly people to betray,We'll prove it just, with treacherous bait,To make the preying trout our prey;
10 And think ourselves, in such an hour,Happier than those, though not so high,Who, like leviathans, devourOf meaner men the smaller fry.
11 This, my best friend, at my poor home,Shall be our pastime and our theme;But then—should you not deign to come,You make all this a flattering dream.
The lives of frail men are compared by the sagesOr unto short journeys, or pilgrimages,As men to their inns do come sooner or later,That is, to their ends, to be plain in my matter;From whence when one dead is, it currently follows,He has run his race, though his goal be the gallows;And this 'tis, I fancy, sets folks so a-madding,And makes men and women so eager of gadding;Truth is, in my youth I was one of these peopleWould have gone a great way to have seen a high steeple,And though I was bred 'mongst the wonders o' th' Peak,Would have thrown away money, and ventured my neckTo have seen a great hill, a rock, or a cave,And thought there was nothing so pleasant and brave:But at forty years old you may, if you please,Think me wiser than run such errands as these;Or had the same humour still run in my toes,A voyage to Ireland I ne'er should have chose;But to tell you the truth on 't, indeed it was neitherImprovement nor pleasure for which I went thither;I know then you'll presently ask me for what?Why, faith, it was that makes the old woman trot;And therefore I think I'm not much to be blamedIf I went to the place whereof Nick was ashamed.
O Coryate! thou traveller famed as Ulysses,In such a stupendous labour as this is,Come lend me the aids of thy hands and thy feet,Though the first be pedantic, the other not sweet,Yet both are so restless in peregrination,They'll help both my journey, and eke my relation.
'Twas now the most beautiful time of the year,The days were now long, and the sky was now clear,And May, that fair lady of splendid renown,Had dressed herself fine, in her flowered tabby gown,When about some two hours and an half after noon,When it grew something late, though I thought it too soon,With a pitiful voice, and a most heavy heart,I tuned up my pipes to sing'loth to depart;'The ditty concluded, I called for my horse,And with a good pack did the jument endorse,Till he groaned and he f——d under the burden,For sorrow had made me a cumbersome lurden:And now farewell, Dove, where I've caught such brave dishesOf over-grown, golden, and silver-scaled fishes;Thy trout and thy grayling may now feed securely,I've left none behind me can take 'em so surely;Feed on then, and breed on, until the next year,But if I return I expect my arrear.
By pacing and trotting betimes in the even,Ere the sun had forsaken one half of the heaven,We all at fair Congerton took up our inn,Where the sign of a king kept a King and his queen:But who do you think came to welcome me there'?No worse a man, marry, than good master mayor,With his staff of command, yet the man was not lame,But he needed it more when he went, than he came;After three or four hours of friendly potation,We took leave each of other in courteous fashion,When each one, to keep his brains fast in his head,Put on a good nightcap, and straightway to bed.
Next morn, having paid for boiled, roasted, and bacon,And of sovereign hostess our leaves kindly taken,(For her king, as 'twas rumoured, by late pouring down,This morning had got a foul flaw in his crown,)We mounted again, and full soberly riding,Three miles we had rid ere we met with a biding;But there, having over-night plied the tap well,We now must needs water at a place called Holmes Chapel:'A hay!' quoth the foremost, 'ho! who keeps the house?'Which said, out an host comes as brisk as a louse;His hair combed as sleek as a barber he'd been,A cravat with black ribbon tied under his chin;Though by what I saw in him, I straight 'gan to fearThat knot would be one day slipped under his ear.Quoth he (with low conge), 'What lack you, my lord?''The best liquor,' quoth I, 'that the house will afford.''You shall straight,' quoth he; and then calls out, 'Mary?Come quickly, and bring us a quart of Canary.''Hold, hold, my spruce host! for i' th' morning so early,I never drink liquor but what's made of barley.'Which words were scarce out, but, which made me admire,My lordship was presently turned into 'squire:
'Ale, 'squire, you mean?' quoth he nimbly again,'What, must it be purled'—'No, I love it best plain.''Why, if you'll drink ale, sir, pray take my advice,Here's the best ale i' th' land, if you'll go to the price;Better, I sure am, ne'er blew out a stopple;But then, in plain truth, it is sixpence a bottle.''Why, faith,' quoth I, 'friend, if your liquor be such,For the best ale in England, it is not too much:Let's have it, and quickly.'—'o sir! you may stay;A pot in your pate is a mile in your way:Come, bring out a bottle here presently, wife,Of the best Cheshire hum he e'er drank in his life.'Straight out comes the mistress in waistcoat of silk,As clear as a milkmaid, as white as her milk,With visage as oval and sleek as an egg,As straight as an arrow, as right as my leg:A curtsey she made, as demure as a sister,I could not forbear, but alighted and kissed her:Then ducking another, with most modest mien,The first word she said was, 'Will 't please you walk in?I thanked her; but told her, I then could not stay,For the haste of my business did call me away.She said, she was sorry it fell out so odd,But if, when again I should travel that road,I would stay there a night, she assured me the nationShould nowhere afford better accommodation:Meanwhile my spruce landlord has broken the cork,And called for a bodkin, though he had a fork;But I showed him a screw, which I told my brisk gullA trepan was for bottles had broken their skull;Which, as it was true, he believed without doubt,But 'twas I that applied it, and pulled the cork out.Bounce, quoth the bottle, the work being done,It roared, and it smoked, like a new-fired gun;But the shot missed us all, or else we'd been routed,Which yet was a wonder, we were so about it.Mine host poured and filled, till he could fill no fuller:'Look here, sir,' quoth he, 'both for nap and for colour,Sans bragging, I hate it, nor will I e'er do 't;I defy Leek, and Lambhith, and Sandwich, to boot.'By my troth, he said true, for I speak it with tears,Though I have been a toss-pot these twenty good years,And have drank so much liquor has made me a debtor,In my days, that I know of, I never drank better:We found it so good and we drank so profoundly,That four good round shillings were whipt away roundly;And then I conceived it was time to be jogging,For our work had been done, had we stay'd t' other noggin.