distaste on the wit and licence of the court poets of the age, and were read with fervor and applauded with zeal. Afterwards, when a more polished versification was successfully cultivated, and poetry was written with greater system and design, the ruggedness of Quarles' compositions caused them to fall into disrepute; but they have survived this temporary neglect, and his imagination and power are still appreciated. There are many lyrical pieces of HERRICK'S of great beauty, but his flowers were hid amidst a wilderness of weeds. His Ode to Blossoms is quaint, tender, and unaffected: Fair pledges of a fruitful tree, Why do ye fade so fast? Your date is not so past; But you may stay yet here awhile, And go at last. What, were ye born to be An hour or half's delight, And so to bid good night? And lose you quite. But your lovely leaves, where we May read how soon things have Their end, though ne'er so brave: And after they have shown their pride Into the grave. WITHERS' writings present a mass of wire-drawn lines, redeemed by an occasional burst of inspiration, a sensibility, and poetical dreaminess, that tended somewhat to sustain an elegant but languid versification, and a frequent poverty of idea. BROWNE, the author of Britannia's Pastorals, cultivated with moderate success a style of composition that has never arrived at perfection in England. Whether it be I that there is a want of sentiment in the lower classes of our countrymen, or an uncongenial coldness in our climate, certain it is that pastoral verse has never attained a position in our poetry. In the drama (as for instance in the Gentle Shepherd) and also in the Songs and Tales of Burns, and other writers, rural life has been invested with poetic interest; but the Eclogues of Browne, Phillips, and Pope are little read and less admired. The real truth is, that the state of society they represent is too primitively romantic to appear probable; while their language and sentiments seem much more like those of fine gentlemen and ladies playing shepherds and shepherdesses, than the rude but bold thoughts and words of rustic minstrels, whose feelings are inartificial, and whose affections bound rather to material objects than fanciful imagery. GILES FLETCHER and CRASHAW devoted their muses to sacred subjects, and were almost the first who led the way to that tone and majesty, that dignity of truth with which religious poetry is capable of being inspired. But Crashaw slighted not the more worldly muse, nor disdained to pen a sportive epigram, or translate an ode of Catullus. His Music's Duel represents a contest between a lyrist and a nightingale for the palm of song; and the poem, although overloaded with words, has much of the mystic sweetness and imagination of Shelley's verse. The bird follows the changing music of the lutes-master,' through all its windings and modulations, and her bosom heaves, Till the fledg'd notes at length forsake their nest, With the cool epod of a graver note, Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat Would reach the brazen voice of war's hoarse bird; Her little soul is ravish'd: and so pour'd Into loose extacies, that she is plac'd Above herself, music's enthusiast. Again her human rival concentrates his powers in one most finished burst. This done, he lists what she would say to this, Alas! in vain! for while (sweet soul) she tries Of chatt'ring strings, by the small size of one (That liv'd so sweetly) dead, so sweet a grave. They The best compositions of DRUMMOND of Hawthornden are some beautiful sonnets and madrigals. are classical, imaginative, and forcible, yet unequally sustained, and it often occurs that a fine idea is marred by a mean or conceited expression. His language fetters instead of setting free his thoughts. The fire is not wanting, but it is occasionally choked by the very fuel that should support it; the design is lofty, but often obscured by a want of harmony in the detail. These observations might be illustrated better than by the following sonnet, which teems with beauty, and is one of the best specimens of Drummond : Now while the night her sable veil hath spread, And silently her resty coach doth roll, Rousing with her from Tethys' azure bed Those starry nymphs which dance about the pole While Cynthia, in purest cypress clad, The Latmian shepherd in a trance descries, And looking pale from height of all the skies, While sleep, in triumph, closed hath all eyes, The winds and waves hush'd up, to rest entice- CAREW, who wrote songs of gallantry, yet not free from licentiousness; LOVELACE, tender and elegant, yet conceited; SUCKLING, florid and epigrammatic, and DAVENANT, often fanciful and brilliant, were the poets of the court of Charles the First. The lines of the last, addressed to that monarch's queen, Henrietta Matilda, are full of the polish, expression, and refinement of Pope. He calls her Fair as unshaded light; or as the day In its first birth, when all the year was May; Kind as the willing saints, and calmer far Than in their sleep forgiven hermits are.* The following little piece by Carew, entitled Red and White Roses, is in his liveliest style: Read in these roses the sad story Of my hard fate, and your own glory : In the white you may discover In the red, the flames still feeding On my heart with fresh wounds bleeding. And the red express my anguish : *Pope has imitated some of these lines in his Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard. The life of the recluse lover is represented to be Still as the seas, 'ere winds were taught to blow, Or moving spirit bade the waters flow; Soft as the slumbers of a saint forgiven, And mild as opening gleams of promis'd heaven, |