ページの画像
PDF
ePub

Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsely patched

With different coloured rags-black, red, white, yellow,
And seemed to speak variety of wretchedness.
I asked her of the way, which sie informed me;
Then craved my charity, and bade me hasten
To save a sister.

Description of Morning.

Wished Morning 's come; and now upon the plains
And distant mountains, where they feed their flocks,
The happy shepherds leave their homely huts,
And with their pipes proclaim the new-born day.
The lusty swain comes with his well-filled scrip
Of healthful viands, which, when hunger calls,
With much content and appetite he eats,

To follow in the field his daily toil,

And dress the grateful glebe that yields him fruits.'
The beasts that under the warm hedges slept,
And weathered out the cold bleak night, are up;
And, looking towards the neigbouring pastures, raise
Their voice, and bid their fellow-brutes good-morrow.
The cheerful birds, too, on the tops of trees,
Assemble all in choirs; and with their notes
Salute and welcome up the rising sun.

Killing a Boar.

Forth from the thicket rushed another boar,
So large, he seemed the tyrant of the woods,
With all his dreadful bristles raised on high,
They seemed a grove of spears upon
his back:
Foaming, he came at me, where I was posted,
Whetting his huge long tusks, and gaping wide,
As he already had me for his prey;

Till, brandishing my well-poised javelin high,
With this bold executing arm I struck

The ugly brindled monster to the heart.

NATHANIEL LEE.

[ocr errors]

Another tragic poet of this period was NATHANIEL LEE, who possessed no small portion of the fire of genius, though unfortunately 'near allied' to madness. Lee was the son of a Hertfordshire clergyman, and received a classical education, first at Westminster School, and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge. He tried the stage both as an actor and author, was four years in Bedlam from wild insanity; but recovering his reason, resumed his labours as a dramatist, and though subject to fits of partial derangement, continued to write till the end of his life. He was the author of eleven tragedies, besides assisting Dryden in the composition of two pieces, 'Edipus' and the Duke of Guise.' The unfortunate poet was in his latter days supported by charity: he died in London, and was buried in St. Clement's Church, April 6, 1692, aged thirty-seven. The best of Lee's tragedies are the Rival Queens, or Alexander the Great,' Mithridates," Theodosius,' and 'Lucius Junius Brutus.' In

6

praising 'Alexander,' Dryden alludes to the power of his friend in moving the passions, and counsels him to despise those critics who condemn

The too much vigor of his youthful muse.

We have here indicated the source both of Lee's strength and of his weakness In tenderness and genuine passion, he excels Dryden; but his style often degenerates into bombast and extravagant frenzy -a defect which was heightened in his late productions by his mental malady. The author was aware of his weakness. It has often been observed against me,' he says in his dedication of Theodosius,' 'that I abound in ungoverned fancy; but I hope the world will pardon the sallies of youth: age, despondency, and dulness come too fast of themselves. I discommend no man for keeping the beaten road; but I am sure the noble hunters that follow the game must leap hedges and ditches sometimes, and at all, or never come into the fall of a quarry.' He wanted discretion to temper his tropical genius, and reduce his poetical conceptions to consistency and order; yet among his wild ardour and martial enthusiasm are very soft and graceful lines. Dryden himself has no finer image than the following: Speech is morning to the mind:

It spreads the beauteous images abroad,
Which else lie furled and clouded in the soul.

Or this declaration of love:

I disdain

All pomp when thou art by; far be the noise
Of kings and courts from us, whose gentle souls
Our kinder stars have steered another way.
Free as the forest-birds we 'll pair together,
Fly to the arbours, grots, and flowery meads,
And, in soft murmurs, interchange our souls:
Together drink the crystal of the stream,
Or taste the yellow fruit which autumn yields;
And when the golden evening calls us home,
Wing to our downy nest, and sleep till morn.

The heroic style of Lee-verging upon rodomontade-may be seen in such lines as the following, descriptive of Junius Brutus throwing off his disguise of idiocy after the rape of Lucrece by Tarquin :

As from night's womb the glorious day breaks forth,
And seems to kindle from the setting stars;

So, from the blackness of young Tarquin's crime
And furnace of his lust, the virtuous soul
Of Junius Brutus catches bright occasion.

I see the pillars of his kingdom totter:
The rape of Lucrece is the midnight lantern
That lights my genius down to the foundation.
Leave me to work, my Titus, O my son !
For from this spark a lightning shall arise,
That must ere night purge all the Roman air,
And then the thunder of his ruin follows.

Self murder.

What torments are allotted those sad spirits,
Who, groaning with the burden of despair,
No longer will endure the cares of life,
But boldly set themselves at liberty,

Through the dark caves of death to wander on,
Like wildered travellers, without a guide;

Eternal rovers in the gloomy maze.

Where, scarce the twilight of an infant morn,
By a faint glimmer check'ring through the trees,
Reflects to dismal view the walking ghosts,
That never hope to reach the blessed fields.

JOHN CROWNE.

Theodosius.

JOHN CROWNE was a native of Nova Scotia, son of an Independent minister. Coming to England, he was some time gentlemanusher to an old lady, afterwards an author by profession. He died. in obscurity about 1703. Crowne was patronised by Rochester, in opposition to Dryden, as a dramatic poet. Between 1661 and 1698, he wrote seventeen pieces, two of which-namely, the tragedy of Thyestes, and the comedy of Sir Courtly Nice'-evince considerable talent. The former is, indeed, founded an a repulsive classical story. Atreus invites his banished brother, Thyestes, to the court of Argos, and there at a banquet sets before him the mangled limbs and blood of his own son, of which the father unconsciously partakes. The return of Thyestes from his retirement, with the fears and misgivings which follow, are vividly described:

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

THYESTES. O wondrous pleasure to a banished man,

I feel my loved, long looked-for native soil!

And oh my weary eyes, that all the day

Had from some mountain travelled toward this place,
Now rest themselves upon the royal towers
Of that great palace where I had my birth.
O sacred towers, sacred in your height,
Mingling with clouds, the villas of the gods,
Whither for sacred pleasures they retire:
Sacred, because you are the work of gods;
Your lofty looks boast your divine descent;
And the proud city which lies at your feet,
And would give place to nothing but to you,
Owns her original is short of yours.

And now a thousand objects more ride fast

On morning beams, and meet my eyes in throngs:

And see, all Argos meets me with loud shouts!

PHILISTHENES. O joyful sound!

THY. But with thein Atreus too

PHIL. What ails my father that he stops, and shakes,
And now retires?

THY. Return with me, my son,

And old friend Peneus, to the honest beasts,
And faithful desert, and well-seated caves;

Trees shelter man, by whom they often die,

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

And never seek revenge; no villainy

Lies in the prospect of a humble cave.

PEN. Talk you of villainy, of foes, and fraud?
TRY. I talk of Atreus.

PEN. What are these to him?

THY. Nearer than I am, for they are himself

PEN. Gods drive these impious thoughts out of your mind. THY. The gods for all our safety put them there.

Return, return with me.

PEN. Against our oaths?

I cannot stem the vengeance of the gods.

THY. Here are no gods; they've left this dire abode.
PEN. True race of Tantalus! who parent-like

Are doomed in midst of plenty to be starved,

His hell and yours differ alone in this:

When he would catch at joys, they fly from him;
When glories catch at you, you fly from them.

THY. A fit comparison; our joys and his

Are lying shadows, which to trust is hell.

Wishes for Obscurity.

How miserable a thing is a great man!
Take noisy vexing greatness they that please;
Give me obscure and safe, and silent ease.
Acquaintance and commerce let me have none
With any powerful thing but Time alone:
My rest let Time be fearful to offend,
And creep by me as by a slumbering friend;
Till, with case glutted, to my bed I steal,
As men to sleep after a plenteous meal.
Oh, wretched he who, called abroad by power,
To know himself can never find an hour!
Strange to himself, but to all others known,
Lends every one his life, but uses none;
So, ere he tasted life, to death he goes,
And himself loses ere himself he knows.

Passions.

We oft by lightning read in darkest nights;
And by your passions I read all your natures,
Though you at other times can keep them dark.
Love in Women.

These are great maxims, sir, it is confessed;
Too stately for a woman's narrow breast.
Poor love is lost in men's capacious minds;
In ours, it fills up all the room it finds.

Inconstancy of the Multitude.'

I'll not such favour to rebellion shew,
To wear a crown the people do bestow;
Who, when their giddy violence is past,

Shall from the king, the adored, revolt at last;
And then the throne they gave they shall invade,
And scorn the idol which themselves have made.

Warriors.

I hate these potent madmen, who keep all

Mankind awake, while they, by their great deeds,..
Are drumming hard upon this hollow world,
Only to make a sound to last for ages.

THOMAS SHADWELL-SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE-WILLIAM WYCHERLEY -MRS. APHRA BEHN.

A more popular rival and enemy of Dryden was THOMAS SHADWELL (1640-1692), who also wrote seventeen plays, chiefly comedies, in which he affected to follow Ben Jonson. Shadwell, though chiefly known now as the Mac-Flecknoe of Dryden's satire, possessed no inconsiderable comic power. His pictures of society are too coarse for quotation, but they are often true and well drawn. When the Revolution threw Dryden and other excessive royalists into the shade, Shadwell was promoted to the office of poet-laureate.-SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE (circa 1636-1699) gave a more sprightly air ta the comic drama by his Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter,' a play which contains the first runnings of that vein of lively humour and witty dialogue which were afterwards displayed by Congreve and Farquhar. Sir George was a gay libertine, and whilst taking leave of a festive party one evening at his house in Ratisbon-where he resided as British plenipotentiary--he fell down the stairs and killed himself.

The greatest of the comic dramatists was WILLIAM WYCHERLEY, born in the year 1610, in Shropshire, where his father possessed a handsome property. Though bred to the law, Wycherley did not practise his profession, but lived gaily upon town.' Pope says he had a true nobleman look,' and he was one of the favourites of the abandoned Duchess of Cleveland. He wrote various comedies - 'Love in a Wood' (1672); the Gentleman Dancing-master' (16:3), the 'Country Wife' (1675), and the Plain Dealer' (1677). His name stood high as a dramatist, and Pope was proud to receive the notice of the author of the Country Wife.' Their published correspondence is well known, and is interesting from the marked superiority maintained in their intercourse by the boy-poet of sixteen over his Mentor of sixty-four. The pupil grew too great for his master, and the unnatural friendship was dissolved. At the age of seventy-five, Wycherley married a young girl, in order to defeat the expectations of his nephew, and died eleven days afterwards, January 1, 1715. The subjects of most of Wycherley's plays were borrowed from the Spanish or French stage. He wrought up his dialogues and scenes with great care, and with considerable liveliness and wit, but without sufficient attention to character or probability. Destitute himself of moral feeling or propriety of conduct, his characters are equally objectionable, and his once fashionable plays may be said to be quietly inurned' in their own corruption and profligacy. Leigh Hunt thinks some of the detached Maxims and Reflections' written by Wycherley in his old age not unworthy of his reputation. One he considers to be a noble observation. The silence of a wise man is more wrong to mankind than the slanderer's speech.'-A female Wycherley ap

« 前へ次へ »