A BATCH OF OLD POETS a. THE poets we are now to speak about are not modern ones. They belong to that good old golden age of our literature-the age of Spenser, and of Shakspeare, and of Massinger-when poetry was full of freshness, and originality, and life. At a point of time some nine years before the close of the sixteenth century they were to this extent contemporary-Greene, and Marlowe, and Southwell were hurrying on unconsciously to early graves; whilst Overbury, in his tenth year, was probably beginning school-boy tasks; and Drummond, still younger by four years, was cherished as the darling of a rich and courtly home. Further than this, there is a resemblance between four of them in the fact of the untimely deaths they came to. Greene died of an illness which was occasioned by excess; Marlowe was killed in a tavern-brawl; Southwell died a martyr to his faith upon the scaffold; Overbury was treacherously murdered in the Tower; and even Drummond is supposed to have been hastened to his end by grief at the beheading of the king. But, resembling one another to this extent in the equal unhappiness of their deaths, our poets were nevertheless unlike, and individual enough, in character, and conduct, and endowment. Robert Greene, who claims a chronological priority, was born in the year 1560, and died, in poverty and degradation, in 1592. His life is a mournful record of the wreck of great accomplishments and powers. Learned, travelled, witty, and poetical; and prolific, as well as very popular, both as a novelist and playwright; with common decency of conduct, his career might have been a prosperous and happy one. But decency had no place amongst his good qualities. Deserting an amiable and excellent wife as soon as he had squandered her inheritance, he came after a while to London, and plunged into the filthiest sloughs of profligate dissipation. Amidst his worst dissoluteness, which weaned from him all the companions who were most worth preserving, his learning and his literary skill seem never to have failed him. He wrote novels which were highly valued by his contemporaries; and plays-less prized, it may be, than his novels-which have given to him an unquestionable and not insignificant place amongst the founders of our national drama. How much better, or more numerous, these writings might have been, if his life had been a longer or a purer one, we have, of course, no means of judging now; but there is found amongst them quite enough to justify the conviction that he would in time have cast off the scales of his moral leprosy, and been restored to moral health. Conscience, it is seen, failed not to ply him with upbraidings, and repentance and remorse came afterwards. If we look no further than into the wise and eloquent admonition which he addressed to his associates in wickedness, or into the pathetic penitence of the letter which he wrote from a death-bed as wretched as want, and pain, and woe could render it, to his deserted wife," too honest for such a husband,”-it is clear to us that he retained, amidst his worst excesses, a sense of spiritual degradation, and a reverence "The Poems of Green and Marlowe. With Notes and Memoir. By Robert Bell." (London: John W. Parker & Son.) "The Poetical Works of the Rev. Robert Southwell. Now first completely edited. By W. B. Turnbull." (London: J. R. Smith.) "The Miscellaneous Works, in Prose and Verse, of Sir Thomas Overbury. Now first collected. Edited, with Life and Notes, by E. F. Rimbault." (Lo ndon: J. R. Smith.) "The Poetical Works of William Drummond of Hawthornden. Edited by W. B. Turnbull." (London: J. R. Smith.) GENT. MAG. VOL. CCII. 3 F for virtue, which augured well for him, had his life been spared. The last verses, probably, that he ever wrote-verses written certainly in his last illness have this ending : "O that a year were granted me to live, And for that year my former wits restored! By far the greater portion of the poems of Greene are extracted from his novels, in which they were originally introduced either to help on the story, or to express more pleasantly the sentiments or situations of persons represented in it. They are not generally possessed of any very high degree of merit, and the merit that they have is hardly of a true poetic kind. There is too much of mythology in the images, and too little of variety and gracefulness in the versification, to be agreeable to modern taste. Sometimes, however, we meet with a natural feeling, or a genuine vein of thought, faithfully and well expressed. Amongst the instances of this which most please us, is the following song : "Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content; The quiet mind is richer than a crown; "The homely house that harbours quiet rest; The cottage that affords no pride nor care; A mind content both crown and kingdom is." The thought that runs through these lines-that of the preferableness of lowly fortunes and a poor estate to worldly greatness, with its inseparable dangers, and anxieties, and cares-appears to have been a favourite one with Greene, since it is more than once repeated in his poems, and repeated always in his best manner. Other writers, also, as the readers of English poetry will remember, have paid Greene the compliment of freely making use both of the thought itself and of the accessories which illustrate it. Another example of the same kind-objectionable, probably, to fair readers for the obsolete doctrine it enforces-is taken from "Penelope's Web," in which he pithily discusses those special virtues necessary, as he presumes to say, to be incident to every virtuous woman; namely, obedience, chastity, and silence. It will be admitted that the feeling of this little piece is natural and pleasing; that its images, in spite of Ganymede, and Juno, and Great Jove, are appropriate and agreeable; and that its versification is certainly not such as to enfeeble the effect of its more positive and palpable qualities: "The sweet content that quiets angry thought, "Juno, the queen and mistress of the sky, When angry Jove did threat her with a frown, With pleasing face to wash such choler down; "The laurel that impales the head with praise, The crown that honours dames with dignity; The poem we have just quoted is, we think, a fair example of what should be regarded, on the whole, as Green's best manner. Amongst his smaller compositions, it would be more easy to find better passages than better poems. And we are not sure that the same remark would not hold good in the case of the longest, which is also the most ambitious and elaborate, of these collected compositions. However this might be, it is certain that "The Maiden's Dream"-which is the only one of these effusions that was published by itself during the life of the author, and which is now for the first time included in an edition of his poems-has passages in a far better, bolder strain. The very conception and machinery of the piece indicate its imaginative character. Written to commemorate the death of Sir Christopher Hatton, the dreamer sees in a gloomy scene a crowd of nymphs or goddesses "in mourning robes of black" weeping around the lifeless knight. Arising in succession, these disconsolate nymphs-Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, Bounty, Hospitality, and Religion,-give measured and melodious utterance to their grief at the irreparable loss which each in her own special interests sustains. Scattered amongst their several "complaints," the reader will find snatches of true and touching poetry; natural, and sometimes affecting, images; and thoughts and feelings so indicative of a nature capable of noble aspirations, as to make it the more lamentable that the spring they issued from should itself have been so foully choked and overgrown. Amongst the ablest and most intimate of Greene's associates was Christopher, or Kit, Marlowe, who was born three years after him, and died in 1593. In spite of very humble birth, it was Marlowe's good fortune to obtain a scholastic education, and to make, intellectually, a profitable use of the advantage. But his moral career appears to have been as abandoned and depraved as Greene's, without the redeeming penitence which Greene evinced at last. They had been close companions in dissipation; but Marlowe slunk from the shame, though he had fully shared the sin, kept aloof from the misery of his dying friend, and disowned the intimacy after Greene was dead. His own dreadful end was not long delayed." In a traitorous attempt upon the life of a man with whom he was engaged at play, he was stabbed-stabbed, some say, with his own dagger-and died within a few hours. This horrible death can hardly be regarded as a surprising close of his unprincipled life. Mr. Campbell has well observed, if Marlowe's life " was profligate, it was not idle." The writings that we have of his, will fully justify this observation. And his ability is quite as incontestable as his industry. The "mighty line" that was memorable amongst his own contemporaries is still heard with admiration in our critical age. If some amongst that illustrious company of dramatists who, with the immortal Shakspeare at their head, came after him, have made us familiar with higher flights of excellence than any that he ever soared to, they have also taught us to appreciate him better as the greatest in the band of their precursors. In his best plays he proves himself a genuine poet: daring, yet felicitous, in thought; rich in imagination; powerful in speech; and skilful alike in spells of tenderness and terror. This genius that is so conspicuous in the "Faustus," and in some of his other dramatic writings, gives also light and life to the lesser poems now before us. As far as there is scope for it, they are flushed by the same strong pulse of inspiration bounding through them. In the first two sestiads of" Hero and Leander," which are the only ones that Marlowe wrote, the poet seems to be revelling in the luxuriant warmth and sweetness of his own description of the young and beautiful lovers; and if his design was, as Mr. Hallam says-licentious, it must be owned that his seductive verses are instinct with admirable art. The editor, however, endeavours to disarm this imputation of its sting, by declaring, and declaring, as we believe, on sufficient grounds, that "licentiousness of treatment in poems of this nature was the common characteristic of the age, and not a speciality in Marlowe, who employed it with a grace and sweetness reached by none of his contemporaries except Shakspere." But no apology of this sort is needed for the translation of " the First Book of Lucan," or for any of the ten minor pieces which complete the collection. And there is in that collection one poem, "The Passionate Shepherd," worthy by itself-if any common measure could be instituted between genius and goodness-to countervail and compensate for a good deal of that licentiousness which we have just referred to. This little poem is a masterpiece of song, happily conceived and exquisitely executed. Readers of every class-learned and unlearned, critics and poets-have been alike delighted with it. Campbell points to it as an example of "a sweet wild spirit and an exquisite finish of expression," and the more cautious Hallam calls it a "beautiful song." As long, indeed, as there are hearts sensible, beneath the burden of conventionalities, to the sweetest influences of nature, and the simple charm of natural images, and ears not sealed against the seductive melody of speech, this little gem of poetry will never be without admirers. We quote it, as given by Mr. Bell, with the addition of the stanza [the sixth] that was first published with it in the second edition of Walton's "Complete Angler:" "Come live with me, and be my love; "And we will sit upon the rocks Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks "And I will make thee beds of roses, "A gown made of the finest wool "A belt of straw and ivy-buds, And if these pleasures may thee move, "[Thy silver dishes for thy meat, Prepared each day for thee and me.] "The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing Whilst Greene and Marlowe were hurried along by their own misconduct into untimely graves, Southwell's life was just as fatally shortened by his Christian zeal. In an age of religious persecution, it was his fortune to be a priest of the discredited faith, his glory to dare everything to which his convictions of religious duty urged him. Born of an ancient family in Norfolk, in the year 1562, he resided for some time as a student at Paris and at Douay, and proceeded to Rome, and was there admitted into the Society of Jesuits at the age of seventeen. In his twenty-second year he was ordained, and two years afterwards returned to his native country as a missionary priest. In spite of the dangers by which such a ministry was at that time surrounded in England, Southwell had solicited it with eagerness, as the truest service of a stern devotion. A few months after his arrival, he became domestic chaplain and confessor to the Countess of Arundel, whose husband was even then a prisoner in the Tower. It was during his residence in this family-a residence continued throughout six years that he found time, in the intervals of sacred duties, which he faithfully and fearlessly discharged, to compose the whole of his collected poems. His career of usefulness, as poet and as priest, was cut short at last by treachery. Arrested on a charge of sedition, he was subjected ten times to agonizing torture; was cast into a foul, disgusting dungeon in the Tower; and finally, was closely confined in the same fortress, but with less severity, and with the companionship of the Bible and the works of St. Bernard, during the three succeeding years. At the close of this long imprisonment, he was conveyed to Westminster, where he was tried, convicted, and condemned, and on the next day he was executed, like an assassin or a thief, at Tyburn. It scarcely needs to be added of a man who had in such times courted so perilous a ministry, that he encountered death with the devout heroism of one who feels that he is dying in a good cause. The signal piety of Southwell's life and the lamentable circumstances of his death have probably had some favourable influence on the reputation of his verse. The kindly feelings of compassion and regard of which he has been the object, may have led his admirers too rashly to take for granted that the merits of the writer were commensurate with the merits of the man. The religious feeling in itself, the rare and lovely sentiment in which faith, and love, and reverence are intermixed, is no doubt poetical; and the faithful expression of that feeling, the expression which communicates it as it lives in a devout soul, is poetry. But this faithfulness of communication, in which simplicity is one with sweetness, and in which every extrinsic ornament is a blemish, not a beauty, appears to be one of the least common accomplishments of religious men. Not many in any age of our literature, and in our own times, as far as we remember, only James Montgomery and Keble, have been eminently skilful in it. Now |