poem is to its core, the author calmly professes that it is Ombreggia il ver Parnaso e non rivela The plea of allegory was apparently quite sufficient for the justification of Marino. We do not hear that he was ever called to account for his poem, like Tasso, by the authorities of the Church. The Adone touched no Christian doctrine; therefore it could raise no question of heresy if it was full of incredible fictions of marvel and magic, still these did not occur, like the romantic episodes of the Gerusalemme Liberata, in the midst of a story professing to celebrate the actions of Christian heroes; if the objects it represented were thoroughly vicious, it nevertheless professed an excellent moral. Within all was corrupt, but externally no rule of Christian discipline was violated. This was enough for the Inquisition. In England, on the other hand, men were pleased with the exercise of poetical "wit" for its own sake, because it answered to their notions of unrestrained liberty. There all sects and opinions were tolerated, so long as they did not interfere with the course of civil government. Roman Catholics might be educated abroad in the traditions of scholasticism, and might convert them into any form of poetry they chose at home. The Anglican was free to mix up ideas of Rome, Geneva, and ancient Athens, provided that he yielded strict obedience to the Act of Uniformity. The problem each man had to solve for himself was an internal one, namely, how to reconcile in his life the religious and moral teaching of the Reformation with 1 Adone, canto i. st. 10. the æsthetic doctrines of the Renaissance. As to the standard of style, the ideas of the average man resembled those which he held about dress. Travelled Englishmen had long been the laughing-stock of their neighbours on the Continent, from their habit of copying and exaggerating every foreign peculiarity of manners and costume, without reference to reason or fitness. In the same way Englishmen were best pleased with the poets who showed themselves apt in the invention of curious novelties, and they liked to have their wonder roused by "discordia concors, the combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike." If they were prepared to follow any one's guidance, it was that of their King and his Court; and the tastes of James I. were of a kind to encourage the pedantry of "wit." Under the tuition of George Buchanan he had become a fairly skilful logician and a good classical scholar. An encounter with Cardinal Bellarmine in the field of theological controversy had raised in his mind an extravagant belief in his own powers of dialectic; his good memory and considerable learning convinced him of his infallibility as a judge of literature. Though he had himself no great love for the stage, his wife, Anne of Denmark, was as passionately fond of pageants as Elizabeth; hence in the Court the main currents of taste, as far as they were determined by the personal influence of the King and Queen, were turned into the channels of logical disputation, classical learning, and mythological masquerade. Such an atmosphere was favourable to the genius of men like Ben Jonson, Phineas and Giles Fletcher, and Donne; and the various schools of English "wit," which sprang into complete existence in the reign of James I., may be separately considered under the following heads: (1) the School of Theological Wit; (2) the School of Metaphysical Wit; (3) the School of Court or Classical Wit. THE SCHOOL of Theological Wit: Robert SouthweLL: JOHN DAVIES OF HEREFORD: PHINEAS AND GILES FLETCHER THE universal paradox out of which spring the various modes of theological "wit" is to be found in the subjectmatter of Christianity itself. The vanity and unreality of the things of sense; the eternal reality of the unseen world; the probationary character of human existence; the immortality of the individual soul; the consequent duty of man to live according to the law of the Churchthese are the considerations which have engaged the attention of the loftiest minds from St. Augustine to Pascal. With such elementary truths are inseparably associated the paradoxical doctrines derived from them by the Church out of the study of Scripture, and formulated from age to age in the Creeds and the Articles of Faith, showing what is to be believed in respect of mysteries like the Trinity in Unity, the Incarnation, Grace, "ForeKnowledge, Fate, and Will," and other similar points, many of which are enumerated in a popular book published about the middle of the seventeenth century, and entitled Memorials of Godliness and Christianity.1 On this foundation, from a very early age in the history of Christianity, was built the work of a school of Christian poetry which, following the traditional lines of Latin 1 The author (once supposed to be Bacon) was Herbert Palmer, Master of Queen's College, Cambridge. See Grosart's reprint (1865). verse composition, illustrated the idea of Nature, and particularly human nature, set forth in the Scriptures. What," says Giles Fletcher, in an apology for reverting to the practice, "should I speak of Juvencus, Prosper, and wise Prudentius? the last of which, living in Hierom's time, twelve hundred years ago, brought forth in his declining age so many and so religious poems, straitly charging his soul not to let pass so much as one either night or day without one divine song, Hymnis continuet dies, Nec nox ulla vacet, quin Dominum canat. And as sedulous Prudentius so prudent Sedulius was famous in poetical divinity, the coëtan of Bernard, who sung the history of Christ with as much devotion in himself as admiration to others; all of which were followed by the choicest wits of Christendom; Nonnius translating all Saint John's Gospel into Greek verse; Sannazar, the late living image and happy imitator of Virgil, bestowing ten years upon a song only to celebrate that one day when Christ was born to us on earth, and we (a happy change) unto God in heaven; thrice-honoured Bartas, and our (I know no other name more glorious than his own) Mr. Edmund Spenser (two blessed souls), not thinking ten years enough, laying out their whole lives upon this one study."1 This early intermingling of theological matter with classical form caused the genius of Christian poetry to exhibit itself, at different periods and in the different countries of Europe, under the most varied aspects. Appearing in England after the rupture with Rome was complete, and just at the time when our language was striving to accommodate itself to new conditions, it inspired those who felt its influence to clothe their thoughts in all the artificial refinements that were agreeable to the taste of the day. Naturally the men who were at first most congenially influenced by it were Roman Catholics, and in England those Roman Catholics were generally conspirators. Young, enthusiastic, fanatic, their imaginations were exalted in proportion as the cause to which they were devoted appeared to be depressed. The 1 Preface to Christ's Death and Victory. supremacy of the Pope was their watchword; Mary Queen of Scots was the visible centre towards which all their hopes gravitated. Taking their lives in their hands, ardent youths, like Babington and Chidiock Tichborne, were ready, with a stoical submission, to sacrifice them for the advancement of the cause which they believed to be that of God and their country. The following verses, written by the latter on the eve of his execution, express, in the antithetical manner of the poetical Euphuists, the sense of vanity in all earthly things felt by an imagination brought face to face with the greatest of spiritual realities: : My prime of youth is but a frost of cares; My feast of joy is but a dish of pain; And all my good is but vain hope of gain; The spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung; The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves are green; I sought my death, and found it in my womb; And now I live, and now my life is done.1 Others there were, whose spirit, yet more fervent and elevated, coveted the privilege of martyrdom. Of these was Robert Southwell, who may be called the earliest of the specifically religious poets of England after the Reformation. He was the third son of Richard Southwell of Horsham St. Faith, in the county of Norfolk, and was born in 1561. Educated at Douai and in Paris, he came early under the influence of Thomas Darbyshire, who, being Archdeacon of Essex in the reign of Mary, had resigned on the accession of Elizabeth. From this master 1 Poems of Raleigh, Wotton, etc. (Hannah), p. 114. |