Have joined in one a rude uncivil throng, And by persuasions made that company An ordered politic society, When this dumb orator would more persuade, Called, half against his will, into the region of Court compliment, the poet forced his graceful Muse to the flights of hyperbole and conceit which were expected from her; but his courtly wit is by no means so pleasing as when he pursues his own path of unstudied elegance. The concetti aimed at are not much less extravagant than Donne's. For instance, thinking into what superfine language he can translate the fact that the twentieth anniversary of the King's accession falls on the 24th of March, he writes: The world to-morrow celebrates with mirth The joyful peace between the heaven and earth; Whose titles her divided parts unite. The time since Safety triumphed over Fear This is worthy of Gongora. Prince Charles having left England in the spring of 1624 for his Spanish adventure, and having come back in winter, the poet maintains, as confidently as any pagan pastoral poet might have done, that Nature had in the meanwhile suspended her usual operations : For want of him we withered in the spring, 1 I.e. Lady Day. The plants, which when he went were growing green, When he reviews them: his expected eye; Preserved their beauty, ready oft to die. And we are to believe that (though history tells us the Spaniards themselves were heartily glad of his departure) the whole course of things in Spain was revolutionised by Charles's return to his native land :— When he resolves to cross the watery main, See what a change his absence makes in Spain ! Beaumont's judgment, in complimentary verse like this, appears very inferior to Drummond's, who, in his Forth Feasting, puts his mythological images into the mouth of the Genius of the River, where they are quite appropriate. On the other hand, we must, in reading them, make allowance for the official exigencies of a Court poet, since it is evident, from the verses addressed by Beaumont to James I., Concerning the True Form of English Poetry, that he had formed an exact and critical conception of the nature of his art : In every language now in Europe spoke By nations which the Roman Empire broke, Not vext by learning, but with nature crown'd; A language not affecting ancient times, To easy use of that peculiar gift, Which poets in their raptures hold most dear, A more admirable illustration of the classical spirit naturalised in English verse is not to be found in the range of English poetry. When Beaumont can get free from the entanglements of his Court wit, and expatiate, as he desires, on some res lecta potenter, he approaches more nearly than any poet of his age to the direct vigour of Dryden. His use of the heroic couplet is not indeed best illustrated in the epic style of Bosworth Field, though this contains many strong lines, as in the episode of the king killing the sentinel found asleep on his post : Then going forth, and finding in his way But in his Sacred Poems he finds the subject that his genius requires, and several passages in these may rank, for strengh and harmony, with anything in the Religio Laici. For example, he writes Of the Miserable State of Man: O Knowledge, if a heaven on earth could be, See, Man, thy stripes at school, thy pains abroad, Of the tears of contrition he says : With these I wish my vital blood to run, In Heaven, if Heaven were shadowed from Thy sight. And in the same spirit he writes in the time of " Desolation": If solid virtues dwell not but in pain, I will not wish that Golden Age again, Of heavenly things: God hath created nights, Which better fits the bright celestial quire. Some in foul seasons perish through despair, To yield to what my Saviour shall dispose: In mine afflictions, to obey His voice. These extracts from Drummond and Beaumont ought to dispose of Waller's claim to have been the first English poet to write smoothly in the heroic couplet. CHAPTER X SCHOOLS OF POETICAL "WIT" IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES I. SCHOOL OF THEOLOGICAL WIT: FRANCIS QUARLES; GEORGE HERBERT; RICHARD CRASHAW; HENRY VAUGHAN. SCHOOL OF COURT WIT: THOMAS CAREW; SIR JOHN SUCKLING ; ROBERT HERRICK ; WILLIAM HABINGTON ; EDMUND. WALLER; SIR JOHN DENHAM. WHAT is chiefly noticeable in the poetry of Charles I.'s reign is the sharp opposition between the ideals of the Middle Ages and the ideals of the Renaissance, as represented in the various schools of wit which came into existence in the time of his father. Some of these fashions of metrical expression have indeed almost disappeared. Scarcely any traces remain of the allegory employed by Phineas and Giles Fletcher, as the lineal successors of Spenser, whether this take the form of abstract impersonation in the epic style, or of pastoral dialogue. There is also a tendency to fuse the Metaphysical and Theological schools of wit; the style of George Herbert, in particular, being an extension of the scholastic subtlety of Donne. On the other hand, the Theological school of wit separates itself, more sharply than was the case under James I., from the school of Court wit: its expression of religious thought and feeling is more personal, more monastic, more self-centred ; in the same proportion the tone of Court poetry becomes increasingly worldly, cynical, sometimes even gross and obscene. There are indecent licenses in the verse of Suckling and Carew which Ben Jonson would never have permitted himself to use; while in the lyrics of Herrick, |