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SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT.

[SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT was born at Oxford, in February 1605, and died in Lincoln's Inn Fields, April 17, 1668. His epic poem of Gondibert was printed in 1651.]

There is not a more hopelessly faded laurel on the slopes of the English Parnassus than that which once flourished so bravely around the grotesque head of Davenant. The enormous folio edition of his works, brought out in 1673 in direct emulation of Ben Jonson, is probably the most deplorable collection of verses anywhere to be found, dead and dusty beyond the wont of forgotten classics. The critic is inclined to say that everything is spurious about Davenant, from the legend that connects his blood with Shakespeare's to the dramatic genius that his latest contemporaries praised so highly. He is not merely a ponderous, he is a nonsensical writer, and having begun life by writing meaningless romantic plays in imitation of Massinger, and insipid masques in the school of Ben Jonson, he closed his long and busy career by parodying the style of Dryden. But he really deserves to be classed with none of these authors, but with Sir William Killigrew and Sir Robert Stapleton, the dullest crew of pedants and poetasters which our literature has seen. From this wide condemnation of the writings of Davenant, his romantic epic of Gondibert must be excepted. It is a poem of chivalry, the scene of which is laid in Lombardy, but which the author grew tired of before it had occurred to him to construct a plot. It is, accordingly, nothing but an incoherent, rambling fragment, through which the reader toils, as if through a quicksand, dragging his steps along, and rewarded every now and then by a firmer passage containing some propriety of thought or a beautiful single line. The form of Gondibert is borrowed from the Nosce Teipsum of Sir John Davies, and was soon afterwards employed again by Dryden for his Annus Mirabilis.

EDMUND W. GOSSE.

VOL. II.

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FROM GONDIBERT,' BOOK I. CANTO 6.

Soon they the palace reached of Astragon,
Which had its beauty hid by envious night,
Whose cypress curtain, drawn before the sun,
Seemed to perform the obsequies of light.

Yet light's last rays were not entirely spent,
For they discerned their passage through a gate,
Whose height and space showed ancient ornament,
And ancients there in careful office sate.

Who by their weights and measures did record
Such numerous burdens as were thither brought
From distant regions, to their learned lord,

On which his chymics and distillers wrought.

But now their common business they refrain,
When they observe a quiet sullenness

And bloody marks in such a civil train,

Which showed at once their worth and their distress.

The voice of Ulfin they with gladness knew,

Whom to this house long neighbourhood endeared; Approaching torches perfected their view,

And taught the way till Astragon appeared.

Who soon did Ulfin cheerfully embrace;

The visit's cause by whispers he received, Which first he hoped was meant him as a grace, But being known, with manly silence grieved.

And then, with gestures full of grave respect,
The Duke he to his own apartment led;

To each distinct retirement did direct,
And all the wounded he ordained to bed.

Then thin digestive food he did provide,

More to enable fleeting strength to stay,

To wounds well-searched he cleansing wines applied,
And so prepared his ripening balsam's way.

Balm of the warrior! herb Hypernicon !

To warriors, as in use, in form decreed,

For, through the leaves, transparent wounds are shown, And rudely touched, the golden flower doth bleed.

For sleep they juice of pale Nymphæa took,

Which grows, to show that it for sleep is good, Near sleep's abode in the soft murmuring brook, This cools, the yellow flower restrains the blood. And now the weary world's great medicine, Sleep, This learned host dispensed to every guest, Which shuts those wounds where injured lovers weep, And flies oppressors to relieve the opprest.

It loves the cottage and from court abstains,

It stills the seaman though the storm be high, Frees the grieved captive in his closest chains,

Stops Want's loud mouth, and blinds the treacherous spy.

SONG.

The lark now leaves his watery nest,
And climbing shakes his dewy wings,
He takes your window for the east,

And to implore your light, he sings;
Awake, awake, the moon will never rise,
Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.

The merchant bows unto the seaman's star,
The ploughman from the sun his season takes ;
But still the lover wonders what they are,

Who look for day before his mistress wakes:
Awake, awake, break through your veils of lawn!
Then draw your curtains and begin the dawn.

ON THE CAPTIVITY OF THE COUNTESS OF ANGLESEY.

O whither will you lead the fair

And spicy daughter of the morn?
Those manacles of her soft hair,

Princes, though free, would fain have worn.

What is her crime? what has she done?
Did she, by breaking beauty, stay,

Or from his course mislead the sun,
So robbed your harvest of a day?

Or did her voice, divinely clear,
Since lately in your forest bred,
Make all the trees dance after her,
And so your woods disforested?

Run, run! pursue this gothic rout,
Who rudely love in bondage keep;

Sure all old lovers have the gout,

The young are overwatched and sleep!

JOHN MILTON.

[JOHN MILTON (1608–1674) was born in Bread Street, Cheapside, 9 Dec. 1608. Educated at St. Paul's School, and Christ's College, Cambridge, he was destined by his family for the Church. From this, however, he was diverted, partly by his strong Puritan bias, partly by an ambition which possessed him from a very early period, to compose a great work which should bring honour to his country, and to the English language. Full of this lofty purpose, he retired to his father's country residence at Horton, in the county of Bucks. Here he gave himself up to study, and poetical meditation, in preparation for the work to which he had resolved to devote his life. He looked upon himself as a man dedicated to a high purpose, and framed his life accordingly. He thought that he who would not be frustrated of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem, . . . . not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and practice of all that which is praiseworthy.'

This residence at Horton constitutes Milton's first poetic period, 1632-1638. During these six years he wrote L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, Arcades, Comus, and Lycidas. All these were thrown off by their author as occasional pieces, exercises for practice, preluding to the labour of his life, which he was all the while meditating.

A journey to Italy, 1638-9, was undertaken as a portion of the poet's education which he was giving himself. He was recalled from his tour by the lowering aspect of public affairs at home. For the next twenty years his thoughts were diverted from poetry by the absorbing interest of the civil struggle. His time was occupied, partly by official duties as Latin secretary to the Council of the Commonwealth, partly by the voluntary share he took in the controversies of the time.

The public cause to which he had devoted himself being lost, and the ruin of his party consummated in 1660, Milton reverted to his long-cherished poetical scheme. During the twenty years of political agitation this scheme had never been wholly banished from his thoughts. After much hesitation, ⚫long choosing and beginning late,' both subject and form had been decided on. The poem was to be an epic, and was to treat of the fall and recovery of He had begun to compose on this theme as early as 1658, and in 1665 Paradise Lost was completed. Owing to the Plague and the Fire, it

man.