ADDRESS TO HIS NATIVE SOIL. HAIL thou, my native soil! thou blessed plot Such rocks in whom the diamond fairly shines: EVENING. As in an evening when the gentle air FROM BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS. BOOK II. SONG V. BETWEEN two rocks (immortal, without mother)* *This description coincides very strikingly with the scenery of the Tamar, in Devonshire. Browne, who was a native of that county, must have studied it from nature. At further end the creek, a stately wood Yet that their happy voyage might not be Without time's short'ner, heav'n-taught melody (Music that lent feet to the stable woods, And in their currents turn'd the mighty floods, Sorrow's sweet nurse, yet keeping joy alive, Sad discontent's most welcome corrosive, The soul of art, best loved when love is by, The kind inspirer of sweet poesy, Least thou shouldst wanting be, when swans would fain Have sung one song, and never sung again) Nevermore let holy Dee O'er other rivers brave, Or boast how (in his jollity) Kings row'd upon his wave. But silent be, and ever know That Neptune for my fare would row. Swell then, gently swell, ye floods, As proud of what ye bear, And nymphs that in low coral woods String pearls upon your hair, Ascend; and tell if ere this day A fairer prize was seen at sea. See the salmons leap and bound Blow, but gently blow, fair wind, Till we have ferried o'er : So may'st thou still have leave to blow, And fan the way where she shall go. THOMAS NABBES. [Died, 1645.] THIS was an inferior dramatist in the time of Charles I. who, besides his plays, wrote a continuation of Knolles's History of the Turks. He seems to have been secretary or domestic to some nobleman or prelate, at or near Worcester. He had a share in the poetical collection called Fancy's Theatre, with Tatham, Richard Brome, and others. FROM "MICROCOSMUS, A MASQUE." 1637. SONG BY LOVE AND THE VIRTUES TO PHYSANDER AND BELLANIMA. WELCOME, Welcome, happy pair, No winter's ice, no summer's scorching beam; Chorus. All mortal sufferings laid aside, Here in endless bliss abide. Love. Welcome to Love, my new-loved heir, I thought to disinherit thee; Mine only daughter, fate allows That Love with stars should crown your brows. THOMAS HEYWOOD. [Died, 1649.] THOMAS HEYWOOD was the most prolific writer in the most fertile age of our drama*. In the midst of his theatrical labours as an actor and poet, he composed a formidable list of prose works, and defended the stage against the puritans, in a work that is full of learning. One of his projects was to write the lives of all poets that were ever distinguished, from the time of Homer downwards. Yet it has happened to the framer of this gigantic design to have no historian so kind to his own memory as to record either the period of his death, or the spot that covers his remains. His merits entitled him to better remembrance. He composed indeed with a careless rapidity, and seems to have thought as little of Horace's precept of "sæpe stylum vertas” as of most of the injunctions in the Art of Poetry. But he possesses considerable power of interesting the affections, by placing his plain and familiar characters in affecting situations. The worst of him is, that his common-place sentiments [* He had, as he himself tells us, "either an entire hand, or at the least a main finger, in two hundred and twenty plays." He was a native of Lincolnshire.] and plain incidents fall not only beneath the ideal beauty of art, but are often more fatiguing than what we meet with in the ordinary and unselected circumstances of life. When he has hit upon those occasions where the passions should obviously rise with accumulated expression, he lingers on through the scene with a dull and level indifference. The term artlessness may be applied to Heywood in two very opposite senses. His pathos is often artless in the better meaning of the word, because its objects are true to life, and their feelings naturally expressed. But he betrays still more frequently an artlessness, or we should rather call it, a want of art, in deficiency of contrivance. His best performance is, " A Woman killed with Kindness." In that play the repentance of Mrs. Frankford, who dies of a broken heart, for her infidelity to a generous husband, would present a situation consummately moving, if we were left to conceive her death to be produced simply by grief. But the poet most unskilfully prepares us for her death, by her declaring her intentions to starve herself; and mars, by the weakness, sin, and horror of suicide, an example of penitence that would otherwise be sublimely and tenderly edifying. The scene of the death of Mrs. Frankford has been deservedly noticed for its pathos by an eminent foreign critic, Mr. Schlegel*, who also commends the superior force of its inexorable morality to the reconciling conclusion of Kotzebue's drama on a similar subject. The learned German perhaps draws his inference too rigidly. Mrs. Frank ford's crime was recent, and her repentance and death immediately follow it; but the guilt of the other tragic penitent, to whom Mr. S. alludes, is more remote, and less heinous; and to prescribe interminable limits, either in real or imaginary life, to the generosity of individual forgiveness, is to invest morality with terrors, which the frailty of man and the mercy of Heaven do not justify. SCENE IN THE TRAGEDY "A WOMAN KILLED Enter CRANWEL, FRANKFORD, and NICHOLAS. Cran. WHY do you search each room about your house, Now that you have dispatch'd your wife away? [corner. Nic. * * Master, here's her lute flung in a Fran. Her lute? Oh God! upon this instrument Her fingers have ran quick division, Swifter than that which now divides our hearts. These frets have made me pleasant, that have now Frets of my heart-strings made. Omaster Cranwel, Oft hath she made this melancholy wood (Now mute and dumb for her disastrous chance) Speak sweetly many a note; sound many a strain To her own ravishing voice, which being well strung, What pleasant strange airs have they jointly rung? Post with it after her; now nothing's left; Of her and her's I am at once bereft. NICHOLAS Overtakes MRS. FRANKFORD with her lute. Nic. There. Anne. I know the lute; oft have I sung to thee: We both are out of tune, both out of time. Nic. My master commends him unto ye; there's all he can find that was ever yours: he hath nothing left that ever you could lay claim to but his own heart, and he could not afford you that. All that I have to deliver you is this; he prays you to forget him, and so he bids you farewell. Anne. I thank him; he is kind, and ever was. All you that have true feeling of my grief, That know my loss, and have relenting hearts, Gird me about; and help me, with your tears, To wash my spotted sins: my lute shall groan; It cannot weep, but shall lament my moan. *Mr. Schlegel, however, is mistaken in speaking of him as anterior to Shakspeare, evidently confounding him with an older poet of the name. FROM THE SAME. DEATH OF MRS. FRANKFORD. Persons. MR. MALBY, MRS. ANNE FRANKFORD, FRANK- Tell me, oh tell me, where's Mr. Frankford ? Mal. Yes, Mrs. Frankford: divers gentlemen And sure he will be here immediately. Anne. You have half revived me with the pleasing news: Raise me a little higher in my bed. Can you not read my fault writ in my cheek? Blood in your face enough to make you blush. Anne. Then sickness, like a friend, my fault would hide. Is my husband come? My soul but tarries Acton. I came to chide you, but my words of hate Are turn'd to pity and compassionate grief. Enter FRANKFORD. Fran. Good-morrow, brother; morrow, gentle men! God, that hath laid this cross upon our heads, Might (had he pleased) have made our cause of meeting On a more fair and more contented ground: Anne. Well, Mr. Frankford, well; but shall be better, I hope, within this hour. Will you vouchsafe (Out of your grace and your humanity) To take a spotted strumpet by the hand? Fran. This hand once held my heart in faster bonds Than now 'tis griped by me. God pardon them That made us first break hold! Anne. Amen, amen. Out of my zeal to heaven, whither I'm now bound, And once more beg your pardon. Oh! good man, Fran. As freely from the low depth of my soul All. So do we all. Acton. O, Mr. Frankford, all the near alliance I lose by her, shall be supplied in thee; You are my brother by the nearest way, Her kindred hath fallen off, but yours doth stay. Fran. Even as I hope for pardon at that day, When the great judge of heaven in scarlet sits, So be thou pardon'd. Though thy rash offence Divorced our bodies, thy repentant tears Unite our souls. Char. Then comfort, mistress Frankford; Acton. How d'ye feel yourself? [soul. Fran. I see you are not, and I weep to see it. My wife, the mother to my pretty babes ; Anne. Pardon'd on earth, soul, thou in heaven art free Once more! thy wife dies thus embracing thee. Acton. Peace with thee, Nan. Brothers and gentlemen, (All we that can plead interest in her grief) SONG OF NYMPHS TO DIANA. FROM "THE GOLDEN AGE." HAIL, beauteous Dian, queen of shades, That are by her allow'd; Than we to her have vow'd. Come, to the forest let us go, And freely thus they may do. Our food is honey from the bees, Of every steepy mountain; We drink the pleasant fountain. The shepherds, satyrs, &c. But rolls and scrolls, and bundles of cast wit, At alehouse, tavern, or an ordinary, WILLIAM DRUMMOND. [Born, 1585. Died, 1649.] THIS poet was born at Hawthornden, his father's estate in Mid-Lothian, took a degree at the university of Edinburgh, studied the civil law in France, and, returning home, entered into possession of his paternal estate, and devoted himself to literature. During his residence at Hawthornden he courted, and was on the eve of marrying, a lady of the name of Cunningham. Her sudden death inspired him with a melancholy which he sought to dissipate by travelling. He accordingly visited France, Italy, and Germany, and, during a stay of eight years on the Continent, conversed with the most polished society, and studied the objects most interesting to curiosity and taste. He collected at the same time a number of books and manuscripts, some of which are still in the library of his native university. On his second return to Scotland he found the kingdom distracted by political and religious ferment, and on the eve of a civil war. What connexion this aspect of public affairs had with his quitting Hawthornden, his biographers have not informed us, but so it was, that he retired to the seat of his brother-in-law, Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet, a manaof letters, and probably of political sentiments congenial with his own. At his abode he wrote his History of the Five James's, Kings of Scotland, a work abounding in false eloquence and slavish principles. Having returned at length to settle himself at his own seat, he married a lady of the name of Logan, of the house of Restalrig, in whom he fancied a resemblance to his former mistress, and repaired the family mansion of Hawthornden, with an inscription importing his hopes of resting there in honourable ease. But the times were little suited to promote his wishes; and on the civil war breaking out he involved himself with the covenanters, by writing in support of the opposite side, for which his enemies not only called him to a severe account, but compelled him to furnish his quota of men and arms to support the cause which he detested. His estate lying in different counties, he contributed halves and quarters of men to the forces that were raised; and on this occasion he wrote an epigram, bitterly wishing that the imaginary division of his recruits might be realised on their bodies. His grief for the death of Charles is said to have shortened his days. Such stories of political sensibility may be believed on proper evidence. 66 The elegance of Drummond's sonnets, and the humour of his Scotch and Latin macaronics, have been at least sufficiently praised: but when Milton has been described as essentially obliged to him, the compliment to his genius is stretched too far. A modern writer, who edited the works of Drummond, has affirmed, that, " perhaps," if we had had no Drummond, we should not have seen the finer delicacies of Milton's Comus, Lycidas, L'Allegro, and II, Penseroso. Perhaps is an excellent leading-string for weak assertions. One or two epithets of Drummond may be recognised in Milton, though not in the minor poems already mentioned*. It is difficult to apply any precise idea to the tautology of "fine delicacies;" but whatever the editor of Drummond meant by it, he may be assured that there is no debt on the part of Milton to the poet of Hawthornden, which the former could be the least impoverished by returning. Philips, the nephew of Milton, edited and extolled Drummond, and pronounced him equal to Tasso himself. It has been inferred from some passages of the Theatrum Poetarum that Milton had dictated several critical opinions in that performance; and it has been taken for granted that Philips's high opinion of Drummond was imbibed from the author of Paradise Lost. But the parallel between Drummond and Tasso surely could not have been drawn by Milton. Philips had a turn for poetry, and in many of his critical opinions in the Theatrum Poetarum, showed a taste that could not be well attributed to his uncle-in none more than in this exaggerated comparison of a smooth sonneteer to a mighty poet. It is equally improbable that he imbibed this absurdity from Milton, as that he caught from him his admiration of Drummond's prose compositions and arbitrary principles. [* The only passage in Milton that looks like borrowing from Drummond is in Lycidas: Gray, who borrowed always and ably, adopted one of his lines into his Elegy too exact and uncommon to be called a resemblance: Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife.] |