SUCKLING, WALLER, AND

CAREW.

There are but few instances in English poetry, where playfulness and sublimity, each in an eminent degree, are combined. The most sublime poet is the least sportive and playful of all: Shakspeare is the exception, he exhibits both, and affords an instance of "wit and judgment," combined.

Suckling, Waller, Carew and Butler, head the class of sportive poets: they are the most sprightly and graceful; they have the most playful fancy and the most sparkling wit; the most sportive gayety and jovial humor; the highest elegance connected with the most perfect ease; they have the keenest sense of the ludicrous, with the finest perception of the true and beautiful; in a word, they are the most witty, the most sportive, sparkling and polished writers, excepting Prior, and Swift, in the English language. Their humor is the most gay and variable; their wit cuts and sparkles like diamonds: and possessing the finest delicacies of style, and the greatest ease of versification, they are the most piquant and attractive of poets.

The songs and ballads of Suckling are inimitable

for grace and sportive gayety; "they have a pretty touch of a gentle spirit, and seem to savor more of the grape than the lamp." His soul is all joyous melody, and he invests every thing be describes with life and playfulness; as in his ballad on a Wedding, where he says of the bride:

Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice stole in and out,

As if they feared the light:

But, oh! she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter Day,

Is half so fine a sight.

"It is very daring, and has a sort of playful grandeur," says Mr. Hunt, with reference to this passage, "to compare a lady's dancing with the sun. But as the sun has it all to himself in the heavens, so she, in the blaze of her beauty, on earth. This is imagination fairly displaying fancy." "The following has," he continues, "enchanted every body:

Her lips were red, and one was thin,
Compared with that was next her chin,
Some bee had stung it newly.

Every reader has stolen a kiss at that lip, gay or grave."

Never believe me if I love,

Or know what 'tis, or mean to prove ;

And yet in faith I lie, I do

And she's extremely handsome too;
She's fair, she's wondrous fair,

But I care not who knows it,

E'er I'll die for love, I fairly will forego it.
This heat of hope, or cold of fear,

My foolish heart could never bear:
One sigh imprison'd, ruins more

Than earthquakes have done heretofore:
She's fair,

When I am hungry I do eat,

And cut no fingers 'stead of meat;
Nor with much gazing on her face,
Do e'er rise hungry from the place:
She's fair,

A gentle round, filled to the brink,
To this and t'other friend I drink ;
And if 'tis named another's health,
I never make it hers by stealth:
She's fair,

Blackfriars to me, and old Whitehall,
Is even as much as is the fall
Of fountains on a pathless grove,
And nourishes as much as my love:
She's fair,

I visit, talk, do business, play,

And for a need laugh out a day:
Who does not thus in Cupid's school

He makes not love, but plays the fool:
She's fair, she's wondrous fair,

But I care not who knows it;

E'er I'll die for love, I fairly will forego it.

SONG.

Honest lover whosoever,

If in all thy love there ever

Was one wavering thought, if thy flame

Were not still even, still the same;

Know this,

Thou lov'st amiss,

And, to love true,

Thou must begin again, and love anew. If, when she appears i' the room,

Thou dost not quake, and art struck dumb,
And in striving thus to cover,

Dost not speak thy words twice over;
Know this,

Thou lov'st amiss,

And, to love true,

Thou must begin again, and love anew.

If fondly thou dost not mistake,

And all defects for graces take;

Persuad'st thyself that jests are broken,
When she hath little or nothing spoken;
Know this,

Thou lov'st amiss,

And, to love true,

Thou must begin again, and love anew. If, when thou appear'st to be within, Thou lett'st not men ask, and ask again, And when thou answerest, if it be To what was asked thee properly; Know this,

Thou lov'st amiss,

And, to love true,

Thou must begin again, and love anew.

If, when thy stomach calls to eat,
Thou cutt'st not fingers 'stead of meat;

And, with much gazing on her face,
Dost not rise hungry from the place;
Know this,

Thou lov'st amiss,

And, to love true,

Thou must begin again, and love anew.

If by this, thou dost discover,

That thou art no perfect lover;

And desiring to love true,

Thou dost begin to love anew;

Know this,

Thou lov'st amiss,

And, to love true,

Thou must begin again, and love anew.

SONG.

Why so pale and wan, fond lover!
Prithee, why so pale?

Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail ?

Prithee, why so pale?

Why so dull and mute, young sinner!

Prithee, why so mute?

Will, when speaking well can't win her,
Saying nothing do 't?

Prithee, why so mute?

Quit, quit for shame! this will not move,

This cannot take her:

If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her :—
The devil take her!

Edmund Waller acknowledged Fairfax to be his model, and like him, he excelled in the elegance and smoothness of his verse. The art of modulation, which was attained in the age of Elizabeth, was neglected in his age: he was superior, in this respect, to most of the writers of his times, and he "added something to our elegance of diction, and something to our property of thought." Poetry was a recreation to