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V.

Sonnets of

Drummond

50. Notwithstanding the frequent beauties of these sonnets, the pleasure of their perusal is greatly diminished by these circumstances; and it is impossible not to wish that Shakspeare had never written them. There is a weakness and folly in all excessive and mis-placed affection, which is not redeemed by the touches of nobler sentiments that abound in this long series of sonnets. But there are also faults of a merely critical nature. The obscurity is often such as only conjecture can penetrate; the strain of tenderness and adoration would be too monotonous, were it less unpleasing; and so many frigid conceits are scattered around, that we might almost fancy the poet to have written without genuine emotion, did not such a host of other passages attest the contrary.

51. The sonnets of Drummond of Hawthornden, and others. the most celebrated in that class of poets, have obtained, probably, as much praise as they deserve.*

quoted, had any knowledge of their
priority.

Drake has fixed on Lord South-
ampton as the object of these son-
nets, induced probably by the tra-
dition of his friendship with Shak-
speare, and by the latter's having
dedicated to him his Venus and
Adonis, as well as by what is re-
markable on the face of the series of
sonnets, that Shakspeare looked up
to his friend "with reverence and
homage." But, unfortunately, this
was only the reverence and homage
of an inferior to one of high rank,
and not such as the virtues of
Southampton might have chal-
lenged. Proofs of the low moral
character of" Mr. W. H." are con-
tinual. It was also impossible that
Lord Southampton could be called

"beauteous and lovely youth," or "sweet boy." Mrs. Jameson, in her "Loves of the Poets," has adopted the same hypothesis, but is forced in consequence to suppose some of the earlier sonnets to be addressed to a woman.

Pembroke succeeded to his father in 1601: I incline to think that the sonnets were written about that time, some probably earlier, some later. That they were the same as Meres, in 1598, has mentioned among the compositions of Shakspeare, "his sugred sonnets among his private friends," I do not believe, both on account of the date, and from the peculiarly personal allusions they contain.

* I concur in this with Mr. Campbell, iv. 343. Mr. Southey

V.

But they are polished and elegant, free from conceit CHAP. and bad taste, in pure unblemished English; some are pathetic or tender in sentiment, and if they do not show much originality, at least would have acquired a fair place among the Italians of the sixteenth century. Those of Daniel, of Drayton, and of Sir William Alexander, afterwards Earl of Stirling, are perhaps hardly inferior. Some may doubt, however, whether the last poet should be placed on such a level. But the difficulty of finding the necessary rhymes in our language has caused most who have attempted the sonnet to swerve from laws which cannot be transgressed, at least to the degree they have often dared, without losing the unity for which that complex mechanism was contrived. Certainly three quatrains of alternate rhymes, succeeded by a couplet, which Drummond, like many other English poets, has sometimes given us, is the very worst form of the sonnet, even if, in deference to a scanty number of Italian prece

thinks Drummond "has deserved the high reputation he has obtained;" which seems to say the same thing, but is in fact different. He observes that Drummond " frequently borrows and sometimes translates from the Italian and Spanish poets." Southey's British Poets, p. 798. The furious invective of Gifford against Drummond for having written private memoranda of his conversations with Ben Jonson, which he did not publish, and which, for aught we know, were perfectly faithful, is absurd. Any one else would have been thankful for so much literary anecdote.

* Lord Stirling is rather mono-
tonous, as sonnetteers usually are,
and he addresses his mistress by
the appellation,
"Fair tygress.
Campbell observes that there is
elegance of expression in a few of
Stirling's shorter pieces. Vol. iv.
p. 206. The longest poem of Stir-
ling is intitled Domesday, in twelve
books, or, as he calls them, hours.
It is written in the Italian octave
stanza, and has somewhat of the
condensed style of the philosophi-
cal school, which he seems to have
imitated, but his numbers are
harsh.

CHAP. dents, we allow it to pass as a sonnet at all.*

V.

Carew.

We

possess indeed noble poetry in the form of sonnet; yet with us it seems more fitted for grave than amatory composition; in the latter we miss the facility and grace of our native English measures, the song, the madrigal, or the ballad.

52. Carew is the most celebrated among the lighter poets, though no collection has hitherto embraced his entire writings. Headley has said, and Ellis echoes the praise, that "Carew has the ease without the pedantry of Waller, and perhaps less conceit. Waller is too exclusively considered as the first man who brought versification to anything like its present standard. Carew's pretensions to the same merit are seldom sufficiently either considered or allowed." Yet in point of versification, others of the same age seem to have surpassed Carew, whose lines are often very harmonious, but not so artfully constructed or so uniformly pleasing as those of Waller. He is remarkably unequal; the best of his little poems, (none of more than thirty lines are good) excel all of his time; but, after a few lines of great beauty, we often come to

*The legitimate sonnet consists of two quatrains and two tercets; as much skill, to say the least, is required for the management of the latter as of the former. The rhymes of the last six lines are capable of many arrangements; but by far the worst, and also the least common in Italy, is that we usually adopt, the fifth and sixth rhyming together, frequently after a full pause, so that the sonnet ends with the point of an epigram. The best form, as the Italians hold, is the rhyming together of the three uneven, and

the three even lines; but as our language is less rich in consonant terminations, there can be no objection to what has abundant precedents even in theirs, the rhyming of the first and fourth, second and fifth, third and sixth, lines. This, with a break in the sense at the third line, will make a real sonnet, which Shakspeare, Milton, Bowles, and Wordsworth have often failed to give us, even where they have given us something good instead.

V.

some ill expressed or obscure, or weak, or inhar- CHAP. monious passage. Few will hesitate to acknowledge that he has more fancy and more tenderness than Waller, but less choice, less judgment and knowledge where to stop, less of the equability which never offends, less attention to the unity and thread of his little pieces. I should hesitate to give him, on the whole, the preference as a poet, taking collectively the attributes of that character; for we must not, in such a comparison, overlook a good deal of very inferior merit which may be found in the short volume of Carew's poems. The best has great beauty, but he has had, in late criticism, his full share of applause. Two of his most pleasing little poems appear also among those of Herrick ; and as Carew's were, I believe, published posthumously, I am rather inclined to prefer the claim of the other poet, independently of some internal evidence as to one of them. In all ages, these very short compositions circulate for a time in polished society, while mistakes as to the real author are natural.*

* One of these poems begins, Amongst the myrtles as I walked, Love and my sighs thus intertalked." Herrick wants four good lines which are in Carew; and as they are rather more likely to have been interpolated than left out, this leads to a sort of inference that he was the original; there are also some other petty improvements. The second poem is that beginning "Ask me why I send you here This firstling of the infant year." Herrick gives the second line strangely, "This sweet infanta of the year," which is little else than nonsense; and all the

other variances are for the worse.
I must leave it in doubt, whether
he borrowed, and disfigured a little,
or was himself improved upon. I
must own that he has a trick of
spoiling what he takes. Suckling
has an incomparable image, on a
lady dancing.

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

As if they feared the light-
Herrick has it thus—

Her pretty feet, like snails, did creep
A little out;

A most singular parallel for an ele-
gant dancer.

CHAP.
V.

Lovelace.

Herrick.

at no higher praise; he shows no sentiment or imagination, either because he had them not, or because he did not require either in the style he chose. Perhaps the Italians may have poetry in that style equal to Suckling's; I do not know that they have, nor do I believe that there is any in French; that there is none in Latin I know.* Lovelace is chiefly known by a single song; his other poetry is much inferior; and indeed it may be generally remarked that the flowers of our early verse, both in the Elizabethan and the subsequent age, have been well culled by good taste and a friendly spirit of selection. We must not judge of them, or shall judge of them very favourably, by the extracts of Headley or Ellis.

57. The most amorous, and among the best of our amorous poets was Robert Herrick, a clergyman ejected from his living in Devonshire by the long parliament, whose "Hesperides, or Poems Human and Divine," were published in 1648. Herrick's divine poems are of course such as might be presumed by their title and by his calling; of his human, which are poetically much superior, and probably written in early life, the greater portion is light and voluptuous, while some border on the licentious and indecent. A selection was published in 1815, by which, as commonly happens, the poetical fame, of Herrick does not suffer; a number of dull epigrams are omitted, and the editor has a manifest preference for what must be

* Suckling's Epithalamium, though not written for those "Qui Musas colitis severiores," has been

read by almost all the world, and is a matchless piece of liveliness and facility.