Richard Lovelace is when at his best the greatest of the Cavalier poets, and is personally one of the most sympathetic of men. The eldest son of Sir William Lovelace of "Woolidge" (Woolwich), he was born in 1618, educated at Charterhouse School, and at Gloucester Hall, in Oxford. He is styled "Adonis" in some pleasant verses by a friend, and, like that more glorious cavalier, Wogan, as described by Clarendon, was "accounted the most amiable and beautiful person that eye ever beheld," according to the Oxford antiquary, Wood. Under Goring, to whom he wrote a ringing song of camp revelry, he served in the inglorious expedition of Charles I to Scotland, in 1639; and wrote a lost play, "The Soldier". For presenting a Royalist petition from the county of Kent to Parliament (April, 1642) he was imprisoned for some weeks, and then let out on bail of £40,000 (?) not to leave the Parliamentary lines.
He and his brothers were devoted to each other, as appears from poems which passed between them. He provided Francis and William, slain at Carmarthen, with money and men for the Royal service, and Dudley with the expenses of a military education. In 1646 he raised a regiment for the French service, was wounded at Dunkirk, and was reported dead. His Lucasta, Lucy Sacheverell, then married another man, and, in 1648, Richard returned to England, and, with Dudley, was taken and imprisoned.
In 1649 be published his "Lucasta," with engravings after Lely (who signs himself "P. Lilly"), it is a strangely ill-printed little volume. After the death of Charles I, Lovelace was reduced to great poverty, and died "in Gunpowder Alley, near Shoe Lane," in 1658. His friend, Charles Cotton, the pupil and friend of Walton, is said to have helped to support him. A second part of "Lucasta," containing little of merit, was published by Dudley Lovelace in 1659.
Like so many of the poets of his day, Lovelace was inspired but seldom, and, when uninspired fell into sterile conceits and below mediocrity. His unrivalled poems of true love, "To Lucasta, Going beyond Seas," "To Althæa, from Prison," "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars" (strangely attributed by Scott to Montrose), are beyond praise or rivalry. "Honour is my Life," wrote Montrose in his Bible; love and honour inspire Lovelace with faultless and immortal verse. "To Amarantha, that she would dishevel her hair,"
But shake your head and scatter day,
is also a charming song; and Suckling could not exceed the cheerful impudence of
Why shouldst thou swear I am forsworn,
Since thine I vowed to be,
Lady, it is already Morn,
And 'twas last night I swore to thee
That fond impossibility.
We can but wish for Lovelace that he had ridden with Wogan from Dover to the North, and died with the last of the loyal on the hills.
Suckling.