Passerat, Ronsard, Nicolas Rapin, and Pasquier, tried their hands in this style. Rapin improved upon it by rhyming in Sapphics. The following stanzas are from his ode on the death of Ronsard:—
Vous que les ruisseaux d’Helicon frequentez,
Vous que les jardins solitaires hantez,
Et le fonds des bois, curieux de choisir
L’ombre et le loisir.
Qui vivant bien loin de la fange et du bruit,
Et de ces grandeurs que le peuple poursuit,
Estimez les vers que la muse apres vous
Trempe de miel doux.
Notre grand Ronsard, de ce monde sorti,
Les efforts derniers de la Parque a senti;
Ses faveurs n’ont pu le garantir enfin
Contre le destin, &c. &c.
Pasquier, ubi supra.
General character of French poetry. 55. It may be said, perhaps, of French poetry in general, but at least in this period, that it deviates less from a certain standard than any other. It is not often low, as may be imputed to the earlier writers, because a peculiar style, removed from common speech, and supposed to be classical, was a condition of satisfying the critics; it is not often obscure, at least in syntax, as the Italian sonnet is apt to be, because the genius of the language and the habits of society demanded perspicuity. But it seldom delights us by a natural sentiment or unaffected grace of diction, because both one and the other were fettered by conventional rules. The monotony of amorous song is more wearisome, if that be possible, than among the Italians.
German poetry. 56. The characteristics of German verse impressed upon it by the meister-singers still remained, though the songs of those fraternities seem to have ceased. It was chiefly didactic or religious, often satirical, and employing the veil of apologue. Luther, Hans Sachs, and other more obscure names are counted among the fabulists; but the most successful was Burcard Waldis, whose fables, partly from Æsop, partly original, were first published in 1548. The Froschmauseler of Rollenhagen, in 1545, is in a similar style of political and moral apologue with some liveliness of description. Fischart is another of the moral satirists, but extravagant in style and humour, resembling Rabelais, of whose romance he gave a free translation. One of his poems, Die Gluckhafte Schiff, is praised by Bouterwek for beautiful descriptions and happy inventions; but in general he seems to be the Skelton of Germany. Many German ballads belong to this period, partly taken from the old tales of chivalry: in these the style is humble, with no poetry except that of invention, which is not their own; yet they are true-hearted and unaffected, and better than what the next age produced.[1204]
[1204] Bouterwek, vol. ix. Heinsius, vol. iv.
Sect. IV.—On English Poetry.
Paradise of Dainty Devices—Sackville—Gascoyne—Spenser’s Shepherd’s Kalendar—Improvement in Poetry—England’s Helicon—Sydney—Shakspeare’s Poems—Poets near the Close of the Century—Translations—Scots and English Ballads—Spenser’s Faery Queen.
Paradise of Dainty Devices. 57. The poems of Wyatt and Surrey with several more first appeared in 1557, and were published in a little book, entitled Tottel’s Miscellanies. But as both of these belonged to the reign of Henry VIII. their poetry has come already under our review. It is probable that Lord Vaux’s short pieces, which are next to those of Surrey and Wyatt in merit, were written before the middle of the century. Some of these are published in Tottel, and others in a scarce collection, the first edition of which was in 1576, quaintly named, The Paradise of Dainty Devices. The poems in this volume, as in that of Tottel, are not coeval with its publication; it has been supposed to represent the age of Mary, full as much as that of Elizabeth, and one of the chief contributors, if not framers of the collection, Richard Edwards, died in 1566. Thirteen poems are by Lord Vaux, who certainly did not survive the reign of Mary.
Character of this collection. 58. We are indebted to Sir Egerton Brydges for the republication, in his British Bibliographer, of the Paradise of Dainty Devices, of which, though there had been eight editions, it is said that not above six copies existed.[1205] The poems are almost all short, and by more nearly thirty than twenty different authors. “They do not, it must be admitted,” says their editor, “belong to the higher classes; they are of the moral and didactic kind. In their subject there is too little variety, as they deal very generally in the commonplaces of ethics, such as the fickleness and caprices of love, the falsehood and instability of friendship, and the vanity of all human pleasures. But many of these are often expressed with a vigour which would do credit to any æra.... If my partiality does not mislead me, there is in most of these short pieces some of that indescribable attraction which springs from the colouring of the heart. The charm of imagery is wanting, but the precepts inculcated seem to flow from the feelings of an overloaded bosom.” Edwards, he considers, probably with justice, as the best of the contributors, and Lord Vaux the next. We should be inclined to give as high a place to William Hunnis, were his productions all equal to one little poem;[1206] but too often he falls into trivial morality and a ridiculous excess of alliteration. The amorous poetry is the best in this Paradise; it is not imaginative or very graceful, or exempt from the false taste of antithetical conceits, but sometimes natural and pleasing; the serious pieces are in general very heavy, yet there is a dignity and strength in some of the devotional strains. They display the religious earnestness of that age with a kind of austere philosophy in their views of life. Whatever indeed be the subject, a tone of sadness reigns through this misnamed Paradise of Daintiness, as it does through all the English poetry of this particular age. It seems as if the confluence of the poetic melancholy of the Petrarchists with the reflective seriousness of the Reformation overpowered the lighter sentiments of the soul; and some have imagined, I know not how justly, that the persecutions of Mary’s reign contributed to this effect.
[1205] Beloe’s Anecdotes of Literature, vol. v.