Sydney’s character of contemporary poets. 62. Sir Philip Sydney, in his Defence of Poesie, which may have been written at any time between 1581 and his death in 1586, laments that “poesy thus embraced in all other places, should only find in our time a bad welcome in England;” and, after praising Sackville, Surrey, and Spenser for the Shepherd’s Kalendar, does not “remember to have seen many more that have poetical sinews in them. For proof whereof, let but most of the verses be put into prose, and then ask the meaning, and it will be found that one verse did but beget another, without ordering at the first what should be at the last; which becomes a confused mass of words, with a tinkling sound of rhyme, barely accompanied with reason.... Truly many of such writings as come under the banner of irresistible love, if I were a mistress, would never persuade me they were in love; so coldly they apply fiery speeches as men that had rather read lovers’ writings, and so caught up certain swelling phrases, than that in truth they feel those passions.”
Improvement soon after this time. 63. It cannot be denied that some of these blemishes are by no means unusual in the writers of the Elizabethan age, as in truth they are found also in much other poetry of many countries. But a change seems to have come over the spirit of English poetry soon after 1580. Sydney, Raleigh, Lodge, Breton, Marlowe, Greene, Watson, are the chief contributors to a collection called England’s Helicon, published in 1600, and comprising many of the fugitive pieces of the last twenty years. Davidson’s Poetical Rhapsody, in 1602, is a miscellany of the same class. A few other collections are known to have existed, but are still more scarce than these. England’s Helicon, by far the most important, has been reprinted in the same volume of the British Bibliographer as the Paradise of Dainty Devices. In this juxtaposition the difference of their tone is very perceptible. Love occupies by far the chief portion of the later miscellany; and love no longer pining and melancholy, but sportive and boastful. Every one is familiar with the beautiful song of Marlowe, “Come live with me and be my love;” and with the hardly less beautiful answer ascribed to Raleigh. Lodge has ten pieces in this collection, and Breton eight. These are generally full of beauty, grace, and simplicity; and, while in reading the productions of Edwards and his coadjutors every sort of allowance is to be made, and we can only praise a little at intervals, these lyrics, twenty or thirty years later, are among the best in our language. The conventional tone is that of pastoral; and thus, if they have less of the depth sometimes shown in serious poetry, they have less also of obscurity and false refinement.[1211]
[1211] Ellis, in the second volume of his Specimens of English Poets, has taken largely from this collection. It must be owned that his good taste in selection gives a higher notion of the poetry of this age than, on the whole, it would be found to deserve; yet there is so much of excellence in England’s Helicon, that he has been compelled to omit many pieces of great merit.
Relaxation of moral austerity. 64. We may easily perceive in the literature of the later period of the queen, what our biographical knowledge confirms, that much of the austerity characteristic of her earlier years had vanished away. The course of time, the progress of vanity, the prevalent dislike, above all, of the Puritans, avowed enemies of gaiety, concurred to this change. The most distinguished courtiers, Raleigh, Essex, Blount, and we must add Sydney, were men of brilliant virtues, but not without license of morals; while many of the wits and poets, such as Nash, Greene, Peele, Marlowe, were notoriously of very dissolute lives.
Serious poetry. 65. The graver strains, however, of religion and philosophy were still heard in verse. The Soul’s Errand, printed anonymously in Davison’s Rhapsody, and ascribed by Ellis, probably without reason, to Silvester, is characterised by strength, condensation, and simplicity.[1212] And we might rank in a respectable place among these English poets, though I think he has been lately overrated, one whom the jealous law too prematurely deprived of life, Robert Southwell, executed as a seminary priest in 1591, under one of those persecuting statutes which even the traitorous restlessness of the English Jesuits cannot excuse. Southwell’s poetry wears a deep tinge of gloom, which seems to presage a catastrophe too usual to have been unexpected. It is, as may be supposed, almost wholly religious; the shorter pieces are the best.[1213]
[1212] Campbell reckons this, and I think justly, among the best pieces of the Elizabethan age. Brydges gives it to Raleigh without evidence, and we may add, without probability. It is found in manuscripts, according to Mr. Campbell, of the date of 1593. Such poems as this could only be written by a man who had seen and thought much; while the ordinary Latin and Italian verses of this age might be written by any one who had a knack of imitation and a good ear.
[1213] I am not aware that Southwell has gained anything by a republication of his entire poems in 1817. Headley and Ellis had culled the best specimens. St. Peter’s Complaint, the longest of his poems, is wordy and tedious; and in reading the volume I found scarce anything of merit which I had not seen before.
Poetry of Sydney. 66. Astrophel and Stella, a series of amatory poems by Sir Philip Sydney, though written nearly ten years before, was published in 1591. These songs and sonnets recount the loves of Sydney and Lady Rich, sister of Lord Essex; and it is rather a singular circumstance that, in her own and her husband’s lifetime, this ardent courtship of a married woman should have been deemed fit for publication. Sydney’s passion seems indeed to have been unsuccessful, but far enough from being platonic.[1214] Astrophel and Stella is too much disfigured by conceits, but is in some places very beautiful; and it is strange that Chalmers, who reprinted Turberville and Warner, should have left Sydney out of his collection of British poets. A poem by the writer just mentioned, Warner, with the quaint title, Albion’s England, 1586, has at least the equivocal merit of great length. It is rather legendary than historical; some passages are pleasing, but it is not a work of genius, and the style, though natural, seldom rises above that of prose.
[1214] Godwin having several years since made some observations on Sydney’s amour with Lady Rich, a circumstance which such biographers as Dr. Zouch take good care to suppress, a gentleman who published an edition of Sydney’s Defence of Poetry thought fit to indulge in recriminating attacks on Godwin himself. It is singular that men of sense and education should persist in fancying that such arguments are likely to convince any dispassionate reader.
Epithalamium of Spenser. 67. Spenser’s Epithalamium on his own marriage, written perhaps in 1594, is of a far higher mood than anything we have named. It is a strain redolent of a bridegroom’s joy, and of a poet’s fancy. The English language seems to expand itself with a copiousness unknown before, while he pours forth the varied imagery of this splendid little poem. I do not know any other nuptial song, ancient or modern, of equal beauty. It is an intoxication of ecstacy, ardent, noble, and pure. But it pleased not heaven that these day dreams of genius and virtue should be undisturbed.