Poems of Shakspeare. 68. Shakspeare’s Venus and Adonis appears to have been published in 1593, and his Rape of Lucrece the following year. The redundance of blossoms in these juvenile effusions of his unbounded fertility obstructs the reader’s attention, and sometimes almost leads us to give him credit for less reflection and sentiment than he will be found to display. The style is flowing, and, in general, more perspicuous than the Elizabethan poets are wont to be. But I am not sure that they would betray themselves for the works of Shakspeare, had they been anonymously published.
Daniel and Drayton. 69. In the last decade of this century several new poets came forward. Samuel Daniel is one of these. His Complaint of Rosamond, and probably many of his minor poems, belong to this period; and it was also that of his greatest popularity. On the death of Spenser in 1598, he was thought worthy to succeed him as poet laureate; and some of his contemporaries ranked him in the second place; an eminence due rather to the purity of his language than to its vigour.[1215] Michael Drayton, who first tried his shepherd’s pipe with some success in the usual style, published his Baron’s Wars in 1598. They relate to the last years of Edward II., and conclude with the execution of Mortimer under his son. This poem, therefore, seems to possess a sufficient unity, and, tried by rules of criticism might be thought not far removed from the class of epic—a dignity, however, to which it has never pretended. But in its conduct Drayton follows history very closely, and we are kept too much in mind of a common chronicle. Though not very pleasing, however, in its general effect, this poem, The Barons’ Wars, contains several passages of considerable beauty, which men of greater renown, especially Milton, who availed himself largely of all the poetry of the preceding age, have been willing to imitate.
[1215] British Bibliographer, vol. ii. Headley remarks that Daniel was spoken of by contemporary critics as the polisher and purifier of the English language.
Nosce Teipsum, of Davies. 70. A more remarkable poem is that of Sir John Davies, afterwards chief-justice of Ireland, entitled Nosce Teipsum, published in 1600, usually though rather inaccurately, called, his poem on the Immortality of the Soul. Perhaps no language can produce a poem, extending to so great a length, of more condensation of thought, or in which fewer languid verses will be found. Yet, according to some definitions, the Nosce Teipsum is wholly unpoetical, inasmuch as it shows no passion and little fancy. If it reaches the heart at all, it is through the reason. But since strong argument in terse and correct style fails not to give us pleasure in prose, it seems strange that it should lose its effect when it gains the aid of regular metre to gratify the ear and assist the memory. Lines there are in Davies which far outweigh much of the descriptive and imaginative poetry of the last two centuries, whether we estimate them by the pleasure they impart to us, or by the intellectual vigour they display. Experience has shown that the faculties peculiarly deemed poetical are frequently exhibited in a considerable degree, but very few have been able to preserve a perspicuous brevity without stiffness or pedantry (allowance made for the subject and the times), in metaphysical reasoning, so successfully as Sir John Davies.
Satires of Hall, Marston, and Donne. 71. Hall’s Satires are tolerably known, partly on account of the subsequent celebrity of the author in a very different province, and partly from a notion, to which he gave birth by announcing the claim, that he was the first English satirist. In a general sense of satire, we have seen that he had been anticipated by Gascoyne; but Hall has more of the direct Juvenalian invective, which he may have reckoned essential to that species of poetry. They are deserving of regard in themselves. Warton has made many extracts from Hall’s Satires; he praises in them “a classical precision, to which English poetry had yet rarely attained;” and calls the versification “equally energetic and elegant.”[1216]
[1216] Hist, of English Poetry, iv. 338.
The former epithet may be admitted; but elegance is hardly compatible with what Warton owns to be the chief fault of Hall, “his obscurity, arising from a remote phraseology, constrained combinations, unfamiliar allusions, elliptical apostrophes, and abruptness of expression.” Hall is in fact not only so harsh and rugged, that he cannot be read with much pleasure, but so obscure in very many places that he cannot be understood at all, his lines frequently bearing no visible connection in sense or grammar with their neighbours. The stream is powerful, but turbid and often choked.[1217] Marston and Donne may be added to Hall in this style of poetry, as belonging to the sixteenth century, though the satires of the latter were not published till long afterwards. With as much obscurity as Hall, he has a still more inharmonious versification, and not nearly equal vigour.
[1217] Hall’s Satires are praised by Campbell, as well as Warton, full as much, in my opinion, as they deserve. Warton has compared Marston with Hall, and concludes that the latter is more “elegant, exact, and elaborate.” More so than his rival he may by possibility be esteemed; but these three epithets cannot be predicated of his satires in any but a relative sense.
Modulation of English verse. 72. The roughness of these satirical poets was perhaps studiously affected; for it was not much in unison with the general tone of the age. It requires a good deal of care to avoid entirely the combinations of consonants that clog our language; nor have Drayton or Spenser always escaped this embarrassment. But in the lighter poetry of the queen’s last years, a remarkable sweetness of modulation has always been recognised. This has sometimes been attributed to the general fondness for music. It is at least certain, that some of our old madrigals are as beautiful in language as they are in melody. Several collections were published in the reign of Elizabeth.[1218] And it is evident that the regard to the capacity of his verse for marriage with music, that was before the poet’s mind, would not only polish his metre, but give it grace and sentiment, while it banished also the pedantry, the antithesis, the prolixity, which had disfigured the earlier lyric poems. Their measures became more various: though the quatrain, alternating by eight and six syllables, was still very popular, we find the trochaic verse of seven, sometimes ending with a double rhyme, usual towards the end of the queen’s reign. Many of these occur in England’s Helicon, and in the poems of Sydney.
[1218] Morley’s Musical Airs, 1594, and another collection in 1597, contain some pretty songs. British Bibliographer, i. 342. A few of these madrigals will also be found in Mr. Campbell’s Specimens.