[491] Was not Milton’s Ode on the Nativity written as early as any of Cowley’s? And would Johnson have thought Cowley superior in gaiety to Sir John Suckling?
Narrative poets. Daniel. 43. The poets of historical or fabulous narrative belong to another class. Of these the earliest is Daniel, whose minor poems fall partly within the sixteenth century. His History of the Civil Wars between York and Lancaster, a poem in eight books, was published in 1604. Faithfully adhering to truth, which he does not suffer so much as an ornamental episode to interrupt, and equally studious to avoid the bolder figures of poetry, it is not surprising that Daniel should be little read. It is indeed certain that much Italian and Spanish poetry, even by those whose name has once stood rather high, depends chiefly upon merits which he abundantly possesses, a smoothness of rhythm, and a lucid narration in simple language. But that which from the natural delight in sweet sound is enough to content the ear in the southern tongues, will always seem bald and tame in our less harmonious verse. It is the chief praise of Daniel, and must have contributed to what popularity he enjoyed in his own age, that his English is eminently pure, free from affectation of archaism and from pedantic innovation, with very little that is now obsolete. Both in prose and in poetry, he is, as to language, among the best writers of his time, and wanted but a greater confidence in his own power, or, to speak less indulgently, a greater share of it, to sustain his correct taste, calm sense, and moral feeling.
Drayton’s Polyolbion. 44. Next to Daniel in time, and much above him in reach of mind, we place Michael Drayton, whose Baron’s Wars have been mentioned under the preceding period, but whose more famous work was published partly in 1613 and partly in 1622. Drayton’s Polyolbion is a poem of about 30,000 lines in length, written in Alexandrine couplets, a measure, from its monotony, and perhaps from its frequency in doggerel ballads, not at all pleasing to the ear. It contains a topographical description of England, illustrated with a prodigality of historical and legendary erudition. Such a poem is essentially designed to instruct, and speaks to the understanding more than to the fancy. The powers displayed in it are, however, of a high cast. It has generally been a difficulty with poets to deal with a necessary enumeration of proper names. The catalogue of ships is not the most delightful part of the Iliad, and Ariosto never encounters such a roll of persons or places without sinking into the tamest insipidity. Virgil is splendidly beautiful upon similar occasions; but his decorative elegance could not be preserved, nor would continue to please in a poem that kept up through a great length the effort to furnish instruction. The style of Drayton is sustained, with extraordinary ability, on an equable line, from which he seldom much deviates, neither brilliant nor prosaic; few or no passages could be marked as impressive, but few are languid or mean. The language is clear, strong, various, and sufficiently figurative; the stories and fictions interspersed, as well as the general spirit and liveliness, relieve the heaviness incident to topographical description. There is probably no poem of this kind in any other language, comparable together in extent and excellence to the Polyolbion; nor can any one read a portion of it without admiration for its learned and highly gifted author. Yet, perhaps, no English poem, known as well by name, is so little known beyond its name; for while its immense length deters the common reader, it affords, as has just been hinted, no great harvest for selection, and would be judged very unfairly by partial extracts. It must be owned also that geography and antiquities may, in modern times, be taught better in prose than in verse; yet, whoever consults the Polyolbion for such objects, will probably be repaid by petty knowledge which he may not have found anywhere else.
Browne’s Britannia’s Pastorals. 45. Among these historical poets I should incline to class William Browne, author of a poem with the quaint title of Britannia’s Pastorals, though his story, one of little interest, seems to have been invented by himself. Browne indeed is of no distinct school among the writers of that age; he seems to recognise Spenser as his master, but his own manner is more to be traced among later than earlier poets. He was a native of Devonshire; and his principal poem, above-mentioned, relating partly to the local scenery of that county, was printed in 1613. Browne is truly a poet full of imagination, grace, and sweetness, though not very nervous or rapid. I know not why Headley, favourable enough for the most part to this generation of the sons of song, has spoken of Browne with unfair contempt. Justice, however, has been done to him by later critics.[492] But I have not observed that they take notice of what is remarkable in the history of our poetical literature, that Browne is an early model of ease and variety in the regular couplet. Many passages in his unequal poem are hardly excelled by the fables of Dryden. It is manifest that Milton was well acquainted with the writings of Browne.
[492] “Browne,” Mr. Southey says, “is a poet who produced no slight effect upon his contemporaries. George Wither in his happiest pieces has learned the manner of his friend, and Milton may be traced to him. And in our days his peculiarities have been caught, and his beauties imitated, by men who will themselves find admirers and imitators hereafter.” “His poetry,” Mr. Campbell, a far less indulgent judge of the older bards, observes, “is not without beauty; but it is the beauty of mere landscape and allegory, without the manners and passions that constitute human interest.” Specimens of English Poetry, iv. 323.
Sir John Beaumont. 46. The commendation of improving the rhythm of the couplet is due also to Sir John Beaumont, author of a short poem on the battle of Bosworth Field. It was not written, however, so early as the Britannia’s Pastorals of Browne. In other respects it has no pretensions to a high rank. But it may be added that a poem of Drummond on the visit of James I. to Scotland, in 1617, is perfectly harmonious; and what is very remarkable in that age, he concludes the verse at every couplet with the regularity of Pope.
Davenant’s Gondibert. 47. Far unlike the poem of Browne was Gondibert, published by Sir William Davenant in 1650. It may probably have been reckoned by himself an epic: but in that age the practice of Spain and Italy had effaced the distinction between the regular epic and the heroic romance. Gondibert belongs rather to the latter class by the entire want of truth in the story, though the scene is laid at the court of the Lombard kings, by the deficiency of unity in the action, by the intricacy of the events, and by the resources of the fable, which are sometimes too much in the style of comic fiction. It is so imperfect, only two books and part of the third being completed, that we can hardly judge of the termination it was to receive. Each book, however, after the manner of Spenser, is divided into several cantos. It contains about 6,000 lines. The metre is the four-lined stanza of alternate rhymes; one capable of great vigour, but not perhaps well adapted to poetry of imagination or of passion. These, however, Davenant exhibits but sparingly in Gondibert; they are replaced by a philosophical spirit, in the tone of Sir John Davies, who had adopted the same metre, and, as some have thought, nourished by the author’s friendly intercourse with Hobbes. Gondibert is written in a clear, nervous, English style; its condensation produces some obscurity, but pedantry, at least that of language, will rarely be found in it, and Davenant is less infected by the love of conceit and of extravagance than his contemporaries, though I would not assert that he is wholly exempt from the former blemish. But the chief praise of Gondibert is for masculine verse in a good metrical cadence; for the sake of which we may forgive the absence of interest in the story, and even of those glowing words and breathing thoughts which are the soul of genuine poetry. Gondibert is very little read; yet it is better worth reading than the Purple Island, though it may have less of that which distinguishes a poet from another man.
Sonnets of Shakspeare. 48. The sonnets of Shakspeare, for we now come to the minor, that is, the shorter and more lyric, poetry of the age, were published in 1609, in a manner as mysterious as their subject and contents. They are dedicated by an editor (Thomas Thorpe, a bookseller) “to Mr. W. H., the only begetter of these sonnets.”[493] No one, as far as I remember, has ever doubted their genuineness; no one can doubt that they express not only real but intense emotions of the heart; but when they were written, who was the W. H., quaintly called their begetter, by which we can only understand the cause of their being written, and to what persons or circumstances they allude, has of late years been the subject of much curiosity. These sonnets were long overlooked; Steevens spoke of them with the utmost scorn, as productions which no one could read; but a very different suffrage is generally given by the lovers of poetry, and perhaps there is now a tendency, especially among young men of poetical tempers, to exaggerate the beauties of these remarkable productions. They rise, indeed, in estimation as we attentively read and reflect upon them; for I do not think that at first they give us much pleasure. No one ever entered more fully than Shakspeare into the character of this species of poetry, which admits of no expletive imagery, no merely ornamental line. But though each sonnet has generally its proper unity, the sense, I do not mean the grammatical construction, will sometimes be found to spread from one to another, independently of that repetition of the leading idea, like variations of an air, which a series of them frequently exhibits, and on account of which they have latterly been reckoned by some rather an integral poem than a collection of sonnets. But this is not uncommon among the Italians, and belongs in fact to those of Petrarch himself. They may easily be resolved into several series according to their subjects;[494] but when read attentively, we find them relate to one definite, though obscure, period of the poet’s life; in which an attachment to some female, which seems to have touched neither his heart nor his fancy very sensibly, was overpowered, without entirely ceasing, by one to a friend; and this last is of such an enthusiastic character, and so extravagant in the phrases that the author uses, as to have thrown an unaccountable mystery over the whole work. It is true that in the poetry as well as in the fictions of early ages, we find a more ardent tone of affection in the language of friendship than has since been usual; and yet no instance has been adduced of such rapturous devotedness, such an idolatry of admiring love, as the greatest being whom nature ever produced in the human form, pours forth to some unknown youth in the majority of these sonnets.
[493] The precise words of the dedication are the following:
To the only Begetter
Of these ensuing sonnets
Mr. W. H.
All Happiness
And that eternity promised
By our ever living poet
Wisheth the
Well-wishing Adventurer
In setting forth
T. T.