Let me add four lines from Denham's poem, 'On Cooper's Hill,' addressing the River Thames:—
"O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full."
Our old ballads are very fine: the opening of 'Chevy Chase' is equal to 'Wrath, Goddess sing the Wrath of Achilles,' or 'Arms and the Man:'—
"The Persé owt of Northumberland,
And a vowe to Godde made he,
That he would hunt in the mountains
Of Cheviot within days three.
In maugre of doughty Douglas
And all that ever with him be,
The fattest hartes in all Cheviot,
He said, to kill and bear away.
'By my faith!' quoth the doughty Douglas then,
'I will lette that hunting, gif I may.'
Worde is commen to Eddenburrowe
To James, the Scottish King,
That doughty Douglas, Lyfftenant of Marches,
Lay slain Chevyot hills within.
His handdes did James weal and wryng,
Sighing, 'Alas! and woe is me—
Such another captain Scotland within
I trow there will never be!'
Worde is commen to lovely Londone
Till the fourth Harry, our King,
That Lord Persé, Lyfftenant of Marches,
Lay slain Cheviot hills within.
'God have mercy on his soul!' said Kyng Harry,
'Good Lord, if thy will it be.
I have a hondrith Captains in Englonde
As good as ever was he;
But Persé, and I brook my lyffe
Thy death well quit shall be.'
This was the honting off the Cheviot
'That tear beganne this spurn:'
Old men that known the ground well enough
Call it the battle of Otterburn.
At Otterburn began this spurn
Upon a Monnynday;
There was the doughtie Douglas slain,
The Persé went captive away."
But of every species of poetry none are so rife with life and beauty as the song. It conjoins music with words, and brevity with sweetness. There is no position in which man does not sing,—in joy to express it, and in woe to relieve it: in company in chorus, and alone for companionship. Sir Walter Scott has imagined the minstrel to sing:—
"I have song of war for knight,
Lay of love for ladye bright,
Fairie tale to lull the heir,
Goblin grim the maid to scare.
If you pity kith or kin,
Take the wandering harper in."
But songs are like the flowers of the field: each age hath its own, which fade and perish and make way for another crop, and every age claims its own. For melody, terseness, and beauty of words, the song excels more than any other form of poetry; and they are wise who have a private collection of the songs which, like swallows, come and disappear.
It may appear strange to print the Fables of Gay, and say no word of our author; but the truth is that it is unkind to withdraw the veil of privacy from any man's life. Doctor Johnson did an unkind deed when he wrote the 'Lives of the Poets;' for which he was fully repaid when Boswell flayed him bare as ever Apollo flayed Marsyas, and exposed all the quivering nerves to the light of day. Of all classes of men, the class of poets most need the concealing veil: the greatest have been blind; the next greatest halt, and the remainder weak or deformed of frame. Debarred the healthier paths of life, man rushes for employment to the refuging muse; and rightly so, for he finds an employment ornamental and useful still. But solitude does not nurture the virtues of the soul more than physical defect does that of the body, and the withdrawal of the curtain divulges a very sad sight of discontent and envy. Homer himself is recorded to have ejaculated his aspiration to be the favourite of the Greek girls and boys. A poet seer loves no brother near his throne, and is but too apt to complain of non-appreciation of his muse on the part of the world. The fault rather is in their own too sensitive souls; and it is a fact that there is scarcely a name in the roll of poets, whose fame is not harmed by divulging his exotic life. The rural labourer's fate—
"Where to be born and die,
Of rich and poor, make all the history"—