Held up at tennis, which men do the best With the best gamesters. What things have we seen Done at the Mermaid! Hard words that have been As if that every one from whence they came And had resolv'd to live a fool the rest Of his dull life; then when there hath been thrown For three days past, wit that might warrant be For the whole city to talk foolishly, Till that were cancell'd; and when that was gone, We left an air behind us, which alone Was able to make the two next companies Right witty, though but downright fools more wise." I shall not in this place repeat Marlowe's celebrated song, "Come live with me and be my love," nor Sir Walter Raleigh's no less celebrated answer to it (they may both be found in Walton's Complete Angler, accompanied with scenery and remarks worthy of them); but I may quote as a specimen of the high and romantic tone in which the poets of this age thought and spoke of each other the "Vision upon the conceipt of the Fairy Queen," understood to be by Sir Walter Raleigh. Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay, Whose tomb fair Love, and fairer Virtue kept. At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept; And groans of buried ghosts the Heav'ns did pierce, A higher strain of compliment cannot well be conceived than this, which raises your idea even of that which it disparages in the comparison, and makes you feel that nothing could have torn the writer from his idolatrous enthusiasm for Petrarch and his Laura's tomb, but Spenser's magic verses and diviner Faery Queen-the one lifted above mortality, the other brought from the skies! The name of Drummond of Hawthornden is in a manner entwined in cypher with that of Ben Jonson. He has not done himself or Jonson any credit by his account of their conversation ; but his Sonnets are in the highest degree elegant, harmonious, and striking. It appears to me that they are more in the manner of Petrarch than any others that we have, with a certain intenseness in the sentiment, an occasional glitter of thought, and uniform terseness of expression. The reader may judge for himself from a few examples. "I know that all beneath the moon decays, And what by mortals in this world is wrought "Fair moon, who with thy cold and silver shine If cause like thine may pity breed in thee, * His mistress. This is the eleventh sonnet: the twelfth is full of vile and forced conceits, without any sentiment at all; such as calling the Sun "the Goldsmith of the stars," "the enameller of the moon," and "the Apelles of the flowers." This is as bad as Cowley or Sir Philip Sidney. Here is one that is worth a million of such quaint devices. "To the Nightingale. . Dear chorister, who from these shadows sends*, And long, long sing !) for what thou thus complains*, Or if a mixture of the Della Cruscan style be allowed to enshrine the true spirit of love and poetry, we have it in the following address to the river Forth, on which his mistress had embarked. * Scotch for send'st, for complain'st, &c. "Slide soft, fair Forth, and make a chrystal plain, This to the English reader will express the very soul of Petrarch, the molten breath of sentiment converted into the glassy essence of a set of glittering but still graceful conceits. "The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets," and the critic that tastes poetry," his ruin meets." His feet are clogged with its honey, and his eyes blinded with its beauties; and he forgets his proper vocation, which is to buz and sting. I am afraid of losing my way in Drummond's "sugar'd sonnetting;" and have determined more than once to break off abruptly; but another and another tempts the rash hand and curious eye, which I am loth not to give, and I give it accordingly for if I did not write these Lectures |