SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 199 pitilessness of the tossing waves as they carelessly pitch and roll the body of the drowned. Scrannel (line 124) means pared or peeled, scraped till thin and poor; rathe (line 142), early positive of rather; uncouth (line 186), literally, not knowing, awkward. The authority on Milton is David Masson. Masson's Life of John Milton, narrated in connection with the Brief Bibpolitical, ecclesiastical and literary history of his liography. time (Macmillan), is the source of all subsequent statement, and is one of the few great biographies in our literature. The life of Milton in English Men of Letters Series, by Mark Pattison, is brief, as is that by Garnett in the Great Writers Series. Interesting studies of Milton have been made by Addison in the Spectator, 267, Johnson in his Lives of the Poets, Macaulay in his essay on Milton, Lowell in Among my Books, Matthew Arnold in Essays in Criticism, 2d ser. In special criticism Stopford Brooke's Milton, in Classical Writers Series, is valuable. The notes upon the minor poems are elaborate in Hale's Longer English Poems. In Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies there is a well-known and helpful comment on Lycidas. A good edition of Paradise Lost is that edited by John A. Himes (Harpers), with introduction and notes. Masson's Three Devils, Luther's, Milton's, Goethe's, and Other Essays is recommended. Taine's History of English Literature contains some amusing, although not very profound, criticism upon Milton's epic. Macaulay's chapter on "The Puritans" and Green's Short History, ch. viii., should be read for information on the times. Milton's Complete Poetical Works are published in the Cambridge Edition (Houghton, Mifflin and Company). III. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY LYRICS. Besides Milton there was no great poet in England during the period of civil discord attending the rise of Puritanism and the era of the Commonwealth; and yet there were not a few who laid claim to the title of "poet," and some whose contributions to English verse are far from unimportant. The Meta Poets. John 1573-1631. A peculiar phase of the poetical art is found in the compositions of a little group of versifiers physical who are frequently described as the metaphysical poets. First in point of time was John Donne, who appears to have been the leader of the school. Reared a Catholic, he later joined the Anglican Communion, and became a clergyman in 1615. In 1621 he was made Dean of St. Paul's. His early verse was amatory and passionate; his later productions were religious and devotional. His style was later described aptly by Dryden, who declared that Donne was "the greatest wit, though not the best poet of our nation." The word wit was here used, as generally at the close of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, to denote a clever or ingenious writer rather than a humorous one, and was applied to the person as well as to the element essential in his work. It found its application in the unusual and sometimes fantastic turns of thought, often laboriously conceived, that distinguish the writings of Donne and his school. "Holy George Herbert," as Izaak Walton Herbert, named him, was one of the best examples of 1593-1632. this group, as well as one of its most important representatives. In his lengthy poem of good counsel, entitled The Church Porch, for example, he has this to say: George "Drink not the third glasse which thou canst not tame, When once it is within thee; but before May'st rule it, as thou list, and pour the shame, It is most just to throw that on the ground Which would throw me there, if I keep the round.” THE METAPHYSICAL POETS 201 Again, in The Sacrifice, with its refrain of simple pathos, we are surprised by more than one conceit as singular as this: "Behold, they spit on Me in scornful wise; Who by My spittle gave the blind man eyes, Was ever grief like Mine ?" Because of this grotesque ingenuity of allusion and comparison the term metaphysical was used of these poets by Samuel Johnson; and by this title they are best described. George Herbert was in seriousness of tone and saintly character more like Milton than any other of the writers here discussed. He was born in Wales, and received his university training at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1630 he became Vicar of Bemerton, near Salisbury. His poetry is wholly devotional. It is he who wrote of Sunday the familiar lines: "O day most calm, most bright! The fruit of this, the next world's bud, 1592-1644. Crashaw, Thorough Royalists in their attachments were the three poets Quarles, Crashaw, and Vaughan. Francis The first named was a student of Christ's Quarles, (Milton's) College at Cambridge, and was Richard later secretary to Archbishop Usher. In his 1613-49. Divine Emblems he produced a moralizing Henry poem full of the mannerisms of this group. 1621-95. Richard Crashaw, the son of an Anglican clergyman, was educated at the Charterhouse School and at Cambridge. He finally became a Catholic, and during the last few years of his life, through the influence of Vaughan, Queen Henrietta Maria, found an asylum in Italy. Crashaw greatly resembles Herbert in thought and A line from one of his Latin poems, descriptive of the miracle at Cana, is frequently quoted in devotional literature: manner. "Nympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit.” 66 The modest water saw its God and blushed." His principal volume was entitled (by its editor) Steps to the Temple; it appeared in 1646. Henry Vaughan was a Welsh physician; he published in 1650 a collection of verse, to which he gave the title of Silex Scintillans, or Sparks from the Flint. His work also shows the strong influence of his countryman, George Herbert. George 1588-1667. Andrew Stoutly Puritan in spirit were the two minor poets Wither and Marvell. The former, in 1642, Wither, sold his estate to raise a troop of horse for Cromwell's the latter had attracted the army; attention of Cromwell, and was employed by 1621-78. him up to the time of his death. In 1657 Marvell was appointed assistant to Milton in the Latin Secretaryship; and this association with the great poet has made his name more familiar than his verses could have done. Marvell's poems were, however, distinguished by their classic flavor and by a very real appreciation of nature, a quality not common in the minor poetry of the age. They were written for the most part in youth. Wither's verse is mainly devotional in character, consisting of The Hymns and Songs of the Church (1623), a translation of the Psalms of David (1631), Emblems (1634), and Hallelujah (1641). A fine pastoral poem, Shepherds Hunting (1613), was the work of an earlier period. THE CAVALIER POETS 203 1618-67. A singular fate has overtaken the fame of Abraham Cowley, who was esteemed by his own gen- Abraham eration the greatest of English poets. He Cowley, was a disciple of the metaphysical school, and was made famous by the ingenuity of his verse even in boyhood. His first volume appeared when he was but fifteen; while a student at Cambridge he wrote the larger part of a long epic on King David, the Davideis, which he hoped would inspire the composition of more biblical epics. Cowley was attached to the Royalist cause, and accompanied Queen Henrietta Maria, in capacity of secretary, to France. He was the author of Pindarique Odes, in imitation of the classic poet, and of a series of love poems under the title of The Mistress. Although he attained the distinction of a burial in Westminster Abbey, Cowley's reputation as a poet began to wane soon after his death, and he has since occupied a minor position among the poets of this group. Thomas Carew, Sir John Three or four of the minor poets of this age fall naturally into a group by themselves; these The Cavaare the representative poets of the Cavaliers. lier Poets: Gay, light-hearted gentlemen, gallant in both love and war, fond of the pretty and pleasing 1589-1639; rather than of the serious and impressive Suckling, phases of life's experience, they produced Richard some dainty and charming verse, but spent Lovelace, their talents upon trifling themes of sentiment and pleasure. "Idle singers of an empty day," their activity included none of the offices of prophet or seer. 1609-42; 1618-58. Carew, Suckling, and Lovelace were all prominent in the court of Charles I., and are sometimes distinguished by the name of the Caroline poets. Characteristic of their songs, which still display the artificial |