CHAPTER XVII.

COURT AND AGE OF ELIZABETH.

DRAYTON, DANIEL, DRUMMOND, ET C.

THE Voluminous Drayton* has left a collection of sonnets under the fantastic title of his IDEAS. Ideas they may be, but they have neither poetry, nor passion, nor even elegance-a circumstance not very surprising, if it be true that he composed them merely to show his ingenuity in a style which was then the prevailing fashion of his time. Drayton was never married, and little is known of his private life. He loved a lady of Coventry, to whom he promises an immortality he has not been able to con

fer.

How many paltry, foolish, painted things

That now in coaches trouble every street,
Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings,

E'er they be well wrapp'd in their winding-shcct;
While I to thee eternity shall give,

When nothing else remaineth of these days,
And Queens hereafter shall be glad to live

Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise;

Virgins and matrons reading these my rhimes,
Shall be so much delighted with thy story,
That they shall grieve they liv'd not in these times,
To have seen thee, their sex's only glory:
So thou shalt fly above the vulgar throng,
Still to survive in my immortal song.

There are fine nervous lines in this Sonnet: we long to hail the exalted beauty who is announced by such a flourish of trumpets, and are proportionably disappointed to find that she has neither "a local habitation nor a name." Drayton's little song,

I pr'ythee, love! love me no more

Take back the heart you gave me!

stands unique, in point of style, among the rest of his works, and is very genuine and passionate.

Daniel, who was munificently patronised by the Lord Mountjoy, mentioned in the preceding sketch, was one of the most graceful sonnetteers of that time; and he has touches of tenderness as well as fancy; for he was in earnest, and the object of his attachment was real, though disguised under the name of Delia. She resided on the banks of the river Avon, and was unmoved by the poet's strains. Rank with her outweighed love and genius. Daniel says of his sonnets

The lines

Though the error of my youth in them appear,
Suffice they show I lived, and loved thee dear.

Restore thy tresses to the golden ore,
Yield Citherea's son those arcs of love,

are luxuriantly elegant, and quite Italian in the flow and imagery. Her modesty is prettily set forth in another Sonnet

A modest maid, deck'd with a blush of honour,
Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love,
The wonder of all eyes that look upon her,

Sacred on earth, designed a Saint above!

.After a long series of sonnets, elaborately plaintive, he interrupts himself with a little touch of truth and nature, which is quite refreshing:

I must not grieve my love! whose eyes should read
Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smile;
The flowers have time before they come to seed,
And she is young, and now must sport the while.
And sport, sweet maid! in season of these years,
And learn to gather flow'rs before they wither;
And where the sweetest blossom first appears,

Let Love and Youth conduct thy pleasures thither.

If the lady could have been won by poetical flattery, she must have yielded. At length, unable to bear her obduracy, and condemned to see another preferred before

* Died in 1619.

him, Daniel resolved to travel; and he wrote, on this occasion, the most feeling of all his Sonnets.

And whither, poor forsaken! wilt thou go?

Daniel remained abroad several years, and returning, cured of his attachment, he married Giustina Florio, of a family of Waldenses, who had fled from the frightful persecutions carried on in the Italian Alps against that miserable people. With her, he appears to have been sufficiently happy to forget the pain of his former repulse, and enjoy, without one regretful pang, the fame it had given him as a poet.

Drummond, of Hawthornden,* is yet more celebrated, and with reason. He has elegance, and sweetness, and tenderness; but not the pathos or the passion we might have expected from the circumstances of his attachment, which was as real and deep, as it was mournful in its issue. He loved a beautiful girl of the noble family of Cunningham, who is the Lesbia of his poetry. After a fervent courtship, he succeeded in securing her affections: but she died, "in the fresh April of her years," and when their marriage-day had been fixed. Drummond has left us a most charming picture of his mistress; of her modesty, her retiring sweetness, her accomplishments, and her tenderness for him.

O sacred blush, empurpling cheeks, pure skies

With crimson wings, which spread thee like the morn;
O bashful look, sent from those shining eyes;

O tongue in which most luscious nectar lies,
That can at once both bless and make forlorn;
Dear coral lip, which beauty beautifies,

That trembling stood before her words were born;
And you her words-words! no, but golden chains,

Which did enslave my ears, ensnare my soul;

Wise image of her mind,-mind that contains

A power, all power of senses to controul; .
So sweetly you from love dissuade do nie,
That I love more, if more my love can be.

The quaint iteration of the same word through this Sonnet has not an ill effect. The lady was in a more

* Died 1649.

relenting mood when he wrote the Sonnet on her lips, "those fruits of Paradise,"

I die, dear life! unless to me be given

As many kisses as the Spring hath flowers,
Or there be silver drops in Iris' showers,

Or stars there be in all-embracing heaven;
And if displeased ye of the match remain,

Ye shall have leave to take them back again!

He mentions a handkerchief, which, in the days of their first tenderness, she had embroidered for him, unknowing that it was destined to be steeped in tears for her loss!In fact, the grief of Drummond on this deprivation was so overwhelming, that he sunk at first into a total despondency and inactivity, from which he was with difficulty roused. He left the scene of his happiness, and his regrets

Are these the flowery banks? is this the mead
Where she was wont to pass the pleasant hours?
Is this the goodly elm did us o'erspread,

Whose tender rind, cut forth in curious flowers
By that white hand, contains those flames of ours?
Is this the murinuring spring, us music made?
Deflourish'd mead, where is your heavenly hue?

He travelled for eight years, seeking, in change of place and scene, some solace for his wounded peace. There was a kind of constancy even in Drummond's inconstancy; for meeting many years afterwards with an amiable girl, who bore the most striking resemblance to his lost mistress, he loved her for that very resemblance, and married her. Her name was Margaret Logan. I am not aware that there are any verses addressed to her.

Drummond has been called the Scottish Petrarch: he tells us himself, that "he was the first in this Isle who did celebrate a dead mistress,”—and his resemblance to Petrarch, in elegance and sentiment, has often been observed: he resembles him, it is true-but it is as a professed and palpable imitator resembles the object of his imitation.

On glancing back at the age of Elizabeth,-so adorned by masculine talents, in arts, in letters, and in arms,—we are at first surprised to find so few distinguished women.

It seems remarkable that a golden epoch in our literature, to which she gave her name, "the Elizabethan age,”—a court in which a female ruled,-a period fruitful in great poets, should have produced only one or two women who are interesting from their poetical celebrity. Of these, Alice Spenser, Countess of Derby, and Mary Sydney, Countess of Pembroke, (the sister of Philip Sydney) are the most remarkable; the first has enjoyed the double distinction of being celebrated by Spenser in her youth, and by Milton in her age,-almost too much honour for one woman, though she had been a muse, and a grace, and a cardinal virtue, moulded in one. Lady Pembroke has been celebrated by Spenser and by Ben Johnson, and was, in every respect, a most accomplished woman. To these might be added other names, which might have shone aloft like stars, and "shed some influence on this lower world:" if the age had not produced two women, so elevated in station, and so every way illustrious by accidental or personal qualities, that each, in her respective sphere, extinguished all the lesser orbs around her. It would have been difficult for any female to seize on the attention, or claim either an historical or poetical interest, in the age of Queen Elizabeth and Mary Stuart.

In her own court, Elizabeth was not satisfied to preside. She could as ill endure a competitor in celebrity or charms, as in power. She arrogated to herself all the incense around her and, in point of adulation, she was like the daughter of the horse-leech, whose cry was, "give! give!" Her insatiate vanity would have been ludicrous, if it had not produced such atrocious consequences. This was the predominant weakness of her character, which neutralized her talents, and was pampered, till in its excess it became a madness and a vice. This precipitated the fate of her lovely rival, Mary, Queen of Scots. This elevated the profligate Leicester* to the pinnacle of favour, and kept him there, sullied as he was by every baseness, and every crime; this hurried Essex to the block; banished Southampton; and sent Raleigh and Elizabeth Throckmorton to the Tower. Did one of her attendants, more beautiful

* Leicester's influence over Elizabeth appeared so unaccountable, that it was ascribed to magic, and to her evil stars.