NOTES

(1861-1884)

Summary of Book First

THE Elizabethan Poetry, as it is rather vaguely termed, forms the substance of this Book, which contains pieces from Wyat under Henry VIII to Shakespeare midway through the reign of James I, and Drummond who carried on the early manner to a still later period. There is here a wide range of style ;from simplicity expressed in a language hardly yet broken-in to verse, through the pastoral fancies and Italian conceits of the strictly Elizabethan time,-to the passionate reality of Shakespeare: yet a general uniformity of tone prevails. Few readers can fail to observe the natural sweetness of the verse, the single-hearted straightforwardness of the thoughts :--nor less, the limitation of subject to the many phases of one passion, which then characterized our lyrical poetry,-unless when, as in especial with Shakespeare, the 'purple light of Love' is tempered by a spirit of sterner reflection.

It should be observed that this and the following Summaries apply in the main to the Collection here presented, in which (besides its restriction to Lyrical Poetry) a strictly representative or historical Anthology has not been aimed at. Great Excellence, in human art as in human character, has from the beginning of things been even more uniform than Mediocrity, by virtue of the closeness of its approach to Nature:-and so far as the standard of Excellence kept in view has been attained in this volume, a comparative absence of extreme or temporary phases in style, a similarity of tone and manner, will be found throughout :-something neither modern nor ancient, but true in all ages, and like the works of Creation, perfect as on the first day.

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II Rouse Memnon's mother: Awaken the Dawn from the
dark Earth and the clouds where she is resting.
This is one of that limited class of early mythes which
may be reasonably interpreted as representations of
natural phenomena. Aurora in the old mythology is
mother of Memnon (the East), and wife of Tithonus
(the appearances of Earth and Sky during the last hours
of Night). She leaves him every morning in renewed
youth, to prepare the way for Phoebus (the Sun), whilst
Tithonus remains in perpetual old age and grayness.
1. 23 by Peneus' stream: Phoebus loved the Nymph
Daphne whom he met by the river Peneus in the vale of
Tempe.

II 1. 27 Amphion's lyre: He was said to have built the
walls of Thebes to the sound of his music.

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2 JI

3 IV

4 v

6 IX

9

10

XV

XVI

12 XVIII

1. 35 Night like a drunkard reels: Compare Romeo and
Juliet, Act II, Scene 3: The grey-eyed morn smiles'
&c.-It should be added that three lines, which ap-
peared hopelessly misprinted, have been omitted in
this Poem.

Time's chest: in which he is figuratively supposed
to lay up past treasures. So in Troilus, Act III,
Scene 3,Time hath a wallet at his back' &c. In the
Arcadia, chest is used to signify tomb.

A fine example of the highwrought and conventional
Elizabethan Pastoralism, which it would be unreason-
able to criticize on the ground of the unshepherdlike
or unreal character of some images suggested. Stanza
6 was perhaps inserted by Izaak Walton.

This Poem, with xxv and xcIv, is taken from Davison's Rhapsody,' first published in 1602. One stanza has been here omitted, in accordance with the principle noticed in the Preface. Similar omissions occur in XLV, LXXXVII, C, CXXVIII, CLX, CLXV, CCXXVII, CCXCII, CCXCIV, CCXCV. The more serious abbreviation by which it has been attempted to bring Crashaw's 'Wishes' and Shelley's Euganean Hills' within the limits of stricter lyrical unity, is commended with much diffidence to the judgment of readers acquainted with the original pieces.

This charming little poem, truly old and plain, and
dallying with the innocence of love' like that spoken
of in Twelfth Night, is taken, with v, XVII, XX, XXXIV,
and XL, from the most characteristic collection of
Elizabeth's reign, 'England's Helicon,' first published
in 1600.

Readers who have visited Italy will be reminded of
more than one picture by this gorgeous Vision of
Beauty, equally sublime and pure in its Paradisaical
naturalness. Lodge wrote it on a voyage to the
Islands of Terceras and the Canaries;' and he seems
to have caught, in those southern seas, no small
portion of the qualities which marked the almost
contemporary Art of Venice,-the glory and the glow
of Veronese, or Titian, or Tintoret, when he most
resembles Titian, and all but surpasses him.
The clear (1. 1) is the crystalline or outermost heaven
of the old cosmography. For a fair there's fairer
none: If you desire a Beauty, there is none more
beautiful than Rosaline.

that fair thou owest: that beauty thou ownest. 15 XXIII the star Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken: apparently, Whose stellar influence is uncalculated, although his angular altitude from the plane of the astrolabe or artificial horizon used by astrologers has been determined.

- XXIV

This lovely song appears, as here given, in Puttenham's 'Arte of English Poesie,' 1589. A longer and inferior

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17 XXVII 18 XXIX

ΧΧΧ

form was published in the Arcadia' of 1590: but
Puttenham's prefatory words clearly assign his
version to Sidney's own authorship.
keel: skim.
expense: loss.

Nativity once in the main of light: when a star has
risen and entered on the full stream of light ;-an-
other of the astrological phrases no longer familiar.
Crooked eclipses: as coming athwart the Sun's
apparent course.

Wordsworth, thinking probably of the 'Venus' and the Lucrece,' said finely of Shakespeare: 'Shakespeare could not have written an Epic; he would have died of plethora of thought.' This prodigality of nature is exemplified equally in his Sonnets. The copious selection here given (which from the wealth of the material, required greater consideration than any other portion of the Editor's task), -contains many that will not be fully felt and understood without some earnestness of thought on the reader's part. But he is not likely to regret the labour.

19 XXXI upon misprision growing: either, granted in error, or, on the growth of contempt.

-

XXXII With the tone of this Sonnet compare Hamlet's 'Give me that man That is not passion's slave' &c. Shakespeare's writings show the deepest sensitiveness to passion :-hence the attraction he felt in the contrasting effects of apathy.

20 XXXIII grame: sorrow. Renaissance influences long impeded the return of English poets to the charming realism of this and a few other poems by Wyat.

21 XXXIV Pandion in the ancient fable was father to Philomela. 23 XXXVII ramage: confused noise. -XXXIX censures: judges. 24 XL

25 XLI 26 XLIV

Judging by its style, this beautiful example of old simplicity and feeling may, perhaps, be referred to the earlier years of Elizabeth. Late forgot: lately. haggards the least tameable hawks.

cypres or cyprus, -used by the old writers for crape; whether from the French crespe or from the Island. Its accidental similarity in spelling to cypress has, here and in Milton's Penseroso, probably confused readers.

28 XLVI, XLVII'I never saw anything like this funeral dirge,' says Charles Lamb, except the ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father in the Tempest. As that is of the water, watery; so this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that intenseness of feeling, which seems to resolve itself into the element which it contemplates.'

80 T.E

81 LI

crystal: fairness.

This Spousal Verse' was written in honour of the
Ladies Elizabeth and Katherine Somerset. Nowhere

Y

has Spenser more emphatically displayed himself as
the very Poet of Beauty: The Renaissance impulse
in England is here seen at its highest and purest.
The genius of Spenser, like Chaucer's, does itself
justice only in poems of some length. Hence it is
impossible to represent it in this volume by other
pieces of equal merit, but of impracticable dimen-
sions. And the same applies to such poems as The
Ancient Mariner and Adonais.

1. 2 feateously: elegantly.

1. 15 shend: put out. L. 39 a noble peer: Robert Devereux, second Lord Essex, then at the height of his brief triumph after taking Cadiz: hence the allusion following to the Pillars of Hercules, placed near Gades by ancient legend.

1. 11 Eliza: Elizabeth. L. 27 twins of Jove: the stars Castor and Pollux: baldric, belt; the zodiac. A fine example of a peculiar class of Poetry ;that written by thoughtful men who practised this Art but little. Wotton's, LXXII, is another. Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Berkeley, Dr. Johnson, Lord Macaulay, have left similar specimens.

Summary of Book Second

THIS division, embracing the latter eighty years of the Seventeenth century, contains the close of our Early poetical style and the commencement of the Modern. In Dryden we see the first master of the new: in Milton, whose genius dominates here as Shakespeare's in the former book,-the crown and consummation of the early period. Their splendid Odes are far in advance of any prior attempts, Spenser's excepted: they exhibit that wider and grander range which years and experience and the struggles of the time conferred on Poetry. Our Muses now give expression to political feeling, to religious thought, to a high philosophic statesmanship in writers such as Marvell, Herbert, and Wotton: whilst in Marvell and Milton, again, we find noble attempts, hitherto rare in our literature, at pure description of nature, destined in our own age to be continued and equalled. Meanwhile the poetry of simple passion, although before 1660 often deformed by verbal fancies and conceits of thought, and afterwards by levity and an artificial tone,produced in Herrick and Waller some charming pieces of more finished art than the Elizabethan: until in the courtly compliments of Sedley it seems to exhaust itself, and lie almost dormant for the hundred years between the days of Wither and Suckling and the days of Burns and Cowper.-That the change from our early style to the modern brought with it at first a loss of nature and simplicity is undeniable: yet the far bolder and wider scope which Poetry took between 1620 and 1700, and the suceessful efforts then made to gain greater clearness in expression, in their results have been no slight compensation.

1. 8 whist: hushed. L. 32 than: obsolete for then: 1. 33 Pan: used here for the Lord of all.

1. 21 Lars and Lemures: household gods and spirits of relations dead. Flamens (1. 24) Roman priests. That twice-batter'd god (1. 29) Dagon.

1. 6 Osiris, the Egyptian god of Agriculture (here, perhaps by confusion with Apis, figured as a Bull, was torn to pieces by Typho and embalmed after death in a sacred chest. This mythe, reproduced in Syria and Greece in the legends of Thammuz, Adonis, and perhaps Absyrtus, may have originally signified the annual death of the Sun or the Year under the influences of the winter darkness. Horus, the son of Osiris, as the New Year, in his turn overcomes Typho. L. 8 unshower'd grass: as watered by the Nile only. L. 33 youngest-teeméd: last-born. Bright-harness'd (1. 37) armoured.

The Late Massacre: the Vaudois persecution, carried on in 1655 by the Duke of Savoy. This collect in verse,' as it has been justly named, is the most mighty Sonnet in any language known to the Editor. Readers should observe that it is constructed on the original Italian or Provençal model. This form, in a language such as ours, not affluent in rhyme, presents great difficulties; the rhymes are apt to be forced, or the substance commonplace. But, when successfully handled, it has a unity and a beauty of effect which place the strict Sonnet above the less compact and less lyrical systems adopted by Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, and other Elizabethan poets.

Cromwell returned from Ireland in 1650, and Marvell probably wrote his lines soon after, whilst living at Nunappleton in the Fairfax household. It is hence not surprising that (st. 21-24) he should have been deceived by Cromwell's professed submissiveness to the Parliament which, when it declined to register his decrees, he expelled by armed violence :-one despotism, by natural law, replacing another. The poet's insight has, however, truly prophesied that result in his last two lines.

This Ode, beyond doubt one of the finest in our language, and more in Milton's style than has been reached by any other poet, is occasionally obscure from imitation of the condensed Latin syntax. The meaning of st. 5 is 'rivalry or hostility are the same to a lofty spirit, and limitation more hateful than opposition. The allusion in st. 11 is to the old physical doctrines of the nonexistence of a vacuum and the impenetrability of matter:-in st. 17 to the omen traditionally connected with the foundation of the Capitol at Rome. The ancient belief that certain years in life complete natural periods and are hence