He has also very ingeniously pointed out some resemblances which prove that Milton owed considerable obligations to the Fletchers".

The works of Phineas Fletcher, including the Purple Island, or the Isle of Man, the Piscatory Eclogues and Miscellanies, were published at Cambridge in 1633, 4to. The only part that has been correctly reprinted is the Piscatory Eclogues, published at Edinburgh in 1771, by an anonymous editor, the most of whose judicious notes, preface &c. are here retained.

There are few of the old poets whom Mr. Headley seems more anxious to revive than Phineas Fletcher and he has examined his claims to lasting fame with much acuteness, yet perhaps not without somewhat of that peculiar prejudice which seems to pervade many of the critical essays of this truly ingenious and amiable young man. Having at a very early period of life commenced the perusal of the ancient English poets, his enthusiasm carried him back to their times, their habits and their language. From pardoning their quaintnesses, he proceeded to admire them, and has in some instances placed among the most striking proofs of invention, many of those antitheses and conceits which modern refinement does not easily tolerate. Still his taste and judgment are so generally predominant, that it would be presumption in the present editor, or perhaps in one of superior authority, to substitute any remarks of his own in room of the following animated and elegant character of Fletcher's poetry. "Were the celebrated Mr. Pott compelled to read a lecture upon the anatomy of the human frame at large, in a regular set of stanzas, it is much to be questioned whether he could make himself understood, by the most apprehensive author, without the advantage of professional knowledge. Fletcher seems to have undertaken a nearly similar task, as the five first cantos of the Purple Island, are almost entirely taken up with an explanation of the title; in the course of which, the reader forgets the poet, and sickened with the anatomist. Such minute attention to this part of the subject was a material errour in judgment: for which, however, ample amends is made in what follows. Nor is Fletcher wholly undeserving of praise for the intelligibility with which he has struggled through his difficulties, for his uncommon command of words, and facility of metre. After describing the body, he proceeds to personify the passions and intellectual faculties. Here fatigued attention is not merely relieved, but fascinated and enraptured: and notwithstanding his figures, in many instances, are too arbitrary and fantastic in their habiliments, often disproportioned and overdone, sometimes lost in a superfluity of glaring colours, and the several characters, in general, by no means sufficiently kept apart; yet, amid such a profusion of images, many are distinguished by a boldness of outline, a majesty of manner, a brilliancy of colouring, a distinctness and propriety of attribute, and an air of life, that we look for in vain in modern productions, and that rival, if not surpass, what we meet with of the kind even in Spenser, from whom our author caught his inspiration. After exerting his creative powers on this department of his subject, the virtues and better qualities of the heart, under their leader Eclecta, or Intellect, are attacked by the the vices: a battle ensues, and the latter are vanquished, after a vigorous opposition, through the interference of an angel, who appears at the prayers of Eclecta. The peet here abruptly takes an opportunity of paying a fulsome and unpardonable com

4 Supplement, vol. II. p. 182, &c. C.

pliment to James the first (stanza 55. canto 12) on that account perhaps the most unpalatable passage in the book. From Fletcher's dedication of this his poem, with the Piscatory Eclogues and Miscellanies to his friend Edmund Benlowes, it seems that they were written very early, as he calls them raw essays of my very unripe years, and almost childhood.' It is to his honour that Milton read and imitated him, as every attentive reader of both poets must soon discover. He is eminently entitled to a very high rank among our old English classics.-Quarles in his verses prefixed to the Purple Island hints that he had a poem on a similar subject in agitation, but was prevented from pursuing it by finding it had got into other hands. In a map to one of his Emblems are these names of places, London, Finchfield, Roxwell and Hilgay: edit. 1669."

That Mr. Headley is not blind to the defects of his favourite will farther appear from his remarks on Orpheus and Euridice in the Purple Island.

"These lines of Fletcher are a paraphrase, or rather translation from Boethius. The whole description is forcible: some of the circumstances perhaps are heightened too much but it is the fault of this writer to indulge himself in every aggravation that poetry allows, and to stretch his prerogative of quidlibet audendi' to the utmost."

In the supplement to his second volume, Mr. Headley has demonstrated at considerable length how much Fletcher owed to Spenser, and Milton to Fletcher. For this he has offered the apology due to the high characters of those poets, and although we have been accustomed to see such researches carried too far, yet it must be owned that there is a certain degree to which they must be carried before the praise of invention can be justly bestowed. How far poets may borrow from one another without injury to their fame, is a question yet undetermined.

After, however, every deduction of this kind that can be made, the Fletchers will still remain in possession of a degree of invention, imagination, spirit and sublimity, which we seldom meet with among the poets of the seventeenth century before we arrive at Milton.

TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL AND REVEREND

MR. DOCTOR NEVILE,

DEAN OF CANTERBURY, AND THE MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE IN CAMBRIDGE.

RIGHT WORTHY AND REVEREND SIR,

As I have always thought the place wherein I live, after Heaven, principally to be desired; both because I most want, and it most abounds with wisdom, which is fled by some with as much delight, as it is obtained by others, and ought to be followed by all: so I cannot but next unto God, for ever acknowledge myself most bound unto the hand of God, (I mean yourself,) that reached down, as it were, out of Heaven, unto me, a benefit of that nature and price, than which I could wish none (only Heaven itself excepted) either more fruitful and contenting for the time that is now present, or more comfortable and encouraging for the time that is already past, or more hopeful and promising for the time that is yet to come.

For as in all men's judgments (that have any judgment) Europe is Worthily deemed the queen of the world, that garland both of learning and pure religion being now become her crown, and blossoming upon her head, that hath long since lain withered in Greece and Palestine: so my opinion of this island hath always been, that it is the very face and beauty of all Europe; in which both true religion is faithfully professed without super stition, and (if on Earth) true learning sweetly flourishes without ostentation. And what are the two eyes of this land, but the two universities? which cannot but prosper in the time of such a prince, that is, a prince of learning, as well as of people. And truly I should forget myself, if I should not call Cambridge the right eye: and I think (king Henry VIII. being the uniter, Edward III. the founder, and yourself the repairer of this college wherein I live) none will blame me, if I esteem the same, since your polishing of it, the fairest sight in Cambridge; in which being placed by your only favour,

most freely, without either any means from other, or any desert in myself; being not able to do more, I could do no less than acknowledge that debt which I shall never be able to pay, and with old Silenus in the poet (upon whom the boys-injiciunt ipsis ex vincula sertis, making his garland his fetters) finding myself bound unto you by so many benefits, that were given by yourself for ornaments, but are to me as so many golden chains to hold me fast in a kind of desired bondage, seek (as he doth) my freedom with a song: the matter whereof is as worthy the sweetest singer as myself, the miserable singer, unworthy so divine a subject; but the same favour that before rewarded no desert, knows now as well how to pardon all faults; thạn which indulgence, when I regard myself, I can wish no more; when I remember you, I can hope no less.

So commending these few broken lines unto yours, and yourself into the hands of the best physician, Jesus Christ; with whom the most ill-affected man, in the midst of his sickness, is in good health; and without whom the most lusty body, in his greatest jollity, is but a languishing carcase: I humbly take my leave, ending with the same wish that your devoted observer and my approved friend doth in his verses presently sequent, that your passage to Heaven may be slow to us that shall want you here, but to yourself that cannot want us there, most secure and certain.

Your worship's

in all duty and service,

G. FLETCHER.

THOMAS NEVYLE MOST HEAVENLY.