O faithless world, and thy most faithless part,
A woman's heart!

The true shop of variety, where sits
Nothing but fits

And fevers of desire, and pangs of love,
Which toys remove.

Why was she born to please? or I to trust
Words writ in dust,

Suffering her eyes to govern my despair,
My pain for air,

And fruit of time rewarded with untruth,
The food of youth?

Untrue she was; yet I believed her eyes,
(Instructed spies),

Till I was taught that love was but a school
To breed a fool.

Or sought she more by triumphs of denial
To make a trial

How far her smiles commanded my weaknèss?
Yield, and confess;

Excuse no more thy folly, but for cure

Blush, and endure

As well thy shame, as passions that were vain;
And think 'tis gain

To know that love, lodged in a woman's breast,
Is but a guest.1

In these lines may be detected, here and there, a certain obscurity and want of finish, which is characteristic of Wotton, and which reappears in his later poems when he is beginning to modify his old Euphuism so as to suit the change in Court taste. A charming elegance and propriety of sentiment has justly won a place in The Golden Treasury for his two lyrics, "On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia," and "The Happy Life." The former, composed in the Euphuistic vein, is faultless; but in the latter, where he is beginning to mix with the quaint turns of Euphuism the terseness of Horace and Martial, he is less entirely successful :

How happy is he born and taught

That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill;

1 Wotton's Poems (Hannah, 1845), p. 4.

Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the world by care

Of public fame or private breath;

Who envies none that chance doth raise
Nor vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise,
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;
Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;

Who God doth late and early pray

More of His grace than gifts to lend,

And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend!

This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall,
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.1

Here the first stanza is blameless. But the first line of the second raises, by its grammatical inversion and its rhythmical emphasis, the unsatisfied expectation of an antithesis; while "private breath" in the fourth line is not a proper antithesis to "public fame."

In the third stanza "nor vice" should be "or vice," otherwise the sense is ambiguous; and the attempt to combine contrary ideas in a classical "zeugma" in the second, third, and fourth lines results in obscurity. In the third and fourth lines of the next stanza the elliptical construction produces a harsh effect, and the word oppressors" does not seem very happily chosen. The last two stanzas are perfect.

On the other hand, the following charming verses, written, according to Walton, when Wotton was seventy, show how much the easy flow of the old Euphuistic manner of Breton and Barnfield had gained from the classical finish of the new style :

1 Wotton's Poems (1845), p. 29. This is the most authoritative text. Angler, pp. 60, 61 (1655).

VOL. III

N

ON A BANK AS I SAT A-FISHING: A DESCRIPTION

OF THE SPRING

And now all Nature seemed to love,
The lusty sap began to move;
New juice did stir th' embracing vines,
And birds had drawn their valentines.
The jealous trout, that low did lie,
Rose at a well-dissembled fly;
There stood my friend, with patient skill
Attending of his trembling quill.
Already were the eaves possest
Of the swift pilgrim's daubèd nest;
The groves already did rejoice
In Philomel's triumphing voice:

The showers were short, the weather mild,
The morning fresh, the evening smiled.
Joan takes her neat-rubbed pail, and now
She trips to milk the sand-red cow,
Where for some sturdy football swain

Joan strokes a sillabub or twain :
The fields and gardens were beset
With tulip, crocus, violet ;

And now, though late, the modest rose
Did more than half a blush disclose.
Thus all looked gay, all full of cheer,

To welcome the new liveried year.

The characteristic features produced in the poetry of Wotton by the transition from Euphuism to classicalism become more intelligible when they are viewed in the light of Ben Jonson's genius, a poet of unrivalled influence in shaping the ideas of those of his contemporaries who made it their special object to please the taste of the Court. What has to be said of the life of Jonson can better be reserved for the next volume, where he will be considered as a dramatist; it is here of more importance to dwell on the circumstances which made him the natural leader in guiding the development of classical "wit."

As the chief purveyor for the entertainment of the Court, he had to take account of tastes formed in the midst of mediæval associations; accordingly the masques that he devised are steeped in the colours of the allegorical pageants from which they derived their origin. On the

other hand, he was, by his own genius, in sympathy with the critical movement which, proceeding from Italy, was gradually introducing into all the nations of Northern Europe the supposed rules of Greek and Roman art. Educated at Westminster by Camden, the most learned antiquary of Elizabeth's reign, he had acquired from his master an ardent love of learning for its own sake. He was well read in all ancient literature, the masterpieces of which were so fixed in his powerful memory that he was able constantly to draw from them felicitous parallels with the circumstances of modern life. His knowledge of the Italian poetry of the Renaissance was equally extensive. At a later period he made himself master of the works of the best French writers. Besides this practical acquaintance with good literature, he had meditated on the philosophic reasoning of Aristotle in his Rhetoric and Poetics, as those treatises were then understood through the interpretation of Scaliger and Castelvetro: he brought therefore into a society which was just beginning to reflect on the first principles of taste a mind fully resolved as to the proper limits of the art of poetry. His ideas of wit may be classed under the heads of Epigrams, Complimentary Poems—whether in the form of epitaphs, epistles, or commendatory prefaces-and Love Lyrics.

Of the first class little need be said. Jonson's satirical epigrams are not particularly good. They have the coarseness of Martial, without his point and finish, and they are written about persons and things that have ceased to be interesting. They can hardly be awarded more praise than the second-rate performances of Sir John Harington and Sir John Davies. But as a writer of complimentary verse, Jonson is unequalled by any English poet, except perhaps by Pope when he is at his best. The moral weight and dignity of his thought, the graceful turn of his expression, his power of giving new life to other men's ideas, combine to produce in his panegyrical compositions the curiosa felicitas which is the peculiar praise of Horace. His judgment shines

especially in the use he makes of his learning. Virgil, Horace, and Martial are always in his mind, but their thoughts are reborn there in such a novel form that the reader enjoys a pleasure derived both from memory and invention. Virgil, for example, writes in his most characteristic manner :—

Optima quæque dies miseris mortalibus ævi
Prima fugit.1

Jonson expands this into a complimentary epigram addressed to William Roe:

When Nature bids us leave to live, 'tis late
Then to begin, my Roe! He makes a state
In life that can employ it; and takes hold
On the true causes, ere they grow too old.
Delay is bad, doubt worse, depending worst ;
Each best day of our life escapes us first: :

Then since we, more than many, these truths know,
Though life be short, let us not make it so.

When Salathiel Pavy, a "child" of Queen Elizabeth's chapel, died, Jonson was reminded of Martial's epigram on the premature death of the Roman jockey, Scorpus :

Ille ego sum Scorpus, clamosi gloria Circi,
Plausus, Roma, tui, deliciæque breves ;

Invida quem Lachesis, raptum trieteride nona,
Dum numerat palmas, credidit esse senem.2

But how admirably is the Latin idea transfigured in the following conceit !