Tixall Poetry/Notes to the Tixall Poetry
Notes
To the Tixall Poetry.
The Expostulation of St Mary Magdalen.
The few, but affecting incidents, related of Mary Magdalen, in the Gospel, are well adapted to excite the sensibility, and to warm the fancy of a poet. But sacred poetry has seldom been successful. "It is easy," says Mr Headley, "to mistake the enthusiasm of devotion for the inspiration of fancy. To mix the waters of Jordan and Helicon in the same cup was reserved for the hand of Milton; and for him, and him only, to find the bays of Mount Olivet equally verdant with those of Parnassus."
It seems pretty clear, that the writer of these stanzas was Edward Thimelby. At the conclusion of an epistle, p. 40, he has placed his name; and in the next epistle, evidently also by him, he says:
You know temtation once brought me too in,
To faigne a teare or two of Magdalen.
Whoever was the author, he has succeeded very well in describing the mixed emotions of passionate love, of indignation, sorrow, and despair, which may be supposed to have agitated the breast of Mary Magdalen, while standing at the foot of the cross.
At the end of the fifth stanza, the poet has given us a specimen of the taste of his contemporaries; who, instead of the simple and natural expression of sublimity, and pathos, of fancy and feeling, were delighted with nothing so much as a pedantic display of deep erudition, and with illustrations, drawn from the most abstruse and difficult parts of science. Flights of imagination, beautiful imagery, delicacy of sentiment, and elegance of language, were all to be sacrificed to far-fetched conceits, remote allusions, metaphysical subtleties, and quaint combinations of the most incongruous ideas. Their oracular language was frequently quite unintelligible. The poems of Donne, Cleaveland, and Cowley, which at this period enjoyed the highest popularity, exhibit abundant proofs of the truth of this assertion.
In these lines,
the poet means to compare the tears of the Magdalen, to "christall waves;" and the blood of Christ to the Red Sea, called from the Greek, ιρυθρον, red, "Erithre." But then recollecting, that rocks of coral, and beds of pearls, are common in the Red Sea, and the neighbouring waters, be makes her declare, by a double comparison, that without the "corall dropps" of his blood the cristall waves" of her tears cannot properly be called a sea, nor his blood a Red Sea without the pearls of her tears!
It is but justice to the authors of the poetry in this volume to remark, that there are fewer of these extravagant absurdities in their compositions than in most of the poems of the writers just mentioned.
The last stanza is eminently beautiful. It recalls to my mind those figures of the Magdalen which are to be seen in pictures of the crucifixion by some of the first Italian painters. Sometimes she is represented kneeling on the ground, and embracing the foot of the cross, while the blood of the Redeemer is trickling down upon her head. In other pictures, she appears standing, "her golden haires" dishevelled, her hands clasped upon her breast, and her eyes fixed on the cross, in an agony of unutterable sorrow.
In the manuscript there is also "raging." The author seems to have been doubtful which epithet to prefer.
Among the works of Chaucer, is a long poem of more than 700 lines, entitled "The Lamentacion of Marie Magdaleine, taken out of St Origen, wherein Mary Magdalen lamenteth the cruell Death of her Saviour Christ."
It is composed in stanzas of seven lines, of ten syllables each; a measure of verse, which Chaucer uses in this, and many other considerable works, and which he is supposed to have introduced into the English language. "It obtained afterward," says Godwin, (Life of Chaucer, vol. i. p. 234,) "the name of Rythm royal, was the favourite measure of a long succession of English poets, and is particularly dear to all genuine lovers of English poetry, as having been employed by our admirable Spenser, in his two exquisite Hymns of Love and Beauty. Perhaps the circle of English poetry does not afford a more grateful harmony, particularly as applied to compositions of the length of these last mentioned."
This poem of Chaucer's, though pathetic in some parts, is somewhat deformed by the frequent interspersion of Latin words, and lines taken from the Psalms and Evangelists; which, together with the obsoleteness of the language, give it rather a burlesque and macaronic appearance. As it is perhaps the least read of all his poems, I have selected a few stanzas from it, principally with the view of exhibiting the singular cast of sentiment, and turn of expression, which a poet thought allowable, in those days, when treating a sacred subject. It begins as follows:
Having given an account of the crucifixion, she continues her lamentation,
P. 6. The Mr P., on whose little daughter this poem was composed, was probably Mr Persall, brother to Sir W. Persall, of Canwell, in Staffordshire, who married Frances Aston, second daughter of the first Lord Aston.
The comparison, in the second stanza, of the essence of roses, extracted by the still, to the soul of the child received into heaven, is fanciful and pretty, and poetically expressed.
As Plato called God the "Great Geometer," from the order, regularity, and contrivance, which are visible in the universe, so, when considered as the Author of Nature, and the Ruler of the Elements, he may, with equal propriety, be styled the "Almighty Chemist."
P. 9. The two last lines contain as elegant an encomium as is to be found in any funeral elegy or epitaph in the English language:
P. 10. Rhodanus is the Rhone, which rises in the same chain of mountains as the Rhine in Switzerland; visits Lyons and Avignon, and falls by several mouths into the Mediterranean.
L. 6. With moones of Ottoman and Sophi's sun.
The crescent has always been the ensign or standard of the Turkish armies, and the sun was the chief object of adoration among the Persians, whose emperor is called Sophi.
P. 11. l. 2. The "carcasses" of Troy and Babylon.
So Sulpitius, in his Letter to Cicero: "Cum uno loco tot oppidorum cadavera projecta jaceant."
This word is introduced with striking effect by "Janus Vitalis," in his fine epigram on the Ruins of Ancient Rome:
P. 11. l. 21. O three times happy that contented man! &c.
Claudian has a similar exclamation in his interesting poem "De Sene Veronensi,"
The Copernican system of the universe, which was first published to the world about the year 1540, appears not at this time, after the revolution of about 100 years, nor for some time after, to have obtained an absolute undisputed footing in England. In that admirable lesson of sublime morality, which the Archangel Raphael delivers to our first parent, (P. L. B. viii.) after much information on the motion of the heavenly bodies, the exhortation thus concludes:—
P. 13. This poem evidently alludes to some threatened invasion of Christendom by the Turks, but I am unable to point out the particular period.
L. 5. Now every rustick hind and every boore, &c.
Virgil has described, in a very lively manner, the agitation of a people preparing to resist an invasion:
Microcosm, from the Greek, signifies the little world, and is opposed to macrocosm, the great world, or the universe. In this sense man is called a microcosm, from the admirable contrivance and wonderful distribution of parts in the human frame; and also from being imagined, by some fanciful philosophers, to have something in him analogous to the four elements. It appears to have been a favourite word with our older writers, both in prose and verse.[3]
P. 15. The opposite characters, of the scholar and soldier, are discriminated in these lines with spirit, learning, and judgment.
P. 17. Voyages into the east appear to have been much the fashion at that period. Perhaps they were increased by the publication of the curious and entertaining Travels of George Sandys, one of the most accomplished gentlemen and smoothest versifiers of his time. He translated Ovid's Metamorphoses into verse, and the easy flowing style of his numbers, has been much commended both by Dryden and Pope. He also paraphrased many parts of the Bible, and, among the rest, the Song of Solomon. I have in my possession a manuscript copy of this poetical version, transcribed in the year 1638, which I have great reason to believe has never been faithfully printed.
I have been told, that the famous Lord Chesterfield had a relation, a Mr Stanhope, who was exceedingly proud of his pedigree, which he pretended to trace to a ridiculous antiquity. Lord Chesterfield was one day walking through an obscure street in London, where he saw a miserable dawb of Adam and Eve in Paradise. He purchased this painting, and, having written on the top of it, "Adam de Stanhope of Eden, and Eve his wife," he sent it to his relation as a valuable old family picture.
Some years before the French revolution, one of the Fermiers Generaux, who had raised himself from a low condition to great opulence, being asked by a supercilious nobleman, "If his family was very ancient?" he replied, "My Lord, there were three sons of Noah who came with him out of the ark; I am descended from one of them, but have not been able exactly to ascertain which."
P. 19. "Bands and Cuffes," I fancy, are synonimous to neckcloths and ruffles.
So Gray in "The Bard:"
Among the "Songes and Sonettes" of Sir Thomas Wyat, is one "Of his Love that pricked her Finger with a Needle."
P. 21. This, and the two following poems, (in which an ingenious attempt is made to draw a comparison between the different beauties of the different features of the face) appear to me to be quite original, both in their design and execution. In the Works of Carew, (Anderson's Edit, of the Brit. Poets, vol. iii. p. 676) are the following pretty verses, entitled
Lips and Eyes.
This is true: a cranium may be preserved for ages; and, besides its use in the study of anatomy, both human and comparative, it is capable of affording to a Lavater, or a Gall, a subject of sublime meditation, and of the most profound philosophical discussion. What use Shakspeare has made of a scull in the Gravedigger's scene in Hamlet!
P. 27. There are many allusions, in these poems, to the science of astronomy, but they are all drawn from the systems of the ancient philosophers, particularly that of Ptolemy; which, like the doctrines of Aristotle in logic and metaphysics, kept possession of the schools for near 2000 years. In the Ptolemaic system, there were supposed to be twelve distinct heavens, one above another. The highest was called empyreum, and was the seat of the Deity; beneath this were the crystalline heavens, and then came the firmament. The crystalline heavens were supposed to be without stars, and to encompass the inferior, starry, and planetary heavens; to which also they communicated their motion.
P. 28. l. 8.And beare the doble crownes of Spaine.
An allusion, I suppose, to the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, by which the kingdoms of Castile and Arragon were united; and the different kingdoms of Spain were formed, like France, into one single monarchy.
The sprightliness of the dialogue in these poems, contrasted with the learned allusions drawn from so many different subjects, both of art and science, is very amusing. The memory or the imagination are continually exercised.
P. 29. The expression lip-rhetorick occurs before, p. 8:—
P. 31. The double phare, whose welcome sight, &c.
The light-house at Alexandria, placed on a small island at the mouth of the Nile, was called Pharos, and was so distinguished, that it gave its name to any other light-house.
L. 15. The eyes are loves familiers, &c.
Here we have an allusion to planetary influences and magnetic attractions, the mysterious and occult doctrines of the Rosycrusians and Astrologers. See an entertaining story of the correspondence of two absent friends in the Spectator, No. 241.
P. 35. Before the tulipps of two lipps.
In the modern jest books it is recorded, that a lady asking a gentleman which he liked best, tulips or roses, he answered, Your ladyship's two lips before all the roses in the world.
The concluding lines, and many others in these poems, are uncommonly smooth and melodious for the time they were written.
P. 37. Because 'tis gilt with shining epithets.
"It is remarkable," cried Mr Burchell, "that both the poets you mention (Ovid and Gay) have equally contributed to introduce a false taste into their respective countries, by loading all their lines with epithets. Men of little genius found them most easily imitated in their defects; and English poetry, like that in the latter empire of Rome, is nothing, at present, but a combination of luxuriant images, without plot or connection; a string of epithets that improve the sound without carrying on the sense."—Vicar of Wak. Chap. 8.
P. 38. Then since bare representing is not all, &c.
He means mere narration, or description; in which there is nothing to astonish the mind, or move the heart The sublime and the pathetic are the only genuine sources of real poetry.
P. 39. Had I, like Dr Gibbs, a serious trade.
The following amusing account of Dr Gibbs is extracted and abridged from Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses.—
James Gibbs was born at Rouen, in Normandy, about the year 1616. His father was physician to the queen of Charles I. His mother was Mary Stonor, of Stonor-House, in Oxfordshire. At nine years of age he was brought over into England, where, being initiated in his rudiments, he was sent to the English college at St Omers, where he improved himself in the classics, especially in poetry, which was his darling study. Afterwards he took a turn through the Low Countries and Germany; and then settling for a while at Padua, he became a hearer of the celebrated professor of anatomy, J. Veslingius. In 1644, he removed to Rome, and was soon after appointed tutor to Almericus, son of Francis Duke of Modena. Having spent two years in this employment, he was entertained, in quality of physician, by Bernardini, Cardinal Spoda, Bishop of Frescati, and, after his death, was in the family of Prince Justiniani. In the year 1657, Pope Alexander VII., a great patron of learning, made him professor of rhetoric, in the noted school called Sapienza. This employment brought him 501. a year, which, with certain perquisites and a sinecure, made him very easy in his circumstances. All this while he was much admired for his poetical performances, not only by the Italians, but by the Emperor Leopold, who was pleased to honour him with the title of Poet Laureat; at the same time bestowing on him a gold chain and medal, to be worn upon all solemn occasions. The diploma for this dignity bears date May 2d, 1667. In 1668, he published a work, entitled "Carminum Pars Lyrica, ad exemplum Q. Hor. Flacci, &c. Romæ 8°." Opposite the title-page is Dr Gibbs's picture, with an eagle, holding in his beak a laurel over the author's head. Under the picture are two lines, said to be composed by the celebrated Athanasius Kircher, but, as others affirm, by Dr Gibbs himself.At the end of the work are several approbations by some eminent persons of those days. The university of Oxford also took notice of their countryman: for in 1670, he wrote a letter to Dr Mew, the vice-chancellor, signifying his intention of making a present to the university of his gold chain and medal, with a fair copy of bis Lyrics. On the university's receiving this letter, an assembly was called, and Dr Gibbs was declared, by a diploma, doctor of physic. This diploma styles him Europæorum principum deliciæ; and some of the choicest wits of the university were ordered to compliment Dr Gibbs with Latin verses on the occasion. He died in 1677, aged 66, and was interred in the Pantheon, otherwise called "Santa Maria Rotunda," and "All Saints." A bust was placed over his tomb with a Latin epitaph, giving an account of his country, family, and endowments. Some, who were personally acquainted with him, have declared that he was extravagantly whimsical and conceited, but an excellent mimic; which, with the handsomeness of his person, and agreeableness in conversation, made him, in general, very acceptable.
Our poet, Edward Thimelby, seems to have held this "Delight of the European Princes" very cheap; and it appears, that the "Lyrics" and other performances of this wonderful genius, for whom "kingdoms were to contend," have now sunk into utter oblivion!
L. 12. While spheires and angells sing, and make no noise.
The harmony of the spheres is much spoken of by many of the ancient philosophers and fathers of the church, and was supposed to be produced by the regular motion of the stars and planets. Plato, Philo Judæus, St Augustin, St Ambrose, St Isidore, Boethius, and many others, were strongly possessed with this motion, which they attribute to the various proportional impressions of the heavenly globes on one another; which, acting under proportional intervals, form a delightful harmony. It is impossible, according to them, that such stupendous bodies, moving with such rapidity, should be silent; on the contrary, the atmosphere, continually impelled by them, must yield a set of sounds, proportioned to the impulses it receives: consequently, as they do not all run the same circuit, nor with one and the same velocity, the different tones arising from a diversity of motions, all directed by the hand of the Almighty, must form an admirable symphony, or concert.
Cicero has inserted this opinion of the harmony of the spheres in that sublime and eloquent fragment, called "Somnium Scipionis," where Scipio, (being lost in astonishment at the sight of the heavenly bodies, and of the nine heavens, one above another, as exhibited to him by Africanus, during his vision), exclaims, "Quid i hic, inquam, quis est, qui complet aures meas tantus, et tam dulcis sonus? Hic est, inquit ille, qui intervallis conjuuctus imparibus, sed tameu pro rata portione, distinctis, impulsu, et motu ipsorum orbium conficitur: qui acuta cum gravibus temperans, varios æquabiliter concentus efficit, nec enim silentio tanti motus incitari possunt, et natura fert, ut extrema, ex altera parte, gravitér, ex altera autem, acuté sonent.Hic vero tantus est totius mundi incitatissima conversione sonitus, ut eum aures hoininum capere non possint: sicut intueri solem adversum nequitis, ejusque radiis, acies vestra, sensusque vincitur."—Cic. Op. om. Schrev. 1661, p. 1318.
One might almost suppose from the following lines that Shakspeare had read this passage in Cicero,
See also Milton's "Arcades," Warton's edition, p. 102.
L. 15. The verginal, or verginalls, was the ancient spinet, or harpsichord, of the misses, in the 16th and 17th centuries.
L. 20. And shot lyke Cupids in Apollo's bow.
A beautiful line; as much as to say, that the power of these musicians was as great as that of the god of love. It puts me in mind of a fine line in Lee's "Alexander:" Diana's soul, cast in the flesh of Venus. Apollo was the god of music, poetry, and medicine:
So Milton,
L. 40. Soft-pen'd Crashaw. An epithet finely expressive of the genius and style of that tender, mystical, enthusiastic poet.
L. 8. I know a seazon'd verse, &c.
This claim of the poet may very fairly be allowed. He seems to have had a very good notion of what poetry really ought to be. He begins his remarks on poetical composition, by telling us that he hates
Which are called by Horace, "Versus inopes rerum nugæque canoræ."
He then declares that
There must be "acer spiritus, ac vis, et verbis et rebus."
He says "he ever scorn'd laborious toyes" (difficiles nugæ) and "toyling witts" Such as Pope describes:
In the next letter, he protests, agreeably with the most judicious critics, against the use of sacred subjects in poetry, and equally condemns the trite, threadbare topics of mythology:—
He concludes by pronouncing, that "to faigne is all in poetry;" which, in fact, is all that is contained in the original meaning of the word poet, ποιητης from ποιειν, a maker, or inventor.
P. 40. l. 16 Methinks your misticall poetick straine, &c.
Boileau and Johnson were of the same opinion.
See Johnson's "Life of Watts," in which he affirms, "that the paucity of topics of devotional poetry enforces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity of the matter rejects the ornaments of figurative diction:" and that "it is sufficient for Watts to have done better than others, what no man has done well."
The author of these poetical letters has very properly excepted the inspired writers.
These two lines seem to point out Edward Thimelby as the author of the "Expostulation of St Mary Magdalen," the first poem in this collection.
Pope Boniface IV. was the son of a physician, and came to the tiara in 607. He converted the pantheon into a church, which he dedicated to All the Saints. This conversion of a heathen temple into a Christian church was accompanied with many ceremonies, and gave rise to the festival of All Saints, still observed by the Roman Catholic church on the first of November.
P. 43 In 1626, Thomas Lord D'Arcy was created Viscount Colchester and Earl Rivers by King Charles I. He left at his death, in 1640, only two daughters, co-heiresses.
In 1626, Sir Thomas Savage, Bart, was created Baron and Viscount Savage of Clifton, or Rock-Savage, in the county of Chester, by King Charles I. He married Elizabeth, eldest daughter and heiress of the said Thomas Lord D'Arcy, Viscount Colchester and Earl Rivers. By her he had a son, John, his heir and successor.
Which John Lord Savage, as heir to his mother, succeeded also as Viscount Colchester and Earl Rivers, in 1640; it being so entailed and settled in the patent of Lord D'Arcy.
John Lord Savage was twice married; 1st, to Catherine, daughter of William, Lord Morley and Mounteagle; 2dly, to Mary, daughter of Thomas Ogle, Esq. of Tissington, in Northumberland.
It was on the first of these ladies that this encomiastic poem must have been composed. For, alluding to her children, the poet says,
Now it appears that the first Countess Rivershad five or six children, whereas the second had only one.—(See Dugd. Bar. vol. ii. and Bolton's Ext. Peer.)
Richard Savage, second son of the Countess Rivers, celebrated in this poem, who succeeded his elder brother in the title, was father, by the Countess of Macclesfield, of the unfortunate Richard Savage; whose life, traced by the pen of Johnson, has furnished one of the most striking pieces of biography in the English, or any other language.
There was a close connexion between the families of Savage, Thimelby, and Aston. Lady Elizabeth Savage, sister of Earl Rivers, was the wife of Sir John Thimelby of Irnham, eldest brother of Edward Thimelby the poet, of Henry Thimelby, husband of Gertrude Aston, whose poems form the second part of this miscellany; and of Catherine Thimelby, often mentioned in the last part these poems, the wife of Herbert Aston, second son of the first Lord Aston. Moreover, Earl Rivers's second brother was married to the widow of Sir Edward Somerset; and Anne, youngest daughter of the second Lord Aston, was married to Sir Henry Somerset, Sir Edward's elder brother.
P. 45. This philosophical poem on Self-love, was probably written by Edward Thimelby. "The Faire Self-Denyer, my sister, Th." was, I conjecture, Gertrude Aston, wife of bis brother, Henry Thimelby. See page 90, where there is a poem by this lady to "Mr E. T. who holds Self-love in all our Actions." There are some good lines in this poem; but the metaphysical ideas, of which it is chiefly composed, are not satisfactorily developed, nor clearly expressed. Such subjects are not adapted for poetry.
About the middle of the 17th century, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld published his "Maxims." This work has been the text-book of all those writers calling themselves philosophers, who, since his time, have maintained that self-love is the only ruling principle of the thoughts and actions of mankind. Whoever would see the opposite system of benevolence, illustrated and enforced in the most philosophical and agreeable manner, may study "An Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue," by Dr Francis Hutcheson; which is one of the most beautiful specimens of philosophical investigation that has appeared in the world since the days of Plato and Xenophon.
P. 50.The loadston loves its iron, &c.
This seems to be an allusion to one of the dark peripatetical notions concerning the virtues of the magnet, which has been a kind of ignis fatuus to philosophers, and a prolific source of quackery in all ages.
P. 52. St Augustin, one of the most illustrious fathers of the church, and one of the most eminent characters in the literary history of the fourth century, was the son of St Monica, who took uncommon pains to bring him back to virtue, from the dissipated and licentious course of life into which he had fallen. But, finding all her efforts ineffectual, she at last had recourse only to prayers and tears. St Augustin relates in his Confessions, l. 3. c. 12. that his mother, on one occasion, applied to a holy bishop, to assist her in her endeavours to reclaim her son; and that having shed abundance of tears in his presence, he dismissed her with these words: "Go your way; God bless you; it cannot be that a child of such tears should perish." And soon after she had a vision, in which she saw herself shipwrecked, but was at last saved on a plank, and, looking round, beheld her son standing by her.
P. 54. The facts and persons alluded to in this poem are so well known to every person, in the least acquainted with the English history, that it would be needless to offer any farther illustration.
P. 57. Here is a series of epigrams, as they may be called, or short "meditations" on different broken utensils of glass; from each of which, the poet has endeavoured to extract an appropriate and striking moral. The number of these little pieces in the original MS. is considerable: I have selected those which appeared the most ingenious, and poetical.
Weed formerly meant, and in the plural, weeds, still means a garment, or covering, and in that sense was used for the skin, which is the natural covering of the body. So Carew:
An expressive epithet: you seem to see the sand crumbling away.
See the "Duell" between the lips and eyes, p. 29. and the note, p. 338.
Among the poems of the "Amalthei," three poetical brothers, in the 16th century, and perhaps the best Latin poets, and most elegant scholars of their age, there is a very pretty epigram, on the ashes of a lover made into sand for an hour-glass; it is thus entitled:
Horologium pulvereum, tumulus Alcippi
P. 60. The most famous manufacture for looking-glasses in Europe was formerly at Venice. They are still made in an island near that city; but are now surpassed by those of France and Spain. This prophecy of the poet has been sadly verified in our days.
P. 61. l. 9.Where every giant attome, &c.
A striking antithesis.
P. 61.A broken perspective glass.
Archimedes, the greatest mathematician, it would seem, that ever lived, constructed a glass sphere, in which were shown the positions of all the planets and fixed stars, together with the motions of the heavenly bodies. This sphere was justly esteemed such a master-piece of ingenuity, that a representation of it was carved on his tomb. In the progress of time, however, the situation of this tomb bad become unknown even to the inhabitants of Syracuse, Archimedes's native place. It was discovered by Cicero, who was very proud of the circumstance. For, having related this adventure in his "Tusculan Q." l. 5. he thus concludes: "Ita nobilissima Græciæ civitas quondam, imo etiam doctissima, sui civis unius acutissimi monumentum ignorâsset, nisi ab homine Arpinate didicisset."
The following epigram, by Claudian, on the glass sphere of Archimedes, has always been deservedly admired.
In sphæram Archimedis.
Galileo invented the telescope about the year 1609; and also the pendulum, which was first applied to clock-work by his son.
P. 63. l. 7.This glass was pure, &c.
A pretty description of a still.
So Pope,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.
We have had so much about glass in these little poems, that I cannot refrain from adding the following admirable passage from the Rambler, on the manufacture of that useful article:
"Who, when he saw the first sand or ashes, by a casual intenseness of heat, melted into a metalline form, rugged with excrescences, and clouded with impurities, would have imagined, that, in this shapeless lump, lay concealed so many conveniencies of life, as would in time constitute a great part of the happiness of the world? Yet by some such fortuitous liquefaction, was mankind taught to procure a body, at once in a high degree solid and transparent, which might admit the light of the sun, and exclude the violence of the wind; which might extend the sight of the philosopher to new ranges of existence, and charm him at one time, with the unbounded extent of the material creation, and at another, with the endless subordination of animal life; and what is yet of more importance, might supply the decays of nature, and succour old age with subsidiary sight. Thus was the first artificer in glass employed, though without his own knowledge or expectation. He was facilitating and prolonging the enjoyment of light, enlarging the avenues of science, and conferring the highest and most lasting pleasures; he was enabling the student to contemplate nature, and the beauty to behold herself."
This, I suppose, is an allusion to some fabulous tree in India, which, like the bread-tree in the South Sea Islands, and the tallow-tree, might unite in itself meate, drinke, and light; while its leaves or fibres would furnish cloth. But of this, and of the "Faire Indian of Amersford" herself, I have no further illustration to offer.
Progne and Philomela were sisters, and the daughters of Pandion, king of Athens. Progne was married to Tereus, king of Thrace. After some time, she expressed a wish to see her sister; npon which Tereus went to Athens to fetch her, but conceiving a criminal passion for her on the road, he ravished her; and to prevent her disclosing the horrid deed, cut out her tongue, and imprisoned her in a lone castle, in a wood; telling her sister on his return, that she had died on the road. Philomela, however, contrived to work her melancholy story in a web, or embroidery, and had it conveyed to Progne, who became enraged to such a pitch of fury, that she killed her own son Itys, and served up a part of him, as a dish to her husband, on bis return from hunting. Tereus having feasted heartily upon it, asked to see his son, on which Progne produced the bloody head, and threw it in his face. This tragical affair ended by Tereus being changed into a screech-owl, Progne into a swallow, and Philomela into a nightingale. See Ovid's Metamorphoses.
P. 72. From this little poem might be drawn a very sublime philosophical speculation. Nature appears to act in a circle. Nothing is lost, nothing new is produced. The individuals perish, the species remain. The destruction of one body is the reproduction of another. Generation springs from the centre of corruption.
The earth, the atmosphere, and the waters, are one immense laboratory, in which a series of compositions and decompositions is perpetually carried on. The quickening energy of the sun, the fountain of light and life, pervades every combination of matter. Magnetism, and attraction, electricity, and galvanism, are his subordinate agents. The moon, and the other heavenly bodies, exert an influence on our globe; our globe in return has a re-action upon them. The various meteors, and other phenomena of the atmosphere, even the fiery tail of the comet, are supposed by many philosophers to owe their origin to vapours and exhalations from our earth. The supposition of the poet, therefore, though fanciful, is not extravagant. From the ashes of a plant manuring the soil, might certainly spring a more vigorous plant, which scattering its seeds, might in time, phoenix-like, grow up a wood. And from the buried remains of the child, when its body was converted into its original elements,
Nay more; who will say, but while the body of the child, reduced to its original elements, is affording nourishment to the new-born star, its sonl may be destined to be its inhabitant, and the companion of its course, through the etherial space?
P. 74. On the first perusal of the opening lines of this poem, one would suppose thatthe poet meant, he had left his mistress young and fair, and had found her grown old; but so refined is his adulation, that he means quite the contrary. When he left her, not a bud was blowne, not a bloome of beauty past; and yet, after fifteen years absence, he finds her as young as ever.
P. 74. l. 10.Round as ther serpent or ther yeare.
A serpent, with its tail in its mouth, is an emblem of immortality.
P. 75. l. 8.Now that's eclipst, and yet you shine.
An allusion to the civil war and usurpation of Cromwell.
So Horace,
There is great delicacy and tenderness of sentiment in these lines to his mistress; the thoughts are natural, the imagery is classical, the diction poetical, and the versification melodious.
P. 78. Mr Normington is so much praised in these poems, that I feel the greatest regret at not being able to afford the reader the slightest information concerning him. He appears to have been a great traveller. See pages 10, 15, and 37. I have never heard the name, nor met with it any where else.
Phœbus, or Apollo, the river’s king, was the father of Phæeton, who, having obtained from him, for one day, the management of the chariot of the sun, conducted it so ill, that Jupiter was obliged to throw a thunderbolt at him; and poor Phæeton fell into the Eridanus, or Po, where he was drowned.
Pindar is called Dircæan, or Dirce's swan, from a fountain of that name in Bæotia, his native country. See Horace's Odes, b. iv. ode 2. and Gray's "Progress of Poesy," I. 2.
P. 82. l. 14.That other Padus in the sky, &c.
There is a strange mythological fiction concerning the river Po, in Latin Padus; as if it had its origin in heaven, or that there was a river there of that name. This is alluded to both by Virgil and Ovid, but I confess I never could understand it.
Dr Warton, I think, has observed, that English poetry is chiefly deficient in lyrical productions. Songs, and sonnets, hymns, and moral stanzas, epistles, satires, and pastorals, appear to have been the favourite subjects among those of our earlier poets, who addicted themselves to minor compositions in verse. Of the regular ode, in imitation of Pindar, and Horace, whether of the lighter or grander species, I recollect no attempt in our language before the Restoration. The Pindaric rhapsodies of Cowley, and his imitators, are, in general, below criticism, and deservedly forgotten.
Congreve, to whom, according to Johnson, "we owe the cure of our Pindaric madness," says of them, "The character of these late Pindarics, is a bundle of rambling incoherent thoughts, expressed in a like number of irregular stanzas, which also consist of such another complication of disproportioned, uncertain, and perplexed verses and rhymes."
Of this ode it must be allowed, that the subject and metre are happily chosen, and that it possesses a considerable portion of lyric enthusiasm. The allegory of the river is well preserved throughout, and the language is elevated, figurative, and poetical.
- ↑ Tein, or tene, Sax. grief.
- ↑ The first chapter of Markham's "Booke of Armorie," is entitled, "The difference between Charles and Gentleman:" and it ends thus: "From the offspring of gentlemanly Japhet, came Abraham, Moses, Aaron, and the prophets, &c. &c. also the king of the right line of Mary, of whom that only absolute gentleman Jesus was born, gentleman by his mother Mary, princesse of coat armour."
- ↑ So Sylvester, in his Translation of Du Bartas (f. 1633, p. 52):—
"Ther's under Sun (as Delphos God did showe)No better knowledge than our selfe to knowe;There is no theam more plentiful! to scan,Than is the glorious goodly frame of man;For in man's self is fire, aire, earth, and sea;Man's (in a word) the world's epitomieOr little map"