THE FOURTH PERIOD.

The Age of the Stuarts, including the Augustan Age,

1603-1714.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SO-CALLED METAPHYSICAL POETS.

ALTHOUGH the literature of the seventeenth century shows no marvelous outburst of creative power, it has left deep and enduring traces upon English thought and language. The influences of the time produced a style of writing in which intellect and fancy played a greater part than imagination or passion. Samuel Johnson styled the poets of this century metaphysical. That tendency to intellectual subtlety which appears in the prose and verse of the Elizabethan writers, occasionally in Shakespeare himself, became with them a controlling principle. As a consequence, ingenuity often gained undue predominance over feeling; and in the search for odd, recondite, and striking illustrations, frequent and flagrant violations of sense were perpetrated. Towards the close of the period Milton is a solitary representative of poets of the first order. He owed little to his contemporaries.

John Donne (1573-1631) was declared by Dryden to be the greatest of English wits. He was a typical representative of

his age. Jonson pronounced him "the first poet of the world in some things," but declared that "for not being understood he would perish." This prophecy was confirmed by public opinion in the eighteenth century, but the criticism of our day discovers much genuine poetical sentiment beneath his subtlety.

“The melancholy and pleasant humor were in him so contempered," says Walton, "that each gave advantage to the other, and made his company one of the delights of mankind." Donne's early manhood was influenced by the companionship of the famous wits of the Mermaid Tavern. The chief production of his youthful muse were his Satires, the Metempsychosis, and a series of amatory poems. He became a famous preacher, and was appointed Dean of St. Paul's.*

Favoring circumstances rather than substantial desert gave Edmund Waller (1605-1687) prominence in the literary and political history of this time. From his youth his associations were with those who could at once appreciate and develop his varied talents. Versatility, brilliant wit, and graceful manners gained him political distinction, and made him a favorite. Most of Waller's poems † are love verses addressed to Lady Dorothy Sidney, whom he long wooed under the name of Sacharissa. Two eulogies of Cromwell, one composed during the Commonwealth, the other after the Protector's death, contain passages of dignity and power.

Both Dryden and Pope have acknowledged their obligations to Waller's influence as the "maker and model of melodious verse."

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) was the popular English poet of his time. He was "an author by profession, the oldest of those who in England deserve the name." After a residence of seven years at Cambridge, whence he was expelled for being a royalist, he studied at Oxford until that town was occupied by the Parliamentary forces.

* See complete Poems of John Donne, edited by A. B. Grosart, for "Fuller's Worthies Library" (1872).

† Waller's Poems were edited by G. T. Drury for the "Muse's Library" (1893).

Taine, Vol. I., p. 146.

Sound sense and genial feeling, joined to a pure and natural expression, render Cowley's prose works entertaining. His poetry exhibits the bad qualities of his age.

Donne, the founder of "the Metaphysical School," and his two disciples, Waller and Cowley, were the most prominent literary figures and the most influential and popular writers in the generation immediately after the Elizabethan period.

Sir William Davenant (1605-1668) was active in reviving the drama at the termination of the Puritan rule. He succeeded Ben Jonson in the office of Poet Laureate, and during the reign of Charles I. was manager of the court theater. An energetic and useful partisan of the Cavaliers, his share in the intrigues of the Civil War nearly brought him to the scaffold. His life was saved by the intercession of an influential Puritan, whom tradition asserts to have been John Milton. In turn, Davenant befriended Milton in later years when Milton was in danger. After the Restoration, Davenant flourished under royal favor, continuing to write dramas and to superintend their performance, until his death. His most popular plays were, The Siege of Rhodes, The Law Against Lovers, The Cruel Brother, and Albovine. The French drama, in its most artificial and frivolous type, was the ideal of Charles II. and of his court. French influence revolutionized the English stage. Actresses took the parts which had been filled by boys in the Elizabethan era.* The taste for splendor and variety of scenery, music, dancing, and costuming had displaced the passion of the earlier public for faithful picturing of life and

nature.

Many of the poets of this age were interested in the religious agitations of the Puritan and the Cavalier. George Wither (15881667) was in sympathy with the political and religious sentiments of Oliver Cromwell. He was a prolific writer in both prose and verse. The modern critics have given him more praise than former generations considered his due. His prose attracts little attention. His pastoral poetry has much melody and beauty of sentiment. His Hymns and Songs of the Church and his Hallelujah display his religious thought in worthy form. The whimsical conceits of his

*See p. 100. The first English actress appeared on the stage in the play of Othello, in the reign of Charles II., 1661.

day are occasionally found in his pages, but his style is generally simple, and expressive of natural and earnest feeling. For Abuses Stript and Whipt, his most famous satire, he was put in the Marshalsea prison. While there he wrote his pastoral Shepherd's Hunting, in which are the famous verses upon the consoling power of poetry to the poet. His best work, Fair Virtue, or the Mistress of Philarete,* is touched with a delicate fancy and sweetness and at times has genuine poetic exaltation.

In the social life of the first half of the seventeenth century the gallant and frivolous Cavalier stands in contrast with the stern, serious Puritan. In its literature romantic love and airy elegance contrast with the reverent sentiments of religious poetry. The best representative of the gayer poets is Robert Herrick (1591-1674), who, after beginning life in the literary society of the town and the theater, took orders; but continued to exhibit in his writings the "lyric feasts of his youth, over which Ben Jonson had presided at "The Sun, the Dog, the Triple Tun." His poems were published under the names of Hesperides and Noble Numbers. They are all lyric. Herrick was a consummate artist, and his poetry preserves to us in all its native freshness the charm of feast and festival in the country life of old and "Merrie England."

In this chapter we have considered

The so-called metaphysical poets.

1. John Donne. - 2. Edmund Waller. 3. Abraham Cowley.-4. Sir William Davenant.-5. George Wither, and Minor Writers.

* Reprinted in Vol. IV. of Professor Arber's English Garner.

†The Hesperides and Noble Numbers were edited by Alfred Pollard, with a preface by A. C. Swinburne, for the "Muse's Library" (1891).

CHAPTER XVII.

THEOLOGICAL WRITERS OF THE CIVIL WAR AND THE COMMONWEALTH.

THE Civil War of the seventeenth century was a religious as well as a political contest; and the prose literature of that time, therefore, exhibits a strong religious character. The Church of England made brilliant display of ability; and in the ranks of the dissenters many remarkable men appeared, hardly inferior to the churchmen in learning and genius, and fully their equals in sincerity and enthusiasm.

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) was a man with vast stores of curious learning, who passed the greater part of his life in practising medicine in the ancient city of Norwich. Among the most popular of his works are the treatise on Hydriotaphia, or Urn-Burial, and essays on Vulgar Errors, or Pseudodoxia Epidemica. The book which affords the most satisfactory insight into his character is the Religio Medici, which gives an account of his religious opinions, and is permeated with mystic piety. These writings are the frank outpourings of a most eccentric and original mind. They show varied and recondite reading; and their facts and suggestions are blended by a fervid imagination. At every step some extraordinary theory is illustrated by unexpected analogies, and the style bristles with quaint Latinisms, which in another writer would be pedantic, but in Browne seem the natural garb of thought. All this makes him one of the most fasci