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fusion of romantic recollections in the 'Poly-olbion,' that a poet of taste and selection might there find subjects of happy description, to which the author who suggested them had not the power of doing justice; for Drayton started so many remembrances that he lost his inspiration in the effort of memory. In 'The Barons' Wars,' excepting the passages already noticed, where the

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we unhappily exchange only the geographer for the chronicler. On a general survey, the mass of his poetry has no strength or sustaining spirit adequate to its bulk. There is a perpetual play of fancy on its surface; but the impulses of passion, and the guidance of judgment, give it no strong movements nor consistent course. In scenery or in history he cannot command selected views, but meets them by chance as he travels over the track of detail. His great subjects have no interesting centre, no shade for uninteresting things. Not to speak of his dull passages, his description is generally lost in a flutter of whimsical touches. His Muse had certainly no strength for extensive flights, though she sports in happy moments on a brilliant and graceful wing.*

EDWARD FAIRFAX.

[Died, 1632?]

EDWARD FAIRFAX, the truly poetical translator of Tasso, was the second son of Sir Thomas Fairfax, of Denton, in Yorkshire. His family were all soldiers; but the poet, while his brothers were seeking military reputation abroad, preferred the quiet enjoyment of letters at home. He married and settled as a private gentleman at Fuyston, a place beautifully situated between the

*["Drayton's 'Poly-olbion' is a poem of about 30,000 lines in length, written in Alexandrine couplets, a measure, from its monotony, and perhaps from its frequency in doggrel ballads, not at all pleasing to the ear. It contains a topographical description of England, illustrated with a prodigality of historical and legendary erudition. Such a poem is essentially designed to instruct, and speaks to the understanding more than to the fancy. The powers displayed in it are, however, of a high cast. Yet perhaps no English poem, known as well by name, is so little known beyond its name.' -Hallam, Lit. Hist., vol. iii. p. 496-7.]

family seat at Denton and the forest of Knaresborough. Some of his time was devoted to the management of his brother Lord Fairfax's property, and to superintending the education of hist lordship's children. The prose MSS. which he left in the library of Denton sufficiently attest his literary industry. They have never been published, and, as they relate chiefly to religious controversy, are not likely to be so; although his treatise on witchcraft, recording its supposed operation upon his own family, must form a curious relic of superstition. Of Fairfax it might, therefore, well be said

"Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders which he sung.'

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Of his original works in verse, his History of Edward the Black Prince' has never been published; but Mr. A. Chalmers ('Biog. Dict.,' art. Fairfax) is, I believe, as much mistaken in supposing that his Eclogues have never been collectively printed, as in pronouncing them entitled to high commendation for their poetry.† A more obscurely stupid allegory and fable can hardly be imagined than the fourth Eclogue, preserved in Mrs. Cooper's 'Muse's Library:' its being an imitation of some of the theological pastorals of Spenser is no apology for its absurdity. When a fox is described as seducing the chastity of a lamb, and when the eclogue writer tells us that

"An hundred times her virgin lip he kiss'd,

As oft her maiden finger gently wrung,"

who could imagine that either poetry, or ecclesiastical history, or sense or meaning of any kind, was ever meant to be conveyed under such a conundrum ?

The time of Fairfax's death has not been discovered; it is known that he was alive in 1631; but his translation of the ‘Jerusalem' was published when he was a young man, was inscribed to Queen Elizabeth, and forms one of the glories of her reign.

*

[Collins.]

[The fourth Eclogue alone is in print; nor is a MS. copy of the whole known to exist.]

SAMUEL ROWLANDS.

[Died, 1634 ?]

THE history of this author is quite unknown, except that he was a prolific pamphleteer in the reigns of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I. Ritson has mustered a numerous catalogue of his works, to which the compilers of the Censura Literaria' have added some articles. It has been remarked by the latter, that his Muse is generally found in low company, from which it is inferred that he frequented the haunts of dissipation. The conclusion is unjust-Fielding was not a blackguard, though he wrote the adventures of Jonathan Wild. His descriptions of contemporary follies have considerable humour. I think he has afforded in the story of Smug the Smith a hint to Butler for his apologue of vicarious justice, in the case of the brethren who hanged a poor weaver that was bed-rid," instead of the cobbler who had killed an Indian,

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"Not out of malice, but mere zeal,
Because he was an Infidel."

Hudibras, Part ii. Canto ii. 1. 420.

JOHN DONNE, D.D.

[Born, 1573. Died, 1631.]

THE life of Donne is more interesting than his poetry. He was descended from an ancient family; his mother was related to Sir Thomas More, and to Heywood the epigrammatist. A prodigy of youthful learning, he was entered of Hart Hall, now Hertford College, at the unprecedented age of eleven: he studied afterwards with an extraordinary thirst for general knowledge, and seems to have consumed a considerable patrimony on his education and travels. Having accompanied the Earl of Essex in his expedition to Cadiz, he purposed to have set out on an extensive course of travels, and to have visited the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem. Though compelled to give up his design by the insuperable dangers and difficulties of the journey, he did not come

home till his mind had been stored with an extensive knowledge of foreign languages and manners, by a residence in the south of Europe. On his return to England, the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere made him his secretary, and took him to his house. There he formed a mutual attachment to the niece of Lady Ellesmere, and, without the means or prospect of support, the lovers thought proper to marry. The lady's father, Sir George More, on the declaration of this step, was so transported with rage, that he insisted on the chancellor's driving Donne from his protection, and even got him imprisoned, together with the witnesses of the marriage. He was soon released from prison, but the chancellor would not again take him into his service, and the brutal fatherin-law would not support the unfortunate pair. In their distress, however, they were sheltered by Sir Francis Wolley, a son of Lady Ellesmere by a former marriage, with whom they resided for several years, and were treated with a kindness that mitigated their sense of dependence.

Donne had been bred a Catholic, but on mature reflection had made a conscientious renunciation of that faith. One of his warm friends, Dr. Morton, afterwards Bishop of Durham, wished to have provided for him, by generously surrendering one of his benefices: he therefore pressed him to take holy orders, and to return to him the third day with his answer to the proposal. "At hearing of this" (says his biographer), "Mr. Donne's faint breath and perplexed countenance gave visible testimony of an inward conflict. He did not however return his answer till the third day; when, with fervid thanks, he declined the offer, telling the bishop that there were some errors of his life which, though long repented of, and pardoned, as he trusted, by God, might yet be not forgotten by some men, and which might cast a dishonour on the sacred office." We are not told what those irregularities were; but the conscience which could dictate such an answer was not likely to require great offences for a stumblingblock. This occurred in the poet's thirty-fourth year. After the death of Sir F. Wolley, his next protector was Sir Robert Drury, whom he accompanied on an embassy to France. His wife, with an attachment as romantic as poet could wish for, had formed the design of accompanying him as a page. It was on this occasion, and to dissuade her from the design, that he

addressed to her the verses beginning, "By our first strange and fatal interview." Isaak Walton relates, with great simplicity, how the poet, one evening, as he sat alone in his chamber in Paris, saw the vision of his beloved wife appear to him with a dead infant in her arms, a story which wants only credibility to be interesting. He had at last the good fortune to attract the regard of King James; and, at his Majesty's instance, as he might now consider that he had outlived the remembrance of his former follies, he was persuaded to become a clergyman. In this capacity he was successively appointed chaplain to the king, lecturer of Lincoln's Inn, vicar of St. Dunstan's Fleet street, and dean of St. Paul's. His death, at a late age, was occasioned by consumption. He was buried in St. Paul's, where his figure yet remains in the vault of St. Faith's, carved from a painting for which he sat a few days before his death, dressed in his winding-sheet.

THOMAS PICKE.

Or this author I have been able to obtain no further information than that he belonged to the Inner Temple, and translated a great number of John Owen's Latin epigrams into English. His songs, sonnets, and elegies bear the date of 1631. Indifferent as the collection is, entire pieces of it are pilfered.

GEORGE HERBERT.

[Born, 1593. Died, 1632-3.]

"HOLY George Herbert," as he is generally called, was prebendary of Leighton Ecclesia, a village in Huntingdonshire. Though Bacon is said to have consulted him about some of his writings, his memory is chiefly indebted to the affectionate mention of old Isaak Walton.

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