Methought I saw my late espoused saint which, in its solemn and tender strain of feeling and modulated harmony, reminds us of Dante. He never ceased to lament her, and to cherish her memory with a fond regret :—she must have been full in his heart and mind when he wrote those touching lines in the Paradise Lost How can I live without thee? how forego After her death,-blind, disconsolate, and helpless he was abandoned to petty wrongs and domestic discord; and suffered from the disobedience and unkindness of his two elder daughters, like another Lear. His youngest daughter, Deborah, was the only one who acted as his amanuensis, and she always spoke of him with extreme affection;-on being suddenly shown his picture, twenty years after his death, she burst into tears. These three daughters were grown up, and the youngest about fifteen, when Milton married his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull. She was a gentle, kind-hearted woman, without pretensions of any kind, who watched over his declining years with affectionate care. One biographer has not scrupled to assert, that to her, or rather to her tender everence for his studious habits, and to the peace and comfort she brought to his heart and home,— we owe the Paradise Lost: if true, what a debt immense of endless gratitude is due to the memory of this unobtrusive and amiable woman ! CHAPTER XX. CAREW'S CELIA.-LUCY SACHEVEREL. FROM the reign of Charles the First may be dated that revolution in the spirit and form of our lyric poetry, which led to its subsequent degradation. The first Italian school of poetry, to which we owed our Surreys, our Spensers, and our Milton's, had now declined. The high contemplative tone of passion, the magnanimous and chivalrous homage paid to women, gradually gave way before the French taste and French gallantry, introduced, or at least encouraged and rendered fashionable, by Henrietta Maria and her gay household. The muse of amatory poetry (I presume there is such a Muse, though I know not to which of the Nine the title properly applies) no longer walked the earth star-crowned and vestal-robed, "col dir pien d' intelletti, dolci ed alti,"-" with love upon her lips, and looks commercing with the skies; "—she suited her garb to the fashion of the times, and tripped along in guise of an Arcadian princess, half regal, half pastoral, trailing a sheep-hook crowned with flowers, and sparkling with foreign ornaments, Pale glistening pearls and rainbow-colored gems. Then in the "brisk and giddy-paced times" of Charles the Second, she flaunted an airy coquette, or an unblushing courtesan, (" unveiled her eyes, -unclasped her zone;") and when these sinful doings were banished, she took the hue of the new morals-new fashions-new manners, and we find her a court prude, swimming in a hoop and red-heeled shoes, "conscious of the rich brocade," and ogling behind her fan: or else in the opposite extreme, like a bergère in a French ballet, stuck over with sentimental common-places and artificial flowers. This, in general terms, was the progress of the lyric muse, from the poets of Queen Elizabeth's days down to the wits of Queen Anne's. Of course, there are modifications and exceptions, which will suggest themselves to the poetical reader; but it does not enter into the plan of this sketch to treat matters thus critically and profoundly. To return then to the days of Charles the First. It must be confessed that the union of Italian sentiment and imagination with French vivacity and gallantry, was, in the commencement, exceedingly graceful, before all poetry was lost in wit, and gallantry sunk into licentiousness. Carew, one of the first who distinguished himself in this style, has been most unaccountably eclipsed by the reputation of Waller, and deserved better than to have had his name hitched into line between Sprat and Sedley; Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more.* As an amatory poet, he is far superior to Waller; he had equal smoothness and fancy, and much more variety, tenderness, and earnestness; if his love was less ambitiously, and even less honorably placed, it was, at least, more deep seated, and far more fervent. The real name of the lady he has celebrated under the poetical appellation of Celia, is not known-it is only certain that she was no "fabled fair,”—and that his love was repaid with falsehood. Hard fate! to have been once possessed A victor of a heart, And then forced to depart! From the irregular habits of Carew, it is possible he might have set the example of inconstancy; and yet this is but a poor excuse for her. Carew spent his life in the Court of Charles the First, who admired and loved him for his wit and amiable manners, though he reproved his libertinage. In the midst of that dissipation, which has polluted some of his poems, he was full of high * Pope. poetic feeling, and a truly generous lover: for even while he woos his fair one in the most soulmoving terms of flowery adulation and tender entreaty, he puts her on her guard against his own arts, and thus sweetly pleads against himself; Rather let the lover pine, Than his pale cheek should assign A perpetual blush to thine! And his admiration of female chastity is elsewhere frequently, as well as forcibly expressed.With all his elegance and tenderness, Carew is never feeble; and in his laments there is nothing whining or unmanly. After lavishing at the feet of his mistress the most passionate devotion, and the most exquisite flattery, hear him rebuke her pride with all the spirit of an offended poet! Know, Celia! since thou art so proud, Of common beauties, lived unknown, That killing power is none of thine, Thou art my star-shin'st in my skies; The identity of his Celia is now lost in a name, —and she deserves it: perhaps had she appre |