Her mouth so small, when she does speak, Thou'dst swear her teeth her words did break, That they might passage get: But she so handled still the matter They came as good as ours, or better, Ballad upon a Wedding. CAREW. 1589-1639. ONE of the most eminent of the cavalier and sensuous, as it may be termed, or Anacreontic class of lyrical poets, of which Suckling, Herrick, and Waller are the other chief names. To celebrate the court-beauties, and, generally, to sing the praises of wine and women, was their highest aim and ambition. Vivacity, gaiety of feeling and expression, and undisguised licentiousness, are the principal characteristics of their school. They were the true disciples of the old-world masters of the sensuous lyre-of an Anacreon or Catullus-and they fully felt and inculcated the philosophy of the 'Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux Nox est perpetua una dormienda!' They were the 'Bohémiens' of the seventeenth century. THE ADVENT OF SPRING. The flowers appear on the earth: the time of the singing of birds is come.' Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth, Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring SHIRLEY. 1596-1666 (?). THE last of the dramatists who adorned the Elizabethan and Jacobian age. According to Hallam, he can claim little originality or dramatic power. Yet he has many lines of considerable beauty,' scattered about in his numerous works. Death's Final Conquest, his 'finest production,' occurs in one of his dramas. THE ISOTIMIA OF HADES.* THE glories of our blood and state Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade. Some men with swords may reap the field, They stoop to fate, And must give up their murmuring breath * Some of the most graphic illustrations of this obvious but unpalatable truth are to be found in Ecclesiasticus and Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead. |