vain for images of rural simplicity, and touches of domestic feeling. He contemplates nature, as it were, through a painted window, from which every object takes its particular hue. Thus the rose he describes is not the rose of our gardens, or our hedges; his flowers have never cheered our eyes in the field-paths; they are natives of a land visited only by the poet's ima gination. He fails in arousing our sympathy, because he addresses our memory instead of our heart. We have also to object to these writers the want of symmetry in their compositions; their richest colouring often darkens into a daub; their choicest music closes in discord. When reading them we think of the Centaur of Zeuxis, which began in loveliness and ended in deformity.

The faults of Crashaw are those of his school; and it has been truly said*, that the strength of his thoughts sometimes appears in their distortion. When released from his self-imposed fetters, he uttered his lays with a softness, that like the melody of the nightingale he sang, seems to come from a silver throat. How full of pastoral sweetness is the "Hymn of the Nativity, sung as by the shepherds!"

GLOOMY night embraced the place

Where the noble Infant lay;

The Babe look'd up and show'd his face—
In spite of darkness it was day.

We saw thee in thy balmy nest,

Bright dawn of our eternal day!

We saw thine eyes break from their east,

And chase the trembling shades away:

We saw thee, and we blest the sight,
We saw thee by thy own sweet light.

• By Mr. Campbell.

She sings thy tears asleep, and dips
Her kisses in thy weeping eye;
She spreads the red leaves of thy lips.
That in their buds yet blushing lie.

Yet when young April's husband-showers
Shall bless the fruitful Maia's bed,
Well bring the first-born of her flowers
To kiss thy feet and crown thy head.
To thee dread Lamb! whose love must keep
The shepherds more than they their sheep.

To Thee, meek Majesty soft King

Of simple graces and sweet loves;
Each of us his lamb will bring,

Each his pair of silver doves".

And what a bright vein of imagination runs through his Hymn to the Morning :

O Thou

Bright Lady of the morn! pity doth lie

So warm in thy soft breast, it cannot die

Have mercy then, and when he next shall rise

O meet the angry God, invade his eyes.
So my wakeful lay shall knock

At th' oriental gates, and duly mock
The early lark's shrill orisons, to be
An anthem at the day's nativity.

And the same rosy-fingered hand of thine,

That shuts night's dying eyes, shall open mine;
But thou faint God of sleep, forget that I

Was ever known to be thy votary.

No more my pillow shall thine altar be,
Nor will I offer any more to thee,
Myself a melting sacrifice: I'm born

Again a fresh child of the buxom morn,

Heir of the Sun's first beams, why threat'et thou so?
Why dost thou shake thy leaden sceptre? Go

• Several lines are omitted.

Bestow thy poppy upon wakeful woe,

Sickness and sorrow, whose pale lids ne'er know
Thy downy finger; dwell upon their eyes,

Shut in their tears, shut out their miseries!

I have already extracted largely from Crashaw's poetry, or it would be easy to multiply instances of new and pleasing similes, and metaphors most ingeniously constructed. He was not always the stringer of pretty beads. His character of true poetic genius contrasted with his own, is very noble :

:

No rapture makes it live

Drest in the glorious madness of a muse,
Whose feet can walk the milky way,

Her starry throne, and held up an exalted arm
To lift me from my lazy urn, and climb
Upon the stooped shoulders of old time,

And trace eternity.

Between his Latin and English poems there is very little difference. In the versification he appears to have imitated the epigrammatic turns of Martial :

IN S. COLUMBAM AD CHRISTI CAPUT SEDentem.
Cui sacra siderea volucris suspenditur alâ?
Hunc nive plus niveum cui dabit illa pedem ?
Christe, tuo capiti totis se destinat auris,

Qua ludit densa blandior umbra coma-
Illic arcano quid non tibi murmure narrat?
(Murmure mortales non imitante sonos-)
Sola avis hæc nido hoc non est indigna cubare;
Solus nidus hic est hac bene dignus ave.

TO THE SACRED Dove alighting on the HEAD OF CHRIST*.
On whom doth this blest bird its wings outspread?
Where will it suffer its white feet to rest?

O Jesus, hovering o'er thy hallowed head,

Within thy hair's sweet shade, it seeks a nest.

• In these translations I have endeavoured to be as literal as possible.

There does it breathe a mystic song to Thee,
A melody unlike all earthly sound;
That bird alone to this pure nest may flee,
This nest alone worthy the bird is found.

IN CETUM OMNIUM SANCTORUM.
Felices anina! quas cœlo debita virtus
Jam potuit vestris inseruisse polis.
Hoc dedit egregii non parcus sanguinis usus,
Spesque per obstantes expatiata vias.
O ver! O longæ semper seges aurea lucis,
Nocte nec alternâ, dimidiata dies-

O quæ palma manu ridet! quæ fronte corona!
O nix virgineæ non temeranda toga!
Pacis inocciduæ vos illic ora videtis:

Vos Agni dulcis lumina: vos-quid ago?

TO THE ASSEMBLY OF ALL THE SAINTS.
Thrice happy souls, to whom the prize is given,
Whom faith and truth have lifted into heaven,—
Gift of the heavenly Martyr's dying breath,
Gift of a Faith that burst the Gates of Death!
O Spring! O golden harvest of glad light,
Sweet day, whose beauty never fades in night!

The palm blooms in each hand, the garland on each brow,
The raiment glitters in its undimm'd snow!

The regions of unfading Peace ye see,

And the meek brightness of the Lamb-how different from me!

The name of Cowley is associated with the history of Crashaw; he spoke of himself as one whom Crashaw was "so humble to esteem, so good to love." And Crashaw, when he sent "two green apricots" to his friend, poured out the sincere praise of his attachment. He was considered an imitator of Cowley, but they resembled each other only in their love of conceits. Of Cowley's boyish rhymes, a modern critic cannot be

required to say any thing; for even the author professed himself unwilling to be obliged to read them all over. Yet his Poetical Blossoms were the offspring of a tree that might have produced golden fruit, if he had not liked better to carve its branches into quaint devices, than suffer them to spread into verdant strength. His was, indeed, a case of mental perversion; the ruggedness of his lines, and the eccentricity of his imagery, are affirmed by his flattering biographer, Dr. Sprat, to have been "his choice, not his fault." The writer of the raciest and clearest prose sank into a mysterious expounder of the idlest trifles.

His sacred poetry has been criticised by Johnson. The Davideis, his most ambitious attempt, was composed while he was a student at Cambridge. No one ever dreams that it was inspired by the Faery Queen, which used to lie in the window-seat of his father's house, or that Milton deemed the poet worthy of being admitted into the triumvirate, of which Spenser and Shakspeare were members. Fuller said of an ornamental writer, that the extravagance of his fancy had introduced a new alphabet; and Cowley sought to effect a similar change in the language of poetry. He had wandered in the labyrinth until he preferred it to the open country. Difficulty was become essential to his amusement. But we lose sight of the faults of the bard, in the truth and generosity of the Christian; and Chertsey, where

The last accents flowed from Cowley's tongue,

will continue to draw many footsteps to its honoured neighbourhood.