soul of solemn grief is poured into every line. The 6th and 13th Elegies will gain an increased interest from the truth of their allusions. Dr. Aylmer had declared on his death-bed, that his "own eyes" had ever been “his overseers," and it is recorded that he "shut his own eyes with his own hands." Thus the "self-closed eyes" of the poet have a peculiar beauty. ELEGY VI. Farewell those eyes, whose gentle smiles forsook Farewell those cheerful eyes, that did erewhile Farewell those eyes, that to their joyful guest ELEGY VIII. Had virtue, learning, the diviner arts, ELEGY X. I wondered not to hear so brave an end, Nay, had report or niggard fame denied That he, who died so oft, once died so well. ELEGY XIII. No, no, he is not dead; the mouth of fame, The perfect vision of eternal joy. The tautology of the concluding couplet appears to have escaped the poet's notice. In the same year he printed Sion's Elegies, a paraphrase upon the songs of mourning "wept by Jeremie the prophet." In these Elegies are many noble lines: this sublime prayer for Divine inspiration may be offered as a specimen : Thou Alpha and Omega, before whom Things past, and present, and things yet to come, And let thy spirit enrich my feeble lines. Revive my passion; let mine eye behold Those sorrows present, which were wept of old; In 1631, he lost his friend Drayton, whose virtues he commemorated in the epitaph inscribed on his monument in Westminster Abbey. Do, pious marble, let thy readers know Protect his memory, and preserve his story, In the folio edition of Drayton's works, 1748, these verses are attributed to Ben Jonson, but they are here given to Quarles upon the authority of his intimate friend, Marshall, the "stone-cutter of Fetter-Lane," who erected the monument, and told Aubrey that Quarles was the author. Drayton lived "at the bay-window house, next the east end of St. Dunstan's church, in Fleet Street," and was generally beloved for the gentleness and amiability of his manners. The puritan and the papist united in his praise; and it has been remarked by his biographer, that if his morals had been worse, his fortune would have been better. His sacred poems, like all his longer productions, are tedious and diffuse; but they are the offspring of an humble and religious mind, and many fine thoughts, bold images, and much commanding versification, are buried in Noah's Flood, Moses, his Birth and Miracles, and David and Goliah. He also composed, during the reign of Elizabeth, a volume of spiritual songs, not included in any edition of his works*. In the same year Quarles transmitted to the press the History of Sampson, a work valuable only for the beautiful letter to Sir James Fullerton, to whom it is dedicated. "Sir,-There be three sorts of friends: the first is like a torche, we meet in a dark street; the second is like a candle in a lanthorn, that we overtake; the third is like a link that offers *The Harmonie of the Church 1591. itself to a stumbling passenger. The met torch is the sweet-lipt friend, which lends us a flash of compliment for the time, but quickly leaves us to our former darkness; the overtaken lanthorn is the true friend, which, though it promise but a faint light, yet it goes along with us as far as it can, to our journey's end. The offered link is the mercenary friend, which, though it be ready enough to do us service, yet that service hath a servile relation to our bounty. Sir, in the middle rank I find you, hating the first, and scorning the last; to whom, in the height of my undissembled affection, and unfeigned thankfulness, I commend myself and this book, to receive an equal censure from your uncorrupted judgment. In the bud it was yours, it blossomed yours, and now your favourable acceptance confirms the fruit yours. All I crave is, that you would be pleased to interpret these my intentions to proceed from an ardent desire, that hath long been in labour, to express the true affections of him, "Thats hold it an honour to honour you. This "honourable friend" had been one of the preceptors of the youthful Usher. * The first edition of the Emblems is supposed to have appeared in 1635. Jackson, in his 29th Letter, has this remarkable P. S., "I should have informed you that these Emblems were imitated in Latin, by one Herman Hugo, a Jesuit. The first edition of them was in 1623, soon after the appearance of Quarles. He makes no acknowledgment to Quarles, and speaks of his own work as original." In English poetry, at least, the author of the Thirty Letters had more taste than learning. This one Herman Hugo' was a person of considerable eminence in his day; he was a philosopher, a linguist, a theologian, a poet, and a soldier, and under the command of Spinola, is said to have performed prodigies of valour. The Pia Desideria, which suggested the Emblems of Quarles, obtained immense success. 6 Chalmers, while escaping the error of Jackson, has fallen into another, though of minor importance. After alluding to the plates, he says, "The accompanying verses are entirely Quarles's." This is not correct, for although Quarles possessed too original a mind to follow servilely in the track of any man, yet he frequently translated whole lines, and sometimes entire passages, from the Pia Desideria. In general, however, the resemblance is confined to a free paraphrase. Hugo has more Scriptural simplicity, and his occasional meanness of imagery and affectation of manner, are lost in the rapid and sonorous harmony of Latin verse. "These Emblems," says the writer of an article in the Critical Review*, "have had a singular fate: they are fine poems upon some of the most ridiculous prints that ever excited merriment; yet the poems are neglected, while the prints have been repeatedly republished with new illustrations. In the early part of the last century, a clergyman restored them to Hugo, their original owner, and printed with them a dull translation of Hugo's dull verses. They next fell into the hands of some methodist, who berhymed them in the very spirit of Sternhold; and this is the book which is now generally known by the name of Quarles. In Spain, the same prints have appeared, with a paraphrase of Hugo's verses. In Portugal, they have been twice published; once by a nun who has fitted to them a mystical romance; once for meditations before and after Confession and Communion, and stanzas on the same subjects by Father Anthony of the Wounds, a celebrated Semi-Irishman.” Pope, in one of his letters to Bishop Atterbury, speaking, I suppose, contemptuously of "that great poet Quarles," refers to the strange character of these illustrations. Many of them are copied, in a miserable manner, from Hugo, and convey, it must be confessed, no adequate idea of the subjects they are intended to represent. Thus the picture on these words, "O wretched man that I am, who shall *For September, 1801, p. 45, commonly attributed to Mr. Southey. |