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The talents and virtues of Southwell procured for him the friendship of many distinguished individuals, and especially of Anne, countess of Arundel, with whom he resided in the capacity of chaplain until July, 1592*.

In this month he was apprehended on a charge of sedition, at Uxenden in Middlesex, and committed to a dungeon in the Tower. His imprisonment lasted three years, and during that period he is said to have been put to the torture several times. How serenely he endured his afflictions may be learnt from his Epistle of Comfort, which is replete with the warmest piety and the most glowing imagination. At the expiration of three years he wrote to Cecil, the Lord Treasurer, entreating either that a day might be appointed for his trial, or that his relations and friends might be allowed to visit him. Cecil is said to have replied, that if he was in so much haste to be hanged, he should quickly have his desire; and the taunting threat of the minister was speedily fulfilled. On the 20th of February, Southwell was removed from Newgate, and carried to Westminster, where he was tried and condemned to death; and, on the following day, he underwent the infliction of the law at Tyburnt. He died with a calmness and resignation worthy of a purer creed.

The productions of Southwell were very numerous, and obtained an extensive popularity. Eleven editions of his works appeared between 1593 and 1600.

The Triumphs over Death, and St. Peter's Complaint,

The letters of this unfortunate lady to her children are said to be written with much piety and tenderness; the melancholy death of Lord Arundel weighed heavily upon her spirits.-Lodge's Illustrations, v. 3, p. 357.

+ In Stow's Chronicle, Ed. 1631, p. 769, Southwell is said to have suffered on the day after his conviction; but Fuller fixes the date of the execution on the 3rd of March; and in a tract entitled the Rat Trap, or the Jesuits taken in their own net, 1641, the 20th of September is named. -Gent. Mag. v. lxviii. pt. 2, p. 933. Mr. Walter, who from his acquaintance with Southwell's writings, is an authority worthy of attention, coincides with Stow.

have been reprinted; the first by Sir Egerton Brydges, and the second by Mr. Walter, who speaks of the author with an ardour inspired by a community of belief.

The character of Lady Margaret Sackville, upon whose death the Triumphs were composed, is written with remarkable elegance and purity of language*.

"She was by birth second to none, but unto the first in the realm; yet she measured only greatness by goodness, making nobility but the mirror of virtue, as able to show things worthy to be seen, as apt to draw many eyes to behold it; she suited her behaviour to her birth, and ennobled her birth with her piety, leaving her house more beholden to her for having honoured it with the glory of her virtues, than she was to it for the titles of her degree. She was high-minded but in aspiring to perfection, and in the disdain of vice; in other things covering her grace with humility among her inferiors, and showing it with courtesy among her peers. Of her carriage of herself, and her sober government, it may be sufficient testimony that envy herself was dumb in her dispraise, finding in her much to repine at, but nought to reprove. The clearness of her honour I need not mention, she having always armed it with such modesty as taught the most intemperate tongues to be silent in her presence, and answered their eyes with scorn and contempt that did seem to make her an aim to passion. How mildly she accepted the check of fortune fallen upon her without desert, experience has been a most manifest proof: the temper of her mind being so easy that she found little difficulty in taking down her thoughts to a mean degree, which true honour, not pride, has raised to a former height; her faith

* Lady Margaret Sackville, wife of the Honourable Robert Sackville, son and heir apparent of Thomas, then Lord Buckhurst, whom he succeeded as second Earl of Dorset in 1608. She was the daughter of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk.-See Advertisement to the Triumphs over Death, in the Archaica, vol. i., 1814.

fulness and love, where she found true friendship, are written with tears in many eyes.

"Where she owed, she paid piety; where she found, she turned courtesy; wheresoever she was known, she deserved amity; desiring the best, yet disdaining none but evil company; she was readier to requite benefits, than revenge wrongs; more grieved than angry with unkindness of friends, when either mistaking or misreport occasioned any breaches.

In sum, she was an honour to her

predecessors, a light to her age, and a pattern to her posterity; neither was her conclusion different from her premises, or her end from her life; she showed no dismay, being warned of her danger, carrying in her conscience the safe-conduct of innocency. But having sent her desires before, with a mild countenance and a most calm mind, in more hope than fear, she expected her own passage. She commended both her duty and good will to all her friends, and cleared her heart from all grudge towards her enemies, wishing true happiness to them both, as best became so soft and gentle a mind, in which anger never stayed but as an unwelcome stranger."

Of all our early poets, Southwell recalls most freshly the manner of Goldsmith. Not that he ever opened the same vein of pleasantry, or acquired the art of making a history of animals, as amusing as a Persian tale;-the resemblance is to be traced in the naturalness of the sentiment, the propriety of the expression, and the easy harmony of the verse. If the following stanzas be compared with

*The neatness and condensation of his lines ought to be noticed. He expresses a just sentiment with a happy brevity:

The angels' eyes, whom veils cannot deceive,
Might best disclose what best they do discern:
Men must with sound and silent faith receive
More than they can by sense of reason learn.
God's power our proof,-his works our wits exceed :

The doer's might is reason for the deed.

The Christian's Manna.

Goldsmith's minor poetry, the relationship will be ap

parent:

My conscience is my crown,

Contented thoughts my rest;
My heart is happy in itself;
My bliss is in my breast.
Enough, I reckon wealth;
A mean, the surest lot;

That lies too high for base contempt,
Too low for envy's shot.

My wishes are but few,
All easy to fulfil :

I make the limits of my power
The bounds unto my will.
I have no hopes but one,
Which is of heavenly reign:
Effects attained, or not desired,
All lower hopes refrain.

I feel no care of coin;

Well-doing is my wealth:
My mind to me an empire is,
While Grace affordeth health.
I wrestle not with rage,

While fury's flame doth burn;
It is in vain to stop the stream,
Until the tide doth turn.

But when the flame is out,

And ebbing wrath doth end;

I turn a late enraged foe
Into a quiet friend ;
And taught with often proof,
A tempered calm I find
To be most solace to itself,

Best cure for angry mind.

No change of fortune's calms

Can cast my comforts down:

When fortune smiles, I smile to think

How quickly she will frown;

And when in froward mood,

She moved an angry foe:

Small gain I found to let her come,

Less loss to let her go.

If the moral tone of Southwell remind us of Goldsmith, his serious and unornamented strains of devotion present an equal resemblance to the Canticles of Racine. In the dedication of St. Peter's Complaint, he objects to the "idle fancies" of poets, and limits his ambition to the weaving "a new web in his own loom," for which purpose he laid " a few coarse threads together." Some of these

threads have wound themselves round the heart. Jonson expressed, to Drummond of Hawthornden, his admiration of Southwell, and preferred the Burning Babe to many of his own compositions.

The admirers of Southwell's poetry will not withhold their sympathy from the Divine Centurie of Spiritual Sonnets, by his contemporary Barnabe Barnes. This little collection of poems, originally published in 1595, has been reprinted by Mr. Park in his Heliconia, but, owing to the very expensive form of the work, without adding much to their popularity. Barnes, upon whom the flattery of friendship bestowed the appellation of Petrarch's scholar, while it elevated him to an equality with Spenser, was the subject of frequent satire during his life. Few particulars of his history have been preserved. He was a younger son of Dr. Richard Barnes, bishop of Durham, and was born about the year 1569. At the age of seventeen he became a student of Brazen-nose College, Oxford, but left the university without a degree. "What became of him afterwards," says Wood, "I know not." He appears, however, to have accompanied the expedition sent to France by Elizabeth, in 1591, under the command of Devereux, Earl of Essex. He was then in his twenty-second year, and he probably remained in that country until 1594.

Nash accuses him of running away from battle, and of subsequently disgracing himself still more, by robbing a nobleman's steward of a gold chain. But these charges rest upon no foundation, and were probably the result of

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