"Thus will I wake, thus will I sleep, We may be excused for here add a 66 ing, as another specimen of Gascoigne's poetry, a part of a dramatic chorus, in his glass of Government, Tragical Comedy," intended, it is said, to expose the prevailing errors of education. These lines are probably the first example in the language of this species of composi tion. "When God ordain'd the restless state of man, To show itself was this: to save from snares "Few see themselves, but each man seeth his child, Our next quotation shall be from Robert Green, best known as a dramatic writer, who was born about 1550, and died in 1592. He is said to have been the first English poet that wrote for bread, and it has been observed, that his life thus forms "a melancholy epocha in the history of our literature." But is this justly said? Is that a melancholy era at which poetical talent came to be employed as the means of supporting its possessor? Such a change seems rather to cast a gloomy hue upon the times that preceded it; as implying either that the public had previouly been unwilling to give bread for poetry, or that poetry had never arisen where there was a want of bread. On either supposition, when properly followed out, we must infer a striking deficiency in social culture. Who would desire to see in this respect a retrograde movement, or to confine poetical composition to "courtly makers," or men of fortune? Who is it that longs for the time when poets shall cease to write, and to write better than they would otherwise do, either simply for bread or for better bread than they would otherwise eat? Poor Green however diminished by his vices and follies both the honour and advantage of his laudable exertions for a livelihood. Yet he seems in the midst of dissipation to have preserved some purity of taste, and tenderness of feeling. The following lines are not without smoothness and elegance. "Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content; "The homely house that harbours quiet rest, The cottage that affords no pride nor care, "Some have too much, yet still they crave; I little have, yet seek no more: And I am rich with little store: They poor, I rich; they beg, i give; They lack, I lend; they pine, I live. "I laugh not at another's loss, No worldly wave my mind can toss, I grudge not at another's gain: I brook that is another's bane: "I wish but what I have at will, I wander not to seek for more: In greatest storms I sit on shore, The last line of these verses suggests a well known popular poem, of which the composition seems referable to this or to an earlier period. My mind to me a kingdom is," the song to which we now refer, appears to have been printed and familiarly known some years prior to 1590. Its author is undiscovered, and is apparently beyond the reach of conjecture. It was a favourite subject of imitation in its own day, and has been often since inserted in poetical collections with a high degree of praise. It is certainly in its own department a remarkable composition, and reflects credit on the infancy or adolescence of English popular poetry. The commencement, if now deprived of the charm of novelty, is strong and impressive; and several of the lines or stanzas throughout are neatly expressed, smoothly constructed, and diversified by some variety of point and metaphor. Yet the leading I idea of the poem, such as it is, is not expanded with much fertility of thought, or skilfulness of management. The same things are repeated with needless iteration, and the brief and sententious phrases employed, while they interrupt the flow of melody and feeling, are often strung together without any natural tie of connection or congruity. The prevalence of this fault may be apparent from the circumstance that different editors have differently arranged a good number of the stanzas, without its being easy to tell that the true order has been materially violated. We insert such verses of it as we think best deserving of attention. "My wealth is health and perfect case, If it were fair to subject a composition of this popular kind to very serious criticism, or if it deserved such a tribute to its importance, a graver objection to this piece, as to others of a similar character, might be found in the general coldness of its laciousness of the sentiments involved temperature, connected with the fal in it. My mind to me a kingdom is, Such perfect joy therein I find," has a lofty and imposing sound, and seems the prelude to a proud display of the noblest enjoyments and richest resources of mental perfection, scarcely agreeable indeed to that humility which best becomes a human creature. But the progress of the poem is not suitable to its outset. The regal entrance, by which we at first approach, proves after all to be the porch to a cottage. It is found that the only particulars in which the mind resembles a kingdom, or is enabled to afford the subjugation of troublesome appeits possessor such perfect joy, are tites, and the absence of external objects of interest to ruffle its serenity. No reference is made to the enjoyment of any positive pleasure, to the indulgence of any social emotion, or the discharge of any active duty. This is surely a poor view of that noble domain, the mind of man, and it is not a poetical one. Indifference to human affections implies a low tone, both of poetry and morality, as there can be neither praise nor sympathy without virtuous exertion or strong emotion. It must be confessed that several poems of the class we are now considering are pitched upon this under key, and seems merely to represent virtue as implying the negation of vice, and to place the only security from criminal indulgence in the retrenchment of natural passion. Some minds may find their best refuge in this retreat from active life, but they ought to announce their preference with the humility of those who have been forced to fly where it was their duty to fight. In a world of creatures of kindred origin and constitution with ourselves, a proud exultation in a state of mere quiescence, unaffected by the numerous variations of fortune and feeling occurring around us to demand our sympathy, in nothing else than a refined sefishness, unattainable indeed in our actual condition, and not desirable if it could be attained. Such voluntary separatists from the natural union of the human family might be addressed in lines, somewhat resembling in homely plainness the productions of the school which we are now considering: "My mind to me a kingdom is'No longer urge that swelling strain, For who can hope the praise is his, A monarch o'er himself to reign? "Nor boast that thus in cold content Thou bear'st a calm and careless Nor deign'st to laugh or to lament "Such lonely life may lurk apart, Unreached by tainting passion's stain; And what was once a human heart May lose the touch of human pain. "But heavy is the blame he bears Who, flying vice, flies virtue too: Whose fields, devoid of corn or tares, Lie barren in his Maker's view. "And greater bliss it were to groan, With all whose sufferings ask a sigh, Than, thus congealed to conscions stone, Unwept, unweeping, live and die." Our next object of selection, "The 40 VOL. XLIV. Soul's Errand, or the Lie," has had its due share of controversy and perhaps of condemnation. It has often been ascribed to Raleigh, and was at one time supposed to have been written by him the night before his execution. What authentic instances there are of poetical composition in so awful a situation we shall not' pause to inquire; but we should be in general disposed to ascribe them less to magnanimity than to desperation, or the love of effect. Certain we are that in such moments, a man should be more intent on examining himself than on condemning his fellow-creatures, and should be too much occupied with the mysterious scene on which he is entering, to rail at the world from which he is taking his departure. But all speculation as to the probability or propriety of such a poem being composed by this great man, in such circumstances, is here excluded by the facts. Raleigh perished in 1618, and Mr. Ellis observed that the poem appeared in "Davison's Poetical Rhapsody" ten years before. Recent critics however have somewhat pertinaciously clung to a similar idea, with the modified suggestion, that the poem might possibly have been written by Raleigh "the night before he expected to have been executed" in 1603. But it appears that the poem can be traced, if not to print, at least to paper, ten years even before that date, so that this new possibility becomes again impossible. We must, therefore be content to abandon entirely this romantic account of its origin, and either betake ourselves to some other theory, or submit to leave the matter in obscurity. Mr Ellis has rather rashly assigned the composition to the silver-tongued Sylvester, on better ground than that his editor has kidnapped and disfigured it by including it with some wretched additional stanzas in the collection of his poems in 1641. Ritson attributes it to Francis Davison, in whose "Rhapsody" the earliest printed copy of it is found. But in the "Rhapsody" are collected the compositions of various authors, some by name and some anonymously, and there is no special reason for ascribing this poem to Davison, whose signature is not affixed to it as it is to other pieces of his acknowledged composition. Mr Campbell inquires whether the "Soul's Errand" is not the same no poem with the Soul's Knell or "Soul Knil" of Richard Edwards, which Gascoigne mentions in one of his prefaces, and which he ridicules simple readers for supposing to have been written "in extremity of sickness." This theory would remove its date to a period prior to 1567, the year of Edwards' death which seems scarcely admissible. If it were so, it is singular that so remarkable a poem should not be found in print long before the publication of the Rhapsody in 1601, while on the other hand, it is equally singular if the "Soul Knell" which is mentioned by more than one early writer as well known and as having been "commended for a good piece," should not now be at all extant Were we to indulge in a very diffident conjecture as to this last question, we should suggest that Edward's "Soul Knell" might be found in the pleasing little piece beginning "O death, rock me on sleep, The burden of this song is certainly favourable to the supposition. "Toll on the passing bell, The manuscript of this dirge is said to bear the appearance of having been written about the time of Henry VIII., and it has been thought to have been composed either by, or in the person of Anne Boleyn; while Mr Ritson, with little apparent reason, has ascribed it to George, Lord Rochford, the brother of that unhappy princess. It seems possible that it may have been composed by Edwards, who, in 1561, was appointed master of the singing-boys in Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, and in compliment to his mistress, may have written it in the person of her mother. Its composition has eminently the appearance of having proceeded from a practical vocalist, while it corresponds, more nearly than any other piece we remember, with the now unattached title of Edwards' once celebrated "Soul Knell." The "Soul's Errand" appears to us to in dicate a considerably later date as well as a different style. Dismissing these unsatisfactory spe culations, let us return to an examination of the poetical merits of the composition which has given rise to them. The "Soul's Errand" has received a very high commendation from a very high authority. "The Soul's Er rand,'" Mr Campbell has said, "by whomsoever it was written, is a burst of genuine poetry. I know not how that short production has ever affected other readers but it carries to my imagi nation an appeal which I cannot easily account for from a few simple rhymes. It places the last and inexpressibly awful hour of existence before my view, and sounds like a sentence of vanity on the things of this world, pronounced by a dying man, whose eye glares upon eternity, and whose voice is raised by strength from ano ther world." This is noble criticism if it were justly bestowed. But we confess that we greatly question its soundness. The critic seems to have been duped by his own poetical genius conspiring with an in this composition that sublime tone indulgent taste and to have discovered and those solemn features which are the appropriate character of the subject, but which we fear are but feebly and defectively expressed in the attempted representation of them. Here it is perhaps, that a poet is found to be most fallible as a judge, if at any time by accidental associations or relaxed attention, the spirit of sound and searching criticism is biassed in its decisions, or its vigilance laid asleep. The suggestion to a poet's mind of a poetical situation or sentiment has in itself the effect of poetry. and gross deficiencies in taste and execution may escape his observation, if his excited feelings and conceptions overpower his faculties of judgment and comparison. He sees then in the subject of his criticism, not what the work truly is, but what it might be. He clothes the dead and dull skeleton that is presented to him with the vigour and warmth of life, and mistakes the images of his own fancy for the creations of the performance before him, which has merely roused them from their sleeping-places in his soul. This result is most likely to occur in the case of unpretending aud sketch-like productions, which disarm the severities of censure by not appearing to challenge a high place in poetical reputation. It will be further facilitated as to those compositions which have the charm of antiquity on their side, and are likely to have been first presented to the mind while its susceptibilities of pleasure were greater than its experience or penetration. We readily admit that the first stanza of the Soul's Errand" is elevated and striking; whether we conceive it to be the poet's idea that he was then infusing his spirit into this dying address to the world, or adopt the bolder view that he was delivering a command to his soul itself to visit men after its separation from the body, and denounce their deceptions. The last verse also, or at least the last couplet, has some vigour and dignity, but these are associated with mean expressions and a feeble conceit. The intermediate verses might some of them make tolerable prose, but can scarcely be said to contain much poetry, while many of them are not merely commonplace, but stupid. No calm or unprejudiced critic, we think, would be startled either by the glaring eye, or by the supernatural voice of a dying man, in reading the following very middling stanzas. "Tell potentates they live, Acting by others' actions, Not loved unless they give, Not strong but by their factions. If potentates reply, Give potentates the lie. "Tell men of high condition That rule affairs of state, Their purpose is ambition, Their practice only hate: And if they once reply, Then give them all the lie. "Tell them that brave it most, They beg for more by spending, Who in their greatest cost Seek nothing but commending; And if they make reply, Then give them all the lie. "Tell arts they have no soundness, And stand too much on seeming; "Tell faith it's fled the city; It seems to need no ghost, or any man about to become one, to tell us often so tamely expressed, that we most of these things; and they are might suspect they were not all the conceived the idea, and composed the production of the same author who first stanza of the poem. But, in truth, the writers of that time seem the weak and unequal things which to have been incapable of retrenching most poets must sometimes write. art of all, the art to blot." They had no They had not learned "the last great idea, that in the poetical litter, it was generally best to destroy a large prohave looked with a parent's partiality portion of the progeny; but seem to ductions to which they had once given on even the most rickety of the probirth. The poem now before us, like many others, would be greatly imliar as it must be to our readers we proved by abridgment; and famitake the liberty of inserting it in the curtailed shape in which a maturer judgment might perhaps have originally presented it to the public. "Go, soul, the body's guest, Upon a thankless errand; "Go, tell the court, it glows * Tell zeal it lacks devotion, And wish them not reply, * "Tell wit, how much it wrangles In tickle points of niceness; Tell wisdom, she entangles Herself, in overwiseness. And if they do reply, Straight give them both the lie. |