"from the shows exhibited at Whitehall, in its time cr THE MOST POLITE COURT IN EUROPE. Ben "Jonson was the laureat; Inigo Jones, the in"ventor of the decorations; Laniere and Ferabosco composed the symphonies; the king, the queen, "and the young nobility, danced in the interludes." Taste, and wit, and gaiety, disappeared during the subsequent reign of republicanism; and the general gloom was seldom interrupted, except by the compositions of a few cavaliers, who amused themselves by harassing with ridicule the dull and insipid manners of their puritanical enemies. The reader will find in bishop Percy's "Reliques "of ancient English Poetry," (Vol. II. p. 338, 4th edit.) some verses by Charles I. which lord Orford has, rather too hastily, condemned as "most un"couth and unharmonious," at the same time that he has recognized in them" strong thoughts, some good sense, and a strain of majestic piety." THOMAS CAREW. "Younger brother," says Wood," to Sir Matthew Carew, "a great Royalist in the time of the Rebellion," of a Gloucestershire family, but descended from an ancient one in Devonshire of the same name, was educated at Corpus Christ College, Oxford, though never matriculated. "Af"terwards improving his parts by travelling and conversa"tion with ingenious men in the metropolis" " he was "made gentleman of the privy chamber and sewer in "ordinary to Charles I. who always esteemed him to the "last one of the most celebrated wits in his court." Mr. Headley, in his Biographical Sketches, p. 39, has very justly observed, that "Carew has the ease, without the "pedantry of Waller, and perhaps less conceit. He re"minds us of the best manner of lord Lyttelton. Waller "is too exclusively considered as the first man who brought "versification to any thing like its present standard. "Carew's pretensions to the same merit are seldom suffi"ciently either considered or allowed." Lord Clarendon, however, has remarked of his poems, that," for the sharpness of the fancy and the elegancy of the language in "which that fancy was spread, they were at least equal, if "not superior, to any of that time. But his glory was that, "after fifty years of his life spent with less severity or "exactness than they ought to have been, he died with the 66 greatest remorse for that license, and with the greatest "manifestation of Christianity that his best friends could "desire." Carew is generally supposed to have died young in 1639, and I have therefore placed his birth about 1600, though, from the preceding passage from Clarendon, it seems probable that his birth ought to be placed earlier, or his death later. The earliest edition of his works that I have seen was printed in 1642, which, however, is called in the title the second edition. SWEETLY breathing Vernal Air, On whose brow, with calm smiles drest, Thou, if stormy Boreas throws Down whole forests when he blows, If he blast what's fair or good, Persuasions to love. THINK not, 'cause men flattering say, To be enjoy'd, and 'twere a sin There to be scarce, where she hath been Thus common beauties, and mean faces, Than me, the beggar. Oh then be |