consumption, became very poor in body and purse, was the object of charity, went in ragged clothes, whereas when he was in his glory, he wore cloth of gold and silver, and mostly lodged in obscure and dirty places more befitting the worst of beggars and poorest of servants."

Richard Lovelace died in a very mean lodging in Gunpowder-alley near Shoe-lane, and was buried at the west end of St. Bride's Church, in 1658.

Aubrey's account in a great measure confirms the foregoing, and is too curious to be omitted.

"Richard Lovelace, Esq. obiit in a cellar in Long Acre, a little before the restoration of his majesty. Mr. Edmund Wild, &c, had made collections for him and given him money. He was of in Kent, 5001. or more. He was an extraordinary handsome man, but proud. He wrote a poem called Lucasta, 8vo. 1649. He

have been told.

was of Gloucester Hall, as I He had two younger brothers, viz. Col. F. R. L. and another that died at Carmarthen. George Petty, haberdasher, in Fleet-street, carried XXs. to him every Monday morning, from SirMany, and Charles Cotton, Esq. for months, but was never repaid."

Some doubts have been cast upon the veracity of Wood's account by the compiler of the Biographia Dramatica, who asserts that Lovelace could not have died in extreme poverty as his daughter and sole heir married the son of Lord Chief Justice Coke, and brought her husband an estate in Kent derived from her father. We have no means of confirming this statement: no intimation exists in any part of his works of his having been married, it is probable that some

G

other individual of the family may have given origin to this mistake, if it be one. Lovelace had three brothers who survived him, Thomas, Francis, and Dudley; two of them, at least, of the same rank in the army with himself. The first volume of his poems is dedicated to Lady Ann Lovelace, and the second to the Right Hon. John Lovelace, Esq. We fear, confirmed as it is by Aubrey's statement, the narrative of our poet's miserable reverse of fortune is but too true.

Richard Lovelace, if general report may be trusted, was a gentleman accomplished at all points. Nature had been unusually liberal in the graces of his person. "He was accounted" says Wood "the most amiable and beautiful person that ever eye beheld." James Howell in an elegy to his memory, has the following

lines :

"The beauty of his soul did correspond

With his sweet outside, nay it went beyoud:"

Another of his eulogists calls him "the lovely Lovelace," and Aubrey "an extraordinary handsome man." To this graceful exterior he added all the elegant accomplishments of his time, he was a perfect scholar, a good musician, and a fine poet:

"To sum up all, few men of fame but know
He was tam Marti, quam Mercurio."

Lovelace was in the happy period of his life, positions to the different musical composers of that time, by whom they were severally adapted to music, and he did not publish any collected edition of his works until the period of his last imprisonment. The

habit, during the early and of sending his poetical com

collection which he brought together and arranged at this time was printed in 1649, with the title of "Lucasta: Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, Songs, &c. to which is added Aramantha, a pastoral." To this small volume another was added in the year after his death, with the same general title of "Lucasta," collected and published by his brother Dudley. To the former of these volumes are appended eleven copies of commendatory verses, and to the latter several elegies to his memory. "Lucasta" was the poetical appellation of a lady to whom the greater part of these compositions were addressed, whose real name was Lucy Sacheverel. She is said to have possessed not only great personal beauty, but also ample fortune; but that she returned the poet's affection with equal ardour may be doubted, for she is reported to have married another person upon the rumour of his having received a fatal wound at Dunkirk. A print prefixed to the first collection of his poems, engraved by Faithorne, after a design of Sir Peter Lely's, is supposed to exhibit her portrait in the garb of a shepherdess. It is by no means remarkable for beauty. Indeed, the whole story may reasonably be doubted. Lovelace embarked to take the command of his regiment in 1647, he received his wound at Dunkirk soon afterwards, returned to London the next year, and published his poems in the year following. If the lady had been in such haste to dispose of herself upon mere report of his death, which if it had happened, must have happened so near home as to admit of being easily confirmed, she very little deserved from the poet the compliment of giving a title to his book published immediately afterwards, and of having her effigy displayed in the front of it; and it may be further remarked,

that no allusion whatever is made to the trying circumstance of her being married to another, under circumstances so recent and so distressing, in any of the various pieces devoted to her name, which in a man of Lovelace's sanguine habit might reasonably be expected.* To the volume of posthumous poems an engraved bust of the author by Hallar, is prefixed, which warrants all that has been said of the beauty of his person. Both these engravings, together with the poems, have lately been re-engraved and re-published in a very elegant manner, in the selection of early English poets, printed at the Chiswick press.-Before this re-publication the collected works of Lovelace were of difficult attainment, as they appear to have been printed only once, and at distant intervals of time.

Lovelace had in the composition of his mind, many of the finer elements of poetry, and wanted only application, and a better taste than could be acquired in his time, to have placed him in a very elevated rank among the poets of his country. He possessed enthusiasm, a quick and lively perception of beauty, an ardent imagination, a correct and musical ear, and all the graces of the lyre. His faults are those of his time, and unfortunately they are in excess. In affectation be

*There is only one passage throughout the poems that seems to have any reference to the marriage of this lady. The first stanza of an ode to Lucasta, from prison.

Long in thy shackles, liberty,

I ask not of these walls, but thee,-
Iseft for a while another's bride,—
To fancy all the world beside.

When the obscure and metaphoric style of the poet is considered, it may be doubted whether this passage can be taken in its literal sense.

exceeds even Cowley himself, and his fancy is ever upon the rack for new and extravagant thoughts. He is frequently obscure and perplexed, and in some instances unintelligible; nor is he totally exempt from that unpardonable fault a want of delicacy. The court of Charles the second is accused of having first promoted and patronised a race of voluptuary poets, who have disgraced that language by their grossness, which they might have embellished by their talents. The accusation is not strictly correct. The great poets of Elizabeth's time are not free from this unhappy taint, and the "well-head" of our poetry, father Chaucer himself, is a sad example of it. There is however, a certain undefinable redeeming grace in the amatory poems by the great masters of the Elizabethan age, which preserves them from absolutely disgusting; a grace which was gradually dissipated in their successors and became totally extinct in the productions of the abandoned wits of Charles's time. Lovelace partook of this degradation, and some of his pieces are disfigured by it. The following selection exhibits our poet in the most favourable light :

SONG.

To LUCASTA, going beyond the Seas.

If to be absent, were to be

Away from thee,

Or that when I am gone,

You or I were alone,—

Then, my Lucasta, might I crave

Pity from blustering wind, or swallowing wave.