For Cumberland and it, both kingdoms' borders, Some sharking, shifting, cutting throats, and thieving, All places of defence o'erthrown and razed; To be almost the centre of the land; This was a blessed Heaven-expounded riddle, To thrust great kingdoms' skirts into the middle. Of Taylor's prose narrative, the most interesting portion is an account of a great deer-hunt which he witnessed at the 'Brae of Mar,' at which were present the Earls of Mar, Moray, Buchan, Enzie, with their countesses, Lord Erskine, Sir William Murray of Abercairney, and hundreds of others, knights, esquires, and their followers :' A Deer-hunt in Braemar, Once in the year, which is the whole month of August, and sometimes part of September, many of the nobility and gentry of the kingdom, for their pleasure, do come into these Highland countries to hunt, when they do conform themselves to the habit of the Highlandmen, who for the most part speak nothing but Irish, and in former times were those people which were called 'the Red-shanks.' Their habit is shoes with but one sole apiece, stockings (which they call short hose) made of a warm stuff of divers colours, which they call tartan. As for breeches, many of them, nor their forefathers, never wore any, but a jerkin of the same stuff that their hose is of, their garters being bands or wreaths of hay or straw, with a plaid about their shoulders, which is a mantle of divers colours, of much finer and lighter stuff than their hose, with blue flat caps on their head, a handkerchief knit with two knots about their neck, and thus are they attired. Now, their weapons are long bows and forked arrows, swords and targets, harquebusses, muskets, dirks, and Lochaber axes. My good lord of Mar having put me into that shape [dressed him in the Highland costume], I rode with him from his house, where I saw the ruins of an old castle, called the castle of Kindroghit [now Castletown]. It was built by king Malcolm Canmore for a huntinghouse: it was the last house I saw in those parts; for I was the space of twelve days after before I saw either house, corn-field, or habitation for any creature but deer, wild horses, wolves, and such-like creatures. Thus the first day we travelled eight miles, where there were small cottages built on purpose to lodge in, which they call lonchards. I thank my good Lord Erskine, he commanded that I should always be lodged in his lodging, the kitchen being always on the side of a bank, many kettles and pots boiling, and many spits turning and winding, with a great variety of cheer-as venison; baked, sodden, roast and stewed beef; mutton, goats, kid, hares, fresh salmon, pigeons, hens, capons,. chickens, partridge, moor-coots, heath-cocks, capercailzies, and termagants [ptarmigans]; good ale, sack, white and claret, tent [Alicant], with most potent aquavitæ. . . ... Our camp consisted of fourteen or fifteen hundred men and horses. The manner of the hunting is this: five or six hundred men do rise early in the morning, and do disperse themselves divers ways, and seven or eight miles' compass; they do bring or chase in the deer in many herds-two, three, or four hundred in a herd -to such or such a place as the noblemen shall appoint them; then when day is come, the lords and gentlemen of their companies do ride or go to the said places, sometimes wading up to their middles through bournes and rivers; and then, they being come to the place, do lie down on the ground, till those foresaid scouts, which are called the tinchel, do bring down the deer. . . Then, after we had stayed three hours or thereabouts, we might perceive the deer appear on the hills round about us (their heads making a show like a wood), which, being followed close by the tinchel, are chased down into the valley where we lay. Then all the valley on each side being waylaid with a hundred couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they are let loose as the occasion serves upon the herd of deer, so that, with dogs, guns, arrows, dirks, and daggers, in the space of two hours, fourscore fat deer were slain, which after are disposed of some one way and some another, twenty and thirty withal at our rendezvous. miles, and more than enough left for us to make merry sional tracts. Taylor, and duly described by him in short occaVarious journeys and voyages were made by these pieces: All the Workes of John Taylor, the In 1630, he made a collection of Water Poet; being Sixty and Three in Number. He continued, however, to write during more than twenty years after this period, and ultimately his works consisted of not less than 138 separate publications. Taylor was a staunch royalist and orthodox churchman, abjuring all sectaries and schismatics. There is nothing in his works, as Southey remarks, which deserves preservation for its intrinsic merit alone, but there is a great deal to illustrate the manners of his age. GEORGE HERBERT. GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1633) was of noble birth, though chiefly known as a pious country clergyman-'holy George Herbert,' who The lowliest duties on himself did lay. His father was descended from the earls of Pembroke, and lived in Montgomery Castle, Wales, where the poet was born. His elder brother was the celebrated Lord Herbert of Cherbury. George was educated at Cambridge, and in the year 1619 was chosen orator for the university. Herbert was the intimate friend of Sir Henry Wotton and Dr Donne; and Lord Bacon is said to have entertained such a high regard for his learning and judgment, that he submitted his works to him before publication. The poet was also in favour with King James, who gave him a sinecure office worth £120 per annum, which Queen Elizabeth had formerly given to Sir Philip Sidney. With this,' says Izaak Walton, 'and his annuity, and the advantages of his college, and of his oratorship, he enjoyed his genteel humour for clothes and court-like company, and seldom looked towards Cambridge unless the king were there; but then, he never failed.' The death of the king and of two powerful friends, the Duke of Richmond and Marquis of Hamilton, destroyed Herbert's court hopes, and he entered into sacred orders. In 1626, he was appointed prebendary of Layton Ecclesia, county of Huntingdon (the church of which he repaired and decorated), and in 1630 he was made rector of Bemerton, in Wiltshire, where he passed the remainder of his life. After describing the poet's marriage on the third day after his first interview with the lady, old Izaak Walton relates, with characteristic simplicity and minuteness, a matrimonial scene preparatory to their removal to Bemerton: The third day after he was made rector of Bemerton, and had changed his sword and silk clothes into a canonical habit [he had probably never done duty regularly at Layton Ecclesia], he returned so habited with his friend Mr Woodnot to Bainton; and immediately after he had seen and saluted his wife, he said to her: "You are now a minister's wife, and must now so far forget your father's house as not to claim a precedence of any of your parishioners; for you are to know that a priest's wife can challenge no precedence or place but that which she purchases by her obliging humility; and I am sure places so purchased do best become them. And let me tell you, I am so good a herald as to assure you that this is truth." And she was so meek a wife as to assure him it was no vexing news to her, and that he should see her observe it with a cheerful willingness.' Herbert discharged his clerical duties with saintlike zeal and purity, but his strength was not equal to his self-imposed tasks, and he died in February 1632-3. His principal production is entitled The Temple, or Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations. It was not printed till the year after his death, but was so well received, that Walton says twenty thousand copies were sold in a few years after the first impression. The lines on Virtue Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright— are the best in the collection; but even in them we find, what mars all the poetry of Herbert, ridiculous conceits or coarse unpleasant similes. His taste was very inferior to his genius. The most sacred subject could not repress his love of fantastic imagery, or keep him for half-a-dozen verses in a serious and natural strain. Herbert was a musician, and sang his own hymns to the lute or viol; and indications of this may be found in his poems, which have sometimes a musical flow and harmonious cadence. It may be safely said, however, that Herbert's poetry alone would not have preserved his name, and that he is indebted for the reputation he enjoys to his excellent and amiable character, embalmed in the pages of good old Walton; to his prose work, the Country Parson; and to the warm and fervent piety which gave a charm to his life, and breathes through all his writings. Virtue. Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright— Sweet rose! whose hue, angry and brave, Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses; Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Religion. All may of thee partake; This is the famous stone Stanzas.-Called by Herbert 'The Pulley? So strength first made a way; Then beauty flowed; then wisdom, honour, pleasure; 'For if I should,' said He, 'Yet let him keep the rest- Matin Hymn. I cannot ope mine eyes But Thou art ready there to catch, My mourning soul and sacrifice, Then we must needs for that day make a match. My God, what is a heart? Silver, or gold, or precious stone, Or star, or rainbow, or a part Of all these things, or all of them in one? My God, what is a heart, That Thou shouldst it so eye and woo, As if that Thou hadst nothing else to do? Indeed, man's whole estate Amounts-and richly-to serve Thee; Yet studies them, not Him by whom they be. Teach me Thy love to know; That this new light which now I see Sunday. O day most calm, most bright, The other days and thou Make up one man; whose face thou art, Man had straight forward gone To endless death: but thou dost pull The which he doth not fill. Sundays the pillars are On which heaven's palace arched lies: Which parts their ranks and orders. The Sundays of man's life On Sunday, heaven's gate stands ope; More plentiful than hope. This day my Saviour rose, And did inclose this light for his; Who want herbs for their wound. The rest of our creation Our great Redeemer did remove Christ's hands, though nailed, wrought our salvation The brightness of that day We sullied by our foul offence: Wherefore that robe we cast away, Whose drops of blood paid the full price, Thou art a day of mirth : And where the week-days trail on ground, Mortification. How soon doth Man decay! When clothes are taken from a chest of sweets They are like little winding-sheets, When boys go first to bed, They step into their voluntary graves; Successive nights, like rolling waves, When Youth is frank and free, And calls for music, while his veins do swell, That music summons to the knell, Which shall befriend him at the house of Death. and The writings of FRANCIS QUARLES (1592-1644) are more like those of a divine, or contemplative recluse, than of a busy man of the world, who held various public situations, and died at the age of fifty-two. Quarles was a native of Essex, educated at Cambridge, and afterwards a student of Lincoln's Inn. He was successively cupbearer to Elizabeth, the queen of Bohemia, secretary to Archbishop Usher, and chronologer to the city of London. He espoused the cause of Charles I.; was so harassed by the opposite party, who injured his property, and plundered him of his books and rare manuscripts, that his death was attributed to the affliction and ill-health caused by these disasters. Notwithstanding his loyalty, the works of Quarles have a tinge of Puritanism and ascetic piety that might have mollified the rage of his persecutors. His poems consist of various pieces -Fob Militant, Sion's Elegies, the History of Queen Esther, Argalus and Parthenia, the Morning Muse, the Feast of Worms, and the Divine Emblems. The last were published in 1645, and were so popular that Phillips, Milton's nephew, styles Quarles 'the darling of our plebeian judgments.' The eulogium still holds good to some extent, for the Divine Emblems, with their quaint and grotesque illustrations, are still found in the cottages of our peasants. After the Restoration, when everything sacred and serious was either neglected or made the subject of ribald jests, Quarles seems to have been entirely lost to the public. Even Pope, who, had he read him, must have relished his lively fancy and poetical expression, notices only his bathos and absurdity. The better and more tolerant taste of modern times has admitted the divine emblemist into the 'laurelled fraternity of poets,' where, if he does not occupy a conspicuous place, he is at least sure of his due measure of homage and attention. Emblems, or the union of the graphic and poetic arts, to inculcate lessons of morality and religion, had been tried with success by Peacham and Wither. Quarles, however, made Herman Hugo, a Jesuit, his model, and from the Pia Desideria of this author copied a great part of his prints and mottoes. His style is that of his agestudded with conceits, often extravagant in conception, and presenting the most outré and ridiculous combinations. There is strength, however, amidst his contortions, and true wit mixed up with the false. His epigrammatic point, uniting wit and devotion, has been considered the precursor of Young's Night Thoughts. Stanzas. As when a lady, walking Flora's bower, The Shortness of Life. And what's a life?—a weary pilgrimage, And what's a life-the flourishing array Behold these lilies, which thy hands have made, To view, how soon they droop, how soon they fade! Shade not that dial, night will blind too soon; Nor do I beg this slender inch to wile My thoughts with joy: here's nothing worth a smile. Mors Tua. Can he be fair, that withers at a blast? So fair is man, that death-a parting blast- I love and have some cause to love-the earth: I love the air: her dainty sweets refresh But what's the air or all the sweets that she I love the sea she is my fellow-creature, But, Lord of oceans, when compared with Thee, To heaven's high city I direct my journey, But what is heaven, great God, compared to Thee? Without thy presence, earth gives no refection; The highest honours that the world can boast, The loudest flames that earth can kindle, be Without thy presence, wealth is bags of cares; I wish nor sea nor land; nor would I be Decay of Life. The day grows old, the low-pitched lamp hath made And the descending damp doth now prepare Whose western wardrobe now begins to unfold To clothe his evening glory, when the alarms Nature now calls to supper, to refresh The toiling ploughman drives his thirsty teams, The droiling swineherd knocks away, and feasts His hungry whining guests: The boxbill ousel, and the dappled thrush, Like hungry rivals meet at their beloved bush. DR HENRY KING. DR HENRY KING (1592-1669), who was chaplain to James I. and did honour to the church preferment which was bestowed upon him, was best known as a religious poet. He was the author of Sermons, 1621-65; and of poems, elegies, &c. 1657. His language and imagery are chaste and refined. Of his lighter verse, the following song may suffice: Song. Dry those fair, those crystal eyes, To drown their banks: grief's sullen brooks Then clear those waterish stars again, Sic Vita. Like to the falling of a star, The Dirge. What is the existence of man's life, It is a flower-which buds, and grows, Then shrinks into that fatal mould It is a dream-whose seeming truth It is a dial-which points out It is a weary interlude Which doth short joys, long woes, include; |