"Where Venus' swans and milky doves are set "Upon the swelling mounts of driven snow14;" "Where Love, whilst he to sport himself doth get, "Hath lost his course, nor finds which way to go, "Inclosed in this labyrinth about, "Where let him wander still, yet ne'er get out. "Her loose gold hair, O gold thou art too base! "But no word's fair enough for thing so fair. "But where the pen fails, pencil cannot shew it, "She lays those fingers on his manly cheek, "Or the main Atlas from his place remove; "As might beget life where was never none, 14. Perhaps the ingenious tracers of Poetical Imitation may discover a resemblance between those glowing verses and two lines in Mr. Haley's justly admired sonnet, in the Triumphs of Temper ; "A bosom, where the blue meand'ring vein "Sheds a soft lustre through the lucid snow." And it will not require microscopic eyes to discover whence Mr. Gray caught the idea of the finest image in his celebrated historic Ode, after reading the following lines of Drayton. "Berkley, whose fair seat has been famous long, "Let thy fair buildings shriek a deadly sound, "And to the air complain thy grievous wrong, "Keeping the figure of king Edward's wound.” Barons' Wars, book v. 15. Who can read these animated stanzas, and not be filled with indig nation at the arrogant remark of Warburton? "Selden did not disdain even to command a very ordinary poet, one Michael Drayton!" Pref. to his edit. of Shakspeare. Daniel, the poetical rival of Drayton, affects to write with more purity; yet he is by no means free from the bad taste of his age, as will appear by a single stanza of his Civil War, a poem seemingly written in emulation of the Barons' Wars. "O War! begot in pride and luxury, Unjust-just scourge of men's iniquity! "Is there no means, but that a sin-sick land During the tranquil part of the reign of Charles I. good taste began to gain ground. Charles himself was an excellent judge of literature, a chaste writer, and a patron of the liberal arts. Vandyke was caressed at court, and Inigo Jones was encouraged to plan those public edifices, which do so much honour to his memory; while Lawes, and other eminent composers, in the service of the king, set to manly music some of the finest English verses. But that spirit of faction and fanaticism, which subverted all law and order, and terminated in the ruin of the church and monarchy, obstructed the progress of letters, and prevented the arts from attaining the height to which they seemed fast hastening, or the manners from receiving the degree of polish, which they must soon have acquired, in the brilliant assemblies and public festivals of two persons of such elegant accomplishments as the king and queen. Of the independents, and other bold fanatics, who rose on the ruins of the church, and flourished under the commonwealth, I have formerly had occasion to speak, in tracing the progress of Cromwell's ambition. But one visionary sect, by reason of its detachment from civil and military affairs, has has hitherto escaped my notice; namely, the singular but respectable body of quakers. The founder of this famous sect was one George Fox, born at Drayton in Lancashire, in 1624, the son of a weaver, and bred a shoemaker. Being naturally of a melancholy disposition, and having early acquired an enthusiastic turn of mind, he abandoned his mechanical profession, and broke off all connection with his friends and family, about the year 1647, when every ignorant fanatic imagined he could invent a new system of religion or government; and delivering himself wholly up to spiritual contemplations, he wandered through the country cloathed in a leathern doublet, avoiding all attachments, and frequently passed whole days and nights in woods and gloomy caverns, without any other companion but his Bible. At length believing himself filled with the same divine inspiration, or inward light, which had guided the writers of that sacred book, he considered all external helps as unnecessary, and thought only of illuminating the breasts of others, by awakening that hidden spark of the Divinity, which, according to the doctrine of the Mystics, dwells in the hearts of all men. Proselytes were easily gained in those days of general fanaticism, to a doctrine so flattering to human pride. Fox accordingly soon found himself surrounded by a number of disciples of both sexes; who, all conceiving themselves actuated by a divine impulse, ran like bacchanals through the towns and villages, declaiming against every fixed form of worship and affronting the clergy in the very exercise of their religious functions. Even the women, forgetting the delicacy and decency befitting their character, bore a part in these disorders; and one female convert, more shameless than her sisters went stark naked into Whitehall chapel, during the public service, when Cromwell was present, being moved by the spirit,she said,to appear as a sign to the people1. 17. Nell's Hist. of the Puritans. But But of all these new fanatics, who were sometimes thrown into prisons, sometimes into mad-houses, the most extravagant was James Naylor, a man of talents, who had been an officer in the parliamentary army, and was one of the first encouragers of George Fox. Elated with the success of his eloquence, in which he excelled all his brethren, and flattered with a resemblance between his own features and the common pictures of Jesus Christ, he fancied himself transformed into the Saviour of the World. He accordingly assumed the character of the Messiah, and was blasphemously styled by his followers, the Prince of Peace, the only begotten Son of God, the fairest among ten thousand!18-Conformable to that character, he pretended to heal the sick, and raise the dead. He was ministered unto by women; and, in the pride of his heart, he triumphantly entered Bristol on horseback, attended by a croud of his admirers of both sexes, who, along with shrubs and flowers, spread their garments before him, exclaiming with a loud voice," Hosanna to the Highest! holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth19." For this impious procession he was committed to prison by the magistrates, and afterward sent to London, where he was severely punished by the parliament, and by that means restoed to the right use of his understanding. But what, in this romantic instance of fanatical extravagance, chiefly merits attention is, that the heads of the great council of the nation spent between ten and twelve days in deliberating, whether they should consider Naylor as an impostor, as a maniac, or as a man divinely inspired20! Fox and his disciples, while under the influence of that enthusiastic fury, which, beside other irregularities, prompted them, on every occasion, to deliver their supposed inspirations, without regard to time, place, or circumstance, were often so copiously filled with the spirit, that, like the priestess of the Delphic god, their whole frame was violently shaken 18. Id. Ibid. 19. Life and Trial of Naylor. 20. Thurloe, vol. iv. in in pouring it out; a circumstance which contributed to confirm the belief of their being actuated by a divine impulse, and procured them the name of Quakers, by which they are still known. But these wild transports soon subsided, and the quakers became, as at present, a decent and orderly set of men, distinguished only by the civil and religious peculiarities which continue to characterize the sect. Those peculiarities are of sufficient importance to merit our notice in tracing the progress of society, and delineating the history of the human mind. All the peculiarities of the quakers, both spiritual and moral, are the immediate consequences of their fundamental principle: "That they who endeavour by self-converse and contemplation to kindle that spark of heavenly wisdom "which lies concealed in the minds of all men (and is suppos❝ed to blaze in the breast of every quaker), will feel a di"vine glow, behold an effusion of light, and hear a celestial "voice, proceeding from the inmost recesses of their souls! "leading them to all truth, and assuring them of their union "with the Supreme Being." Thus consecrated in their own imagination, the members of this sect reject the use of prayers, hymns, and the various outward forms of devotion, by which the public worship of other Christians is distinguished. They neither observe festivals, use external rites and ceremonies, nor suffer religion to be fettered with positive institutions; contemptuously slighting even baptism and the Lord's supper, by all other sects believed to be interwoven with the very vitals of Christianity. They assemble, however, once a week, on the usual day set apart for the celebration of divine worship; but without any priest, or public teacher. All the members of the community, male and female, have an equal right to speak in their meetings; for, "Who," say they, "will presume to exclude from the liberty of exhorting the brethren, any person in whom Christ 21. Barclay's Apology, &c. dwells, |