The Romance of Biography (Vol 2 of 2)

From the reign of Charles the First may be dated that revolution in the spirit and form of our lyric poetry, which led to its subsequent degradation. The first Italian school of poetry, to which we owed our Surreys, our Spensers, and our Miltons, had now declined. The high contemplative tone of passion, the magnanimous and chivalrous homage paid to women, gradually gave way before the French taste and French gallantry, introduced, or at least encouraged and rendered fashionable, by Henrietta Maria and her gay household.

The muse of amatory poetry (I presume there is such a Muse, though I know not to which of the Nine the title properly applies,) no longer walked the earth star-crowned and vestal-robed, "col dir pien d'intelletti, dolci ed alti,"-"with love upon her lips, and looks commercing with the skies;"-she suited her garb to the fashion of the times, and tripped along in guise of an Arcadian princess, half regal, half pastoral, trailing a sheep-hook crowned with flowers, and sparkling with foreign ornaments,

Pale glistering pearls and rainbow-coloured gems.

Then in the "brisk and giddy paced times" of Charles the Second, she flaunted an airy coquette, or an unblushing courtezan, ("unveiled her eyes-unclasped her zone;") and when these sinful doings were banished, she took the hue of the new morals-new fashions-new manners,-and we find her a court prude, swimming in a hoop and red-heeled shoes, "conscious of the rich brocade," and ogling behind her fan; or else in the opposite extreme, like a bergère in a French ballet, stuck over with sentimental common-places and artificial flowers.

This, in general terms, was the progress of the lyric muse, from the poets of Queen Elizabeth's days down to the wits of Queen Anne's. Of course, there are modifications and exceptions, which will suggest themselves to the poetical reader; but it does not enter into the plan of this sketch to treat matters thus critically and profoundly. To return then to the days of Charles the First.

It must be confessed that the union of Italian sentiment and imagination with French vivacity and gallantry, was, in the commencement, exceedingly graceful, before all poetry was lost in wit, and gallantry sunk into licentiousness.

Carew, one of the first who distinguished himself in this style, has been most unaccountably eclipsed by the reputation of Waller, and deserved better than to have had his name hitched into line between Sprat and Sedley;

Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more.[1]

As an amatory poet, he is far superior to Waller: he had equal smoothness and fancy, and much more variety, tenderness, and earnestness; if his love was less ambitiously, and even less honourably placed, it was, at least, more deep seated, and far more fervent. The real name of the lady he has celebrated under the poetical appellation of Celia, is not known-it is only certain that she was no "fabled fair,"-and that his love was repaid with falsehood.

Hard fate! to have been once possessed

As victor of a heart,

Achieved with labour and unrest,

And then forced to depart!

From the irregular habits of Carew, it is possible he might have set the example of inconstancy; and yet this is but a poor excuse for her.

Carew spent his life in the Court of Charles the First, who admired and loved him for his wit and amiable manners, though he reproved his libertinage. In the midst of that dissipation, which has polluted some of his poems, he was full of high poetic feeling, and a truly generous lover: for even while he wooes his fair one in the most soul-moving terms of flowery adulation and tender entreaty, he puts her on her guard against his own arts, and thus sweetly pleads against himself;

Rather let the lover pine,

Than his pale cheek should assign

A perpetual blush to thine!

And his admiration of female chastity is elsewhere frequently, as well as forcibly, expressed.-With all his elegance and tenderness, Carew is never feeble; and in his laments there is nothing whining or unmanly. After lavishing at the feet of his mistress the most passionate devotion, and the most exquisite flattery, hear him rebuke her pride with all the spirit of an offended poet!

Know, Celia! since thou art so proud,

'Twas I that gave thee thy renown;

Thou hadst in the forgotten crowd

Of common beauties, lived unknown,

Had not my verse exhaled thy name,

And with it impt the wings of fame.

That killing power is none of thine,

I gave it to thy voice and eyes,

Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine.

Thou art my star-shin'st in my skies;

Then dart not from thy borrowed sphere

Light'ning on him, who fixed thee there.

The identity of his Celia is now lost in a name,-and she deserves it: perhaps had she appreciated the love she inspired, and been true to that she professed, she might have won her elegant lover back to virtue, and wreathed her fame with his for ever. Disappointed in the object of his idolatry, Carew plunged madly into pleasure, and thus hastened his end. He died, as Clarendon tells us, with "deep remorse for his past excesses, and every manifestation of Christianity his best friends could desire."

Besides his Celia, Carew has celebrated several other ladies of the Court, and particularly Lady Mary Villars; the Countess of Anglesea; Lady Carlisle, the theme of all the poets of her age, and her lovely daughter, Lady Anne Hay, on whom he wrote an elegy, which begins with some lines never surpassed in harmony and tenderness.

I heard the virgin's sigh! I saw the sleek

And polish'd courtier channel his fresh cheek

With real tears; the new betrothed maid

Smil'd not that day; the graver senate laid

Their business by; of all the courtly throng

Grief seal'd the heart, and silence bound the tongue!

....*....*....*....*

We will not bathe thy corpse with a forc'd tear,

Nor shall thy train borrow the blacks they wear;

Such vulgar spice and gums embalm not thee,

That art the theme of Truth, not Poetry.

Here Carew has fallen into the vulgar error, that poetry and fiction are synonymous.

Lady Anne Wentworth,[2] daughter of the first Earl of Cleveland, who, after making terrible havoc in the heart of the Lord Chief Justice Finch, married Lord Lovelace, is another of Carew's fair heroines. For her marriage he wrote the epithalamium,

Break not the slumbers of the bride, &c.

As Carew is not a popular poet, nor often found in a lady's library, I add a few extracts of peculiar beauty.

TO CELIA.

Ask me no more where Jove bestows,

When June is past, the fading rose;

For in your beauties orient dee

Those flowers as in their causes sleep.

Ask me no more, whither do stray

The golden atoms of the day;

For in pure love, Heaven did prepare

Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more, whither doth haste

The nightingale, when May is past;

For in your sweet dividing throat

She winters, and keeps warm her note.

Ask me no more, where those stars light

That downwards fall in dead of night;

For in your eyes they sit-and there

Fix'd become, as in their sphere.

Ask me no more, if east or west,

The ph?nix builds her spicy nest;

For unto you at last she flies,

And in your fragrant bosom dies.

....*....*....*....*

Ladies, fly from Love's smooth tale,

Oaths steep'd in tears do oft prevail;

Grief is infectious, and the air,

Inflam'd with sighs, will blast the fair:

Then stop your ears when lovers cry,

Lest yourself weep, when no soft eye

Shall with a sorrowing tear repay

That pity which you cast away.

....*....*....*....*

And when thou breath'st, the winds are ready straight

To filch it from thee; and do therefore wait

Close at thy lips, and snatching it from thence,

Bear it to heaven, where 'tis Jove's frankincense.

Fair goddess, since thy feature makes thee one,

Yet be not such for these respects alone;

But as you are divine in outward view,

So be within as fair, as good, as true.

....*....*....*....*

Hark! how the bashful morn in vain

Courts the amorous marigold

With sighing blasts and weeping vain;

Yet she refuses to unfold.

But when the planet of the day

Approacheth with his powerful ray,

Then she spreads, then she receives,

His warmer beams into her virgin leaves.

So shalt thou thrive in love, fond boy;

If thy tears and sighs discover

Thy grief, thou never shalt enjoy

The just reward of a bold lover:

But when with moving accents thou

Shall constant faith and service vow,

Thy Celia shall receive those charms

With open ears, and with unfolded arms.

The gallant and accomplished Colonel Lovelace was, I believe, a relation of the Lord Lovelace who married Lady Anne Wentworth, and the friend and contemporary of Carew. His fate and history would form the groundwork of a romance; and in his person and character he was formed to be the hero of one. He was as fearlessly brave as a knight-errant; so handsome in person, that he could not appear without inspiring admiration; a polished courtier; an elegant scholar; and to crown all, a lover and a poet. He wrote a volume of poems, dedicated to the praises of Lucy Sacheverel, with whom he had exchanged vows of everlasting love. Her poetical appellation, according to the affected taste of the day, was Lucasta. When the civil wars broke out, Lovelace devoted his life and fortunes to the service of the King; and on joining the army, he wrote that beautiful song to his mistress, which has been so often quoted,-

Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,

That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind

To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,

The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith embrace

A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such

As you too shall adore;

I could not love thee, dear! so much,

Lov'd I not honour more.

The rest of his life was a series of the most cruel misfortunes. He was imprisoned on account of his enthusiastic and chivalrous loyalty; but no dungeon could subdue his buoyant spirit. His song "to Althea from Prison," is full of grace and animation, and breathes the very soul of love and honour.

When Love, with unconfined wings,

Hovers within my gates,

And my divine Althea brings

To whisper at the grates;

When I lie tangled in her hair,

And fettered to her eye,

The birds that wanton in the air,

Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for a hermitage.

If I have freedom in my love,

And in my soul am free,-

Angels alone that soar above

Enjoy such liberty.

Lovelace afterwards commanded a regiment at the siege of Dunkirk, where he was severely, and, as it was supposed, mortally wounded. False tidings of his death were brought to England; and when he returned, he found his Lucy ("O most wicked haste!") married to another; it was a blow he never recovered. He had spent nearly his whole patrimony in the King's service, and now became utterly reckless. After wandering about London in obscurity and penury, dissipating his scanty resources in riot with his brother cavaliers, and in drinking the health of the exiled King and confusion to Cromwell, this idol of women and envy of men,-the beautiful, brave, high-born, and accomplished Lovelace, died miserably in a little lodging in Shoe Lane. He was only in his thirty-ninth year.

The mother of Lucy Sacheverel was Lucy, daughter of Sir Henry Hastings, ancestor to the present Marquis of Hastings. How could she so belie her noble blood? I would excuse her were it possible, for she must have been a fine creature to have inspired and appreciated such a sentiment as that contained in the first song; but facts cry aloud against her. Her plighted hand was not transferred to another, when time had sanctified and mellowed regret; but with a cruel and unfeminine precipitancy. Since then her lover has bequeathed her name to immortality, he is sufficiently avenged. Let her stand forth condemned and scorned for ever, as faithless, heartless,-light as air, false as water, and rash as fire.-I abjure her.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Pope.

[2] The only daughter of this Lady Anne Wentworth, married Sir W. Noel, and was the ancestress of Lady Byron, the widow of the poet.

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