nom de guerre of Chalkhill must also have been an old one with Walton, if he wrote Thealma; for thirty years before its publication he had inserted in his Compleat Angler two songs, signed 'Io. Chalkhill.' Thealma, though it has something Spenserian in its subject, is very unlike the work of a contemporary of Spenser: probably it may date from the days of James I. The scene of this highly artificial 'pastoral' is laid in Arcadia, and the author describes the Golden Age and all its charms, succeeded by an Age of Iron, with its ambition, avarice, and tyranny. The plot is complicated and obscure, and the characters lack individuality; the interest depends on the romantic descriptions and occasional felicity of language. The versification is that of the heroic couplet, varied, like Milton's Lycidas, by breaks and pauses in the middle of the line: The Priestess of Diana. As the wind gave it being so sweet an air Would strike a syren mute. . . . A hundred virgins there he might espy Which, by its portraiture, appeared to be They tendered their devotions; with sweet airs, And cross their snowy silken robes, they wore clasp Was blest with the sweet words that came from her. The Witch's Cave. Her cell was hewn out of the marble rock, Might bring to light her follies: in they went. His credulous sense; the walls were gilt, and set To the quick'st eye they more than seemed to grow; And circle in the stranger in a ring. Orandra to her charms was stepped aside, That he was not himself: nor did he know She represents a banquet, ushered in By his still working thoughts; so fixed upon Edward Fairfax (c.1580-1635), translator of Tasso's Jerusalem, a son-probably illegitimateof Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton, in Yorkshire, was born near Leeds, and spent his life mainly in literary work at Newhall, in Fewston parish, near Otley, Yorkshire. He dedicated his Godfrey of Bulloigne or the Recoverie of Jerusalem, to Queen Elizabeth (1st ed. 1600; 2nd ed. 1624). The poetical beauty and freedom of this version of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata have been the theme of almost universal praise. Dryden ranked Fairfax with Spenser as a master of our language, and Waller said he derived from him the harmony of his numbers, though Ben Jonson said 'it was not well done.' It charmed James I. and solaced the imprisonment of Charles I. Hallam, admitting that it shows spirit and freedom, decides not unreasonably that it lacks the grace of the original. It was not the first translation (Richard Carew translated the first five cantos; see above at page 353), and there have been over half-a-dozen since; but it may still claim to be the English rendering, and an essential part of English literature. In 1621 Fairfax wrote a Discourse of Witchcraft (first printed in the Philobiblon Miscellanies, 1859), and in the preface to it he states that in religion he was 'neither a fantastic Puritan nor a superstitious Papist,' but describes in full the bewitching of two of his own daughters. He also wrote a series of Eclogues, one of whicha poor thing-was published in 1741. If the opening of the first book of the Godfrey (or Jerusalem) recalls Homer and Virgil on the one hand, the English version suggests Spenser and Milton on the other : The sacred Armies and the godly Knight His soldiers wilde, to braules and mutines prest, O heavenly Muse that not with fading baies If fictions light I mix with truth divine, And fill these lines with other praise than thine. In Tasso's great epic Armida is a beautiful sorceress, employed to seduce Rinaldo and other Crusaders as they approach the Holy City. Rinaldo after a struggle triumphs over her witcheries, confesses his love to her, and persuades her to become a Christian. Armida and her Enchanted Girdle. And with that word she smiled, and nerethelesse Her love-toyes still she used, and pleasures bold : Her haire, that done, she twisted up in tresse, And looser locks in silken laces rolled; Her curles garland-wise she did up-dresse, Wherein, like rich ennamell laid on gold, The twisted flowrets smiled, and her white brest The jolly Peacocke spreads not halfe so faire Her twentie-coloured bow, through clouds of raine : Not that, with scorn, which Tuscan Guilla lost, cestus Of milde denaies, of tender scornes, of sweet This wondrous girdle did Armida frame, Rinaldo at the Enchanted Wood. And saw, as round about his eies he twined, Phineas and Giles Fletcher were sons of Giles Fletcher, LL.D. (c.1549–1611), himself something of a poet, who was sent in 1588 as ambassador to Russia, and wrote Of the Russe Common Wealth (1591) and Licia or Poemes of Love. Both were clergymen; Phineas educated, like his father, at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, Phineas and Giles at Westminster and Trinity. (1582-1650) in 1621 became rector of Hilgay, in Norfolk; Giles (c.1588-1623) from about 1618 was rector of Alderton, Suffolk. The elder Giles was the brother of the Bishop of London, father of John Fletcher the dramatist-who was accordingly cousin of the two poet-brothers. The works of Phineas consist of the Purple Island or the Isle of Man, Piscatory Eclogues, and miscellaneous poems. The Purple Island was published in 1633, but written much earlier, as appears from allusions in it to the Earl of Essex. The name of the poem conjures up images of poetical and romantic beauty such as we may suppose a youthful admirer and follower of Spenser to have drawn-unless, indeed, it suggests the misapprehension that led to its being entered in a bookseller's topographical catalogue under ‘Man, Isle of. A perusal of the work dispels illusions. The Purple Island of Fletcher is no sunny spot 'amid the melancholy main;' it is an elaborate and anatomical description of the body and mind of man, involving a portentous allegory which inevitably repels the average reader. Beginning with the veins, arteries, bones, and muscles of the human frame, the poet pictures them as hills, dales, streams, and rivers, and describes with great minuteness their different meanderings, elevations, and appearances; one is reminded of Harvey's recent great discovery of the circulation of the blood. But that Fletcher's physiology differed pretty widely from our current doctrines will be plain from the kindly view he takes of the liver and its normal functions: So 'tween the Splenion's frost and th' angry Gall and he does not reject the view that 'within (viz. the liver) love hath his habitation.' Having in five cantos exhausted man's physical phenomena, he proceeds to describe the complex nature and operations of the mind. Intellect is the prince of the Isle of Man, and he is furnished with eight counsellors -Fancy, Memory, the Common Sense, and five external senses. The human fortress thus garrisoned is assailed by the Vices, and a fierce contest ensues for the possession of the human soul. At length an angel interposes, and ensures victory to the Virtues the angel being King James I., on whom is heaped much fulsome adulation. From the above sketch of this odd poem, it will be apparent that its worth must rest, not upon the attractions of its plot, but upon the beauty of isolated passages and particular descriptions. Some of Phineas's seven-line stanzas have the flow and sweetness of Spenser's Faerie Queene, a few of them Spenser's charm; multitudes are marred by affectation, perversities, and the tedium of long-protracted allegory. Giles Fletcher published only one poem of any length-Christ's Victorie and Triumph. It appeared at Cambridge in 1610, and met with such indifferent success that a second edition was not called for till twenty years afterwards. There is a massive grandeur and earnestness about Christ's Victorie which strikes the imagination. The materials of the poem are better fused together and more harmoniously linked than those of the Purple Island; the unusual eight-line stanza contrasts with interspersed lyrics. Both of these brothers,' said Hallam, are deserving of much praise; they were endowed with minds eminently poetical, and not inferior in imagination to any of their contemporaries. But an injudicious taste, and an excessive fondness for a style which the public was rapidly abandoning, that of allegorical personification, prevented their powers from being effectively displayed.' Campbell's criticism is not antiquated : 'They were both the disciples of Spenser, and, with his diction gently modernised, retained much of his melody and luxuriant expression. Giles, inferior as he is to Spenser and Milton, might be figured, in his happiest moments, as a link of connection in our poetry between these congenial spirits, for he reminds us of both, and evidently gave hints to the latter in a poem on the same subject with Paradise Regained. These hints are indeed very plain and obvious. The appearance of Satan as an aged sire 'slowly footing' in the silent wilderness, the temptation of our Saviour in the 'goodly garden' and in the Bower of Vain Delight, are outlines which Milton adopted and filled up in his second epic, with a grace and power unknown to the Fletchers-for whom may be claimed ingenuity of invention, copiousness of fancy, melodious numbers, and language at times rich, ornate, and highly poetical. If Spenser had not previously written his Bower of Bliss, Giles Fletcher's Bower of Vain Delight would have been unequalled in the poetry of that day; probably, like his master, Spenser, he drew from Tasso. The poems of both brothers are included in Dr Grosart's Fuller Worthies Library' (1868-69, four vols. being given to Phineas and one to Giles), and Giles's also in his 'Early English Poets' (1876). Decay of Human Greatness. From the Purple Island. By Phineas Fletcher. Fond man, that looks on earth for happinesse, And here long seeks what here is never found! For all our good we hold from heav'n by lease, With many forfeits and conditions bound; Nor can we pay the fine and rentage due: There now the hart fearlesse of greyhound feeds, There schrieching Satyres fill the people's emptie steads. Or he which 'twixt a Lion and a Pard, Or note of those great Monarchies we finde : And empty name in writ is left behinde : But when this second life and glory fades, And that black Vulture, which with deathfull wing [death, fleeting (From Canto VII.) The symbolical Leo-pard is Alexander the Great; the monstrous Beast is of course the Papacy; the black Vulture is the Turk. Parthenia. From the Purple Island. With her her sister went, a warlike maid, Parthenia, all in steel and gilded arms; In needle's stead a mighty spear she sway'd, With which in bloudy fields and fierce alarms The boldest champion she down would bear, And like a thunderbolt wide passage tear, Flinging all to the earth with her enchanted spear. Her goodly armour seem'd a garden green, And underneath was writ, Such is chaste single state. Thus hid in arms, she seem'd a goodly knight, And when she list lay down her armour bright, Choice nymph, the crown of chaste Diana's train, Upon her forehead Love his trophies fits, Upon her brows lies his bent ebon bow, And ready shafts: deadly those weapons show; Yet sweet that death appear'd, lovely that deadly blow. . . . A bed of lilies flower upon her cheek, And in the midst was set a circling rose ; To deck his beauteous head in snowie tire; Her rubie lips lock up from gazing sight And with rare musick charm the ravisht eares, Danting bold thoughts, but cheering modest fears: The spheres so onely sing, so onely charm the spheres... Yet all the starres which deck this beauteous skie, As when a taper shines in glassie frame, The sparkling crystall burns in glitt'ring flame: So does that brightest Love brighten this lovely dame. (From Canto x.) Parthenia is defined by the poet as 'chastitie in the single,' as Agnia is 'chastitie in the married.' The Arabian bird, the phoenix, was of course a virgin bird. The Sorceress of Vain Delight. The azure fields of heav'n wear 'sembled right The flowr's-de-luce, and the round sparks of deaw, dew That hung upon the azure leaves, did shew Like twinkling starrs, that sparkle in th' eav'ning blew. Upon a hillie banke her head shee cast, On which the bowre of Vaine-delight was built; And with greene filletts in their prettie calls them bound. What should I here depeint her lillie hand, Over the hedge depends the graping elme, The roofe thicke cloudes did paint, from which three boyes A silver wande the sorceresse did sway, Such watry orbicles young boyes do blowe The swimming world, which tenderly they rowe The painted bubble instantly doth fall. Here when she came, she 'gan for musique call, And sung this wooing song, to welcome Him withall: Love is the blossome whear thear blowes Every thing that lives or growes: Love the strong and weake doth yoke, Once a levie coat to wear, While in his leaves thear shrouded lay Sweete birds for love that sing and play: And of all love's joyfull flame I the bud and blossome am: Onely bend Thy knee to mee, Thy wooing shall Thy winning bee. See, see the flowers that belowe But now borne, and now they fade. Is gladly bruis'd to make me wine, Thy wooing shall Thy winning bee. stanch leavy, leafy Thus sought the dire Enchauntress in His minde Her guilefull bayt to have embosomèd; But He her charmes dispersed into winde, So with her sire to Hell shee took her flight, (The starting ayre flew from the damned spright,) Whear deeply both aggriev'd plunged themselves in night. But to their Lord, now musing in His thought, All thought to passe, and each was past all thought divine. The birds' sweet notes, to sonnet out their joyes, And to the birds the winds attune their noyse, That the whole valley rung with victorie. See how the Night comes stealing from the mountains high! Wear, whear, and thear stand throughout for were,' 'where,' and there; calls are cauls, caps; prim, privet; interall (entrail). inside; Lyæus, Bacchus; orgialls, orgiastic hymns; bloody spear, &c., refers to one of the many legends about the Crucifixion. Sir John Beaumont (1582-1628) was the elder brother of the celebrated dramatist. Enjoying the family estate of Gracedieu, in Leicestershire, Sir John dedicated part of his leisure hours to the service of the Muses. He wrote, in neat enough heroic couplets, a somewhat unimpassioned poem on Bosworth Field. This is how he gives Richard's address to his troops on the eve of the decisive battle: My fellow-souldiers, though your swords If when I serv'd, I ever fled from foe, But if my father, when at first he try'd Know then, ye have but chang'd your gen'rall's name; In a poem to the memory of a friend are these excellent observations in verse: |