But as your charms insensibly

To their perfection prest,
Fond love as unperceived did fly,
And in my bosom rest.

My passion with your beauty grew,
And Cupid at my heart,
Still as his mother favoured you,
Threw a new flaming dart.

Each gloried in their wanton part:
To make a lover, he
Employed the utmost of his art;
To make a beauty, she.

Though now I slowly bend to love,
Uncertain of my fate,

If your fair self my chains approve, I shall my freedom hate.

Lovers, like dying men, may well

At first disordered be,

Since none alive can truly tell
What fortune they must see.

Love like the Sea.

Love still has something of the sea,
From whence his mother rose ;
No time his slaves from doubt can free,
Nor give their thoughts repose.

They are becalmed in clearest days,
And in rough weather tost;

They wither under cold delays,
Or are in tempests lost.

One while they seem to touch the port,

Then straight into the main

Some angry wind, in cruel sport,
The vessel drives again.

At first disdain and pride they fear,
Which if they chance to 'scape,
Rivals and falsehood soon appear
In a more dreadful shape.

By such degrees to joy they come,
And are so long withstood;
So slowly they receive the sum,
It hardly does them good.

'Tis cruel to prolong a pain ;
And to defer a joy,
Believe me, gentle Celimene,

Offends the winged boy.

A hundred thousand oaths your fears

Perhaps would not remove; And if I gazed a thousand years, I could no deeper love.

To Phillis.

Phillis, men say that all my vows

Are to thy fortune paid;
Alas! my heart he little knows,
Who thinks my love a trade.

Were I of all these woods the lord,
One berry from thy hand
More solid pleasure would afford
Than all my large command.

My humble love has learned to live
On what the nicest maid
Without a conscious blush can give

Beneath the myrtle shade.

Of costly food it hath no need,
And nothing will devour;
But like the harmless bee can feed,
And not impair the flower.

A spotless innocence like thine
May such a flame allow ;

Yet thy fair name for ever shine
As doth thy beauty now.

I heard thee wish my lambs might stray
Safe from the fox's power,

Though every one become his prey,

I'm richer than before!

cated at Burford school and Wadham College, Oxford, he travelled in France and Italy, and on his return repaired to court, where his elegant person and lively wit soon made him a prominent figure. In 1665 he was at sea with the Earl of Sandwich and Sir Edward Spragge, and distinguished himself for bravery, in the heat of an engagement carrying a message in an open boat amidst a storm of shot. This manliness of character must have forsaken him in England, if he really betrayed cowardice in street-quarrels, and refused to fight with the Duke of Buckingham.

Handsome, accomplished, witty, and with a remarkable charm of manner, he became a prime favourite of the king, though he often quarrelled with him. In Charles's profligate court, Rochester was the most profligate; his intrigues, his low amours and disguises, his erecting a stage and playing the mountebank on Tower-hill, were notorious; he himself affirmed to Bishop Burnet that 'for five years together he was continually drunk.' Yet his domestic letters show him in a different light-tender, playful, and alive to all the affections of a husband, a father, and a son.' When his health was ruined and death approached, the brilliant, reckless profligate repented; Bishop Burnet, who was his spiritual guide on his deathbed, believed his repentance was sincere and unreserved. He was probably one of those whose vices are less the effect of an inborn tendency than of external corrupting circumstances; 'nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.'

Some of his wittiest verses are the most objectionable. Of the rest, among the best Johnson ranked an imitation of Horace, the verses to Lord Mulgrave, a satire against mankind, and the poem Upon Nothing, which is an ingenious series of paradoxes, conceits, and puns on nothing and something (see page 786).

Nothing! thou elder brother ev'n to shade,
Thou hadst a being ere the world was made,
And, well fixt, art alone of ending not afraid.

E'er time and place were, time and place were not
When primitive nothing something straight begot
Then all proceeded from the great united-What.

Something the gen'ral attribute of all
Sever'd from thee, its sole original
Into thy boundless self must undistinguish'd fall. . .

French truth, Dutch prowess, British policy,
Hibernian learning, Scotch civility,

Spaniards' dispatch, Danes' wit are mainly seen in thee

—that is, in nothing; and the great man's gratitude to his best friend, king's promises, and vows,

towards thee they bend,

Flow swiftly into thee, and in thee ever end. The Satyr against Mankind sounds sufficiently misanthropic, beginning:

Were I, who to my cost already am

One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man,
Spirit-free to chuse for my own share

What sort of flesh and blood I pleas'd to wear,
I'd be a monkey, dog, or bear,

Or any thing but that vain animal

Who is so proud of being rational.

And after showing the worthlessness of reason—

And 'tis this very reason I despise,
This supernatural gift that makes a mite
Think he's the image of the Infinite-

holds it proved that

For all his pride and his philosophy
'Tis evident beasts are in their degree

As wise at least and better far than he. Horace Walpole said: 'Lord Rochester's poems have more obscenity than wit, more wit than poetry, more poetry than politeness.' But many of them are eminently witty; a few of the lyrics are full of true poetry, or touch a high poetical level. Some of the smoothest and most rhythmical are obviously artificial; here and there is a note of convincing passion. The satires are vivid but gross. The courtier did not spare his master's vices or his master's mistresses : ‘A merry monarch, scandalous and poor,' is a royal character summed up in a line. Here lies our sovereign lord the King, Whose word no man relies on, Who never said a foolish thing,

Nor ever did a wise one

is a well-authenticated epitaph-epigram, and is by no means Rochester's frankest testimony to his patron's eccentricities.

Before his death Rochester expressed the wish that his indecent verses should be suppressed; but that very year these and many that he never wrote were published-ostensibly at Antwerp, really at London. Some of the worst poems attributed to him are really not his his loose life encouraged the attribution to him of all manner of licentious rhymes. The grossest editions were the most frequently reprinted; the edition of 1691, issued by his friends, contained nothing very startling, but was less popular. His tragedy of Valentinian was but a poor adaptation of Beaumont and Fletcher's.

Love and Murder. While on those lovely looks I gaze, To see a wretch pursuing,

In raptures of a bles'd amaze,

His pleasing happy ruin; 'Tis not for pity that I move;

His fate is too aspiring
Whose heart, broke with a load of love,
Dies wishing and admiring.

But if this murder you'd forego,
Your slave from death removing,
Let me your art of charming know,
Or learn you mine of loving.
But whether life or death betide,

In love 'tis equal measure;
The victor lives with empty pride,
The vanquish'd die with pleasure.

Constancy.

I cannot change as others do,
Though you unjustly scorn;

Since that poor swain that sighs for you

For you alone was born.

No, Phillis, no; your heart to move

A surer way I'll try;

And, to revenge my slighted love,

Will still love on, will still love on, and die.

When, kill'd with grief, Amintas lies,

And you to mind shall call

The sighs that now unpity'd rise,

The tears that vainly fall;

That welcome hour that ends his smart

Will then begin your pain,

For such a faithful tender heart

Can never break, can never break in vain.

Inseparable.

My dear mistress has a heart

Soft as those kind looks she gave me, When with love's resistless art

And her eyes she did enslave me. But her constancy's so weak,

She's so wild and apt to wander, That my jealous heart would break, Should we live one day asunder.

Melting joys about her move,

Killing pleasures, wounding blisses; She can dress her eyes in love,

And her lips can warm with kisses. Angels listen when she speaks;

She's my delight, all mankind's wonder; But my jealous heart would break,

Should we live one day asunder.

In such verses as

The time that is to come is not:

How can it then be mine?

The present moment 's all my lot,

And that, as fast as it is got,
Phillis, is only thine-

we have a specimen of his Epicurean philosophising. When wearied with a world of woe

To thy safe bosom I retire,

Where love and peace and truth does flow,
May I contented there expire-

breathes deep and undying devotion, but is less characteristic than the bacchanalian

Love a woman! You're an ass,
'Tis a most insipid passion,
To chuse out for your happiness,

The silliest part of God's creation.

The following charming lyric turns largely on audacious and perhaps rather elaborate adaptations and permutations and combinations of scriptural phrases, usurped for the earthly beloved :

To his Mistress.

Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why
Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny
The sunshine of the sun's enlightening eye?
Without thy light what light remains in me?
Thou art my life; my way, my light's in thee;
I live, I move, and by thy beams I see.

Thou art my life; if thou but turn away
I die a thousand deaths. Thou art my way;
Without thee, love, I travel not, but stray.
My light thou art; without thy glorious sight
My eyes are darkened with eternal night.
My love, thou art my way, my life, my light.

Thou art my way; I wander if thou fly.
Thou art my light; if hid, how blind am I !
Thou art my life; if thou withdraw'st, I die.

My eyes are dark and blind, I cannot see;
To whom or whither should my darkness flee
But to that light? and who's that light but thee?

If I have lost my path, dear lover, say
Shall I still wander in a doubtful way?
Love, shall a lamb of Israel's sheepfold stray?

My path is lost, my wandering steps do stray;

I cannot go, nor can I safely stay;

Whom should I seek but thee, my path, my way?

And yet thou turn'st away thy face and fly'st me!
And yet I sue for grace and thou deny'st me!
Speak, art thou angry, love, or only try'st me?

Thou art the pilgrim's path, the blind man's eye,
The dead man's life. On thee my hopes rely;
If I but them remove, I surely die.

Dissolve thy sunbeams, close thy wings and stay.
See, see how I am blind and dead, and stray,
Oh thou that art my life, my light, my way!

Then work thy will! If passion bid me flee, My reason shall obey, my wings shall be Stretched out no further than from me to thee! Burnet's Some Passages of the Life and Death of John, Earl of Rochester (1680; republished in Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biog raphy), was said by Johnson to be a book which the critic ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety.' For a discussion of Rochester from another point of view, see G. S. Street's Miniatures and Moods (1893).

The Earl of Dorset (CHArles Sackville; 1638-1706) wrote little, but had it in him to have written much more notable things; and being a liberal patron of poets, he was a highly popular man of fashion. His manners and his morals were like those of his friends Sir Charles Sedley and the rest. In the first Dutch war, 1665, as Lord Buckhurst, he went as a volunteer under the Duke of York, and was said to have written the song, 'To all you ladies'-'one of the prettiest that ever was made,' according to Prior-the night before the naval engagement in which the Dutch admiral Opdam was blown up with all his crew. To have written such a lively, lengthy, easy-flowing song at sea, just before a great battle, was surely something to brag of! But when Pepys's Diary was published, it was found that the song (in which, it should be added, there is a strong dash of a witty, antithetical, burlesquing strain, as in Goldsmith's Mad Dog, quite beyond the nature of a true lyric) existed six clear months before the great sea-fight; Prior's story was an embellishment. The courtiersailor may have touched up the song just-or soon -before the battle. Created Earl of Middlesex in 1675, he succeeded his father two years later, and was a lord of the bedchamber to Charles II., chamberlain of the household to William and Mary. When Dorset, as chamberlain, was obliged to take the king's pension from Dryden, he allowed him an equivalent out of his own estate. He in

troduced Butler's Hudibras to the notice of the court, was consulted by Waller, and idolised by Dryden. Yet his works are few, trifling, and mostly indecent; a few satires and songs make up the catalogue. Smart and graceful though they are, Prior was absurd when he wrote of them, 'There is a lustre in his verses like that of the sun in Claude Lorraine's landscapes.' Three of the songs are given below. The refrain of the last is repeated at each verse.

Dorinda.

Dorinda's sparkling wit and eyes,
United, cast too fierce a light,
Which blazes high, but quickly dies;
Pains not the heart, but hurts the sight.

Love is a calmer, gentler joy;

Smooth are his looks, and soft his pace; Her Cupid is a blackguard boy,

That runs his link full in your face.

Love its own Reward.

May the ambitious ever find

Success in crowds and noise,

While gentle love does fill my mind
With silent, real joys.

May knaves and fools grow rich and great,
And the world think 'em wise;

While I lie dying at her feet,
And all the world despise.

To the Ladies at Home.

To all you ladies now at land,
We men at sea indite;

But first would have you understand

How hard it is to write;

The Muses now, and Neptune too,

We must implore to write to you.

With a fa la, la, la, la.

For though the Muses should prove kind,
And fill our empty brain;
Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind,
To wave the azure main,
Our paper, pen, and ink, and we,
Roll up and down our ships at sea.
Then if we write not by each post,
Think not we are unkind;
Nor yet conclude our ships are lost
By Dutchmen or by wind:

Our tears we'll send a speedier way—
The tide shall bring them twice a day.

The king with wonder and surprise
Will swear the seas grow bold,
Because the tides will higher rise
Than e'er they used of old :
But let him know it is our tears
Bring floods of grief to Whitehall-stairs.

Should foggy Opdam chance to know

Our sad and dismal story,

The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe,
And quit their fort at Goree ;
For what resistance can they find
From men who 've left their hearts behind?

Let wind and weather do its worst,
Be you to us but kind;

Let Dutchmen vapour, Spaniards curse,
No sorrow we shall find:
'Tis then no matter how things go,
Or who's our friend, or who's our foe.

To pass our tedious hours away,
We throw a merry main;
Or else at serious ombre play;

But why should we in vain
Each other's ruin thus pursue e?
We were undone when we left you.

But now our fears tempestuous grow,
And cast our hopes away;
Whilst you, regardless of our woe,

Sit careless at a play :
Perhaps permit some happier man
To kiss your hand, or flirt your fan.
When any mournful tune you hear,
That dies in every note,

As if it sighed with each man's care

For being so remote :

Think then how often love we 've made
To you, when all those tunes were played.

In justice you can not refuse

To think of our distress,
When we for hopes of honour lose

Our certain happiness;

All those designs are but to prove
Ourselves more worthy of your love.

And now we've told you all our loves,
And likewise all our fears,

In hopes this declaration moves
Some pity for our tears;
Let's hear of no inconstancy,
We have too much of that at sea.
With a fa la, la, la, la.

Thomas D'Urfey (1653–1723), dramatist and song-writer, had usually his name Anglicised and familiarised into Tom Durfey. Born at Exeter of Huguenot ancestry (a fact gracefully alluded to by the 'facetious' Tom Brown; see Vol. II.), he was a nephew of Honoré d'Urfé (1568–1625), author of the famous romance of Astrée. He early became a busy playwright, his comedies especially being popular. Among these were The Fond Husband (1676), Madame Fickle (1677), and Sir Burnaby Whig (1681). In 1683 he published his Ne Collection of Songs and Poems, which was followed by a long series of songs, republished, along with some by other authors, as Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy (6 vols. 1719-20; reprinted 1872). Not a few are set to Scotch and Northern tunes; some of them are written in an impossible Scotch dialect (see page 788). Several were afterwards attributed to Scottish authors; in particular (as has been said at page 732), the famous song: The night her blackest sable wore, And gloomy were the skies;

And glittering stars there were no more
Than those in Stella's eyes;

And

each complete stanza of which ends with 'She'd rise and let me in,' 'That e'er she let me in,' &c., was Scotticised and claimed for Francis Sempill. His songs, amorous (beyond the bounds of decency, not a few of them), bacchanalian, and political, were enormously popular, many of them being set to music by Purcell, Blew, and Farmer, who were friends of his. Addison, a man of very different temper, invited the readers of the Guardian to a benefit for the decayed author's behoof, and praised Tom as a diverting companion, a cheerful, honest, good-natured man, who, by making the world merry, had put it under a debt of gratitude. Steele (also in the Guardian) upbraided that same world for its thanklessness to one 'who was so large a contributor to this treatise, and to whose humorous productions so many rural squires in the remotest part of this island are obliged for the dignity and state which corpulency gives them.' The following song, reprinted in the Pills, is far from his most 'divertive' or tuneful lyrics, but has a literary interest as being a reply to Collier's impeachment of the contemporary stage. Tom did not, like Congreve, plead guilty. The full title is A Song sung in my play of the Campaigners, extreamly divertive, just after Mr Cr's vile Satyr upon Poets and the Stage. of Mr Henry Purcell's:

New reformation begins thro' the nation,

Set to a tune

And our grumbling sages, that hope for good wages,
Direct us the way:

Sons of the muses, then cloak your abuses,
And least you shou'd trample on pious example,
Observe and obey.

Time frenzy curers, and stubborn Nonjurors,
For want of diversion, now scourge the leud times:
They've hinted, they 've printed, our vein it profane is,
And worst of all crimes;

Dull clod pated railers, smiths, coblers and colliers,
Have damn'd all our rhimes.

Under the notion of zeal for devotion,

The humour has fir'd 'em, or rather inspir'd 'em,
To tutor the age:

But if in season you'd know the true reason;
The hopes of preferment is what make the vermin
Now rail at the stage.

Cuckolds and canters, with scruples and banters,
The old forty-one peal against poetry ring:
But let State revolvers, and treason absolvers,
Excuse me if I sing :

The rebel that chuses to cry down the muses,
Wou'd cry down the king.

Thomas Flatman, born in London in 1637, passed through Winchester to New College, Oxford, and became a great miniaturist and a very minor poet. Painting miniatures was his profession; in rhyming, he protests, my utmost End was merely for Diversion of myself and a few Friends whom I very well love.' He 'always took a peculiar delight in the Pindarique strain,' for reasons-rather arbitrary than artistic-which he details in the sprightly preface to his poems. Many

of his contemporaries treated him as a great poet; Rochester jeered at him as a poor imitator of Cowley; and what his and Izaak Walton's brilliant friend Charles Cotton praised (in verse) as 'charming numbers,' 'full of sinewy strength as well as wit,' are now neglected and forgotten. Some of his shorter poems are much more interesting than his more ambitious 'Pindarique odes' and elegies on dukes, earls, 'matchless Orindas,' and kings. 'A Thought of Death' obviously influenced Pope's Dying Christian;' 'Death: a Song,' is suggestive rather than melodious; some of the love-poems are graceful, and so are the translations from Horace. 'An Appeal to Cats in the matter of love-making' is facetious and sounds modern:

Ye cats that at midnight spit love at each other, Who best feel the pangs of a passionate lover, I appeal to your scratches and your tattered furr If the business of love be no more than to purr. A burlesque romance, Don Juan Lamberto, 'by Montilion,' was generally regarded as his; and so were some trifles more. He died in 1688, having collected his Poems and Songs (1674); they had passed through four editions by 1686.

Awake my soul !

Hymn for the Morning.
Awake mine eyes!
Awake my drowsie faculties;
Awake and see the new born light
Spring from the darksom womb of night.
Look up and see; th' unwearied Sun
Already has his race begun :
The pretty lark is mounted high,
And sings her matins in the sky.
Arise my soul! and thou my voice
In songs of praise, early rejoyce!
O great Creator, heavenly king,
Thy praises let me ever sing.

Thy power has made, thy goodness kept
This fenceless body while I slept,
Yet one day more hast given me
From all the powers of darkness free :
O keep my heart from sin secure,
My life unblameable and pure,
That when the last of all my days is come,
Chearful and fearless I may wait my doom.

A Thought of Death. When on my sick bed I languish, Full of sorrow, full of anguish, Fainting, gasping, trembling, crying, Panting, groaning, speechless, dying, My soul just now about to take her flight Into the regions of eternal night; Oh tell me you

That have been long below,

What shall I do?

What shall I think, when cruel Death appears, That may extenuate my fears?

Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say,

Be not fearful, come away!

Think with thy self that now thou shalt be free, And find thy long expected liberty;