By Muses nine, and Graces more than three, Thus Death all earthly glories doth confound, Drummond's Poems, p. 198, Edit. 1656, Svo. AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF PHILARETE, MR. THOMAS MANWOOD, THE AUTHOR'S FRIEND, AND SON OF SIR PETER MANWOOD, KNT. UNDER an aged oak was Willy laid, Willy, the lad who whilome made the rocks That nigh his heart-strings rent, Ne car'd for merriment. But chang'd his wonted walks For uncouth paths unknown, Where none but trees might hear his plaints, And echo rue his moan. *Sylvester inscribes a Hymn "to the worthy friend of worthiness, Sir Peter Manwood, Knight of the Honourable Order of the Bath." The father probably of Browne's friend. P. 561, fol. edit. Autumn it was, when droop'd the sweetest flowers, In chill and cooling sweats, By rising fountains, or as they Each wind in fury bears; * Against the broad-spread oak Each wind in fury bears; Yet fell their leaves not half so fast means. As did the shepherd's tears.] In mere unimpassioned description, similes which are derived from foreign and remote objects are frequently used with success; for at the same time that they afford the writer an opportunity of showing his knowledge, they enrich and add a variety to poetry, that it might not have attained by any other Yet in pathetic situations, when they immediately arise from the subject itself, or some collateral branch of it, they convey the most direct and unequivocal illustration, with a conciseness and expression truly admirable. But how frequent is the practice, even with our best writers, in situations the most pathetic, and in narratives the most urgent and interesting, coolly to take leave of their subject, for the sake of introducing a comparison of perhaps ten or twelve lines! The consequence is, that our former sympathy is thoroughly destroyed, and after toiling through the lines in question, we are left to recal our attention, associate our distracted ideas, and recover the lost tone of our feelings at our leisure, which is by this time, most probably, totally out of our power. In such cases, a simile taken from the ground of the piece (if I may be allowed the expression), by confining our attention wholly to the subject, and by giving us what we want, without obliging us to wander in quest of it, would, in three words, almost have completely answered the end of the poet. I will subjoin an instance or two of this comprehensive kind of illustration. Mallet thus describes the father of Edwin: The father too, a sordid man, From whence his riches grew. Edw. and Emma. As was his seat so was his gentle heart, That swain should be so sad, That charm'd the crystal floods*: Day, thou art too officious in thy place, Phoebe! Endymion and thy dear Above all others, perhaps Collins affords one of the most beautiful specimens, in lines that few have read without emotion. Zara exclaims: 'Farewell the youth whom sighs could not detain, Yet as thou go'st may ev'ry blast arise Weak and unfelt as these rejected sighs! Safe o'er the wild, no perils may'st thou see, No griefs endure, nor weep, false youth, like me.' * Broke was his tuneful pipe Eclogue II. That charm'd the crystal floods.] Thus Milton, in the finest vein of poetry: Thyrsis! whose artful strains have oft delay'd Comus, 494 But ye have surely seen (Whom we in sorrow miss) A swain whom Phoebe thought her love, But he is gone; then inwards turn your light, Green well befits a lover's heat, But black beseems a mourner. Yet neither this thou can'st, Nor see his second birth, His brightness blinds thine eye more now, Let not a shepherd on our hapless plains And if a fellow swain do live A niggard of his tears; But that the store I have O what is left can make me leave to moan! Look on his sheep; alas! their master's gone. With locked arms have vow'd our love, (Our love, which time shall see Behold our flow'ry beds; For sorrow hang their heads*. 'Tis not a cypress bough, a count'nance sad, A standing hearse in sable vesture clad, Although the shepherds all should strive And vow to keep thy fame alive In spite of destinies, That can suppress my grief; and violets For sorrow hang their heads.] Milton, instead of representing the vegetable creation as affected at the death of his friend, with su perior judgment calls for the several flowers To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies. Among which he mentions The glowing violet, The musk-rose, and the well-attir'd woodbine, L. 145. Milton is fanciful, yet affecting; Browne puerile and disgusting. |