Edward Fairfax. DIED A. D. 1632. EDWARD FAIRFAX, the well-known translator of Tasso's noble epic, was the second son of Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton in Yorkshire. The author of the Lives of the Poets,' published under the name of Theophilus Cibber, has attempted to cast a stain upon Fairfax's birth, but the alleged circumstance of illegitimacy has by no means been established against our poet. Sir Thomas Fairfax received the honour of knighthood from Queen Elizabeth. The poet's elder brother-afterwards Lord Fairfax of Cameron-was also knighted before Rouen, in Normandy, for his bravery in the army sent to the assistance of Henry IV. of France. Another brother distinguished himself at the battle of Newport, and in the memorable three years' siege of Ostend. While the other members of his family were thus seeking laurels in the field, Edward devoted his time to quieter but still more glorious pursuits, and sought his happiness in the endearments of connubial love, and the assiduous cultivation of polite literature. Having married, he fixed himself at Newhall, in the neighbourhood of Lord Fairfax's estate; and in this secluded retirement he lived and died, honoured and esteemed by all who knew him, and not the least so by his titled brother, to whom he proved eminently serviceable by his advice on various occasions, and the warm interest he took in the education of his lordship's children with his own. Fairfax's claim on the admiration of posterity is chiefly founded on his admirable translation of the Jerusalem Delivered' of Tasso. The work, though the first production of a young man, was received with high approbation when it first appeared. Not to mention the pleasure which royalty itself preferred to take in Fairfax's vigorous and glowing stanzas, Dryden speaks of Spenser and Fairfax in nearly the same breath, as equally worthy favourites of the muse; and Waller confesses that he owes the music of his numbers to the model furnished him in Fairfax's Tasso. The author of the 'Lives of the Poets' above quoted, says, with perfect truth, that Fairfax's diction is "so pure, elegant, and full of grace, and the turn of his lines so perfectly melodious, that one cannot read his verses without rapture, and we can scarcely imagine the original Italian has greatly the advantage in either." With equal sagacity the anonymous biographer adds: "It is not very probable that while Fairfax can be read any author will attempt a new translation of Tasso with success." New translations of Tasso have indeed been tried, and one of them at least possesses merits of no ordinary kind; but old Fairfax still keeps his ground even against the polished and graceful verses of Wiffen. Besides his translation of Tasso, Fairfax executed a metrical history of Edward the Black Prince, and several Eclogues; but we do not know that any of these pieces has yet been published, with the exception of one Eclogue, which was printed by Mrs Cooper in 'The Muses' Library,' in 1737. Thomas Carew. BORN A. d. 1589.—died a. d. 1639 brother of Sir MatWood says he re THIS pleasing poetical writer was the younger thew Carew, a zealous royalist in the civil wars. ceived his university education at Corpus Christi college, but that he neither matriculated nor took any degree. His elegant manners and sprightly wit recommended him to the court of Charles I., who appointed him one of his gentlemen of the bed-chamber. He died in 1639. Clarendon says of him: "He was a person of a pleasant and facetious wit, and made many poems, especially in the amorous way." It is to be regretted that his verses, which are often very graceful, should be so frequently disfigured with licentiousness, the prevailing vice of the times. They probably owed not a little of their popularity in a dissolute age to this circumstance; but they possess many beauties, and are thickly strewed with gems of true poetry. The first edition of his collected pieces was published in 1640, in 12mo; the third, in 1651. Many of his songs were set to music by the two Lawes, and other eminent masters of the day. Headley has very elegantly and correctly estimated the merits and defects of Carew in the following observations appended to his Beauties of English Poetry :-" The consummate elegance of this gentleman entitles him to very considerable attention. Sprightly, polished, and perspicuous, every part of his work displays the man of sense, gallantry, and breeding; indeed, many of his productions have a certain happy finish, and betray a dexterity both of thought and expression, much superior to any thing of his contemporaries, and, on similar subjects, rarely surpassed by his successors. Carew has the ease without the pedantry of Waller, and perhaps less conceit. He reminds us of the best manner of Lord Lyttleton. Waller is too exclusively considered as the first man who brought versification to any thing like its present standard. Carew's pretensions to the same merit are seldom sufficiently either considered or allowed. Though love had long before softened us into civility, yet it was of a formal, ostentatious, and romantic cast; and, with a very few exceptions, its effects upon composition were similar to those on manners. Something more light, unaffected, and alluring, was still wanting: in every thing but sincerity of intention it was deficient. Panegyric, declamatory and nauseous, was rated by those to whom addressed, on the principle of Rubens's taste for beauty, by its quantity, not its elegance. Satire, dealing in rancour rather than reproof, was more inclined to lash than to laugh us out of our vices; and nearly counteracted her intentions by her want of good manners. Carew and Waller jointly began to remedy those defects. In them, gallantry, for the first time, was accompanied by the graces,-the fulsomeness of panegyric forgot its gentility,-and the edge of satire rendered keener in proportion to its smoothness. Suckling says of our author, in his Session of the Poets,' that -the issue of his brain "In Lloyd's Worthies Carew is likewise called 'elaborate and accurate.' However the fact may be, the internal evidence of his poems say no such thing. Hume has properly remarked, that Waller's pieces 'aspire not to the sublime, still less to the pathetic.' Carew, in his beautiful masque, has given us instances of the former; and, in his epitaph on Lady Mary Villiers, eminently of the latter." Sir John Suckling. BORN A. D. 1608?-DIED A. D. 1641. THIS spirited dramatist, and man of fashion of the 17th century, had a court birth as well as breeding; being the son of Sir John Suckling, who had been secretary of state to Charles's predecessor, and was comptroller of the household to Charles himself, when the subject of this notice was born, in 1613, as some of his biographers insist, but more probably in 1608, at Witham, in Middlesex. The accounts which have been given of the extraordinary quickness of his parts, even in childhood-such as that he spoke Latin fluently when five years old—– are somewhat contradictory; but still there seems little doubt that his early acquirements in school-learning were very remarkable. They must have been so; for he does not appear to have pursued his studies later than about the age of seventeen years, and yet he was accomplished in much of the learning of his day. It is also uncertain in what schools he acquired it. Aubrey supposes that his initiation took place at Westminster, and he says Davenant told him that he was at Cambridge for three or four years, having entered that university when only eleven years of age. At a very early age, certainly before he was twenty, Suckling had travelled over a greater portion of civilized Europe than it was usual for the youth of English nobility to visit; and, on his return he seems to have been received, by universal consent, as the very mirror of a wit, a courtier, and a fine gentleman; and this at a time when the qualities necessary to support these characters were a little better understood than they are now, and not a little better practised. Aubrey says of him: "He was incomparably readie at repartying, and his wit most sparkling when most set upon and provoked. He was the greatest gallant of his time, and the greatest gamester both for bowling and cards, so that no shop-keeper would trust him for sixpence. As to day, for instance, he might be winning, be worth £200, the next day he might not be worth half so much, or perhaps be sometimes minus nihilo. Sir William, who was his intimate friend, and loved him entirely, would say, that Sir John, when he was at his lowest ebb in gaming, I meane when most unfortunate, then would make himself most glorious in apparell, and sayd that it exalted his spirits, and that he had then best luck when he was most gallant, and his spirits at the highest." In 1629, while on the continent, (when Suckling was probably about twenty years of age, but according to other reckonings, when he was not more than sixteen) he became a soldier, serving a short but busy campaign, under the celebrated Gustavus Adolphus. From the period of his return till his death, (which happened not III. 2 L more than seven years after), he seems to have spent an active and busy, yet easy and careless sort of life,-now playing, loving, and writing,-now raising a troop of soldiers, to fight for the king, "all handsome young proper men, whom he clad in white doubletts and scarlet breeches," -now plotting and intriguing with the cavaliers to rescue Strafford from the hands of the covenanters,-failing,-being impeached of high treason, in conjunction with his friend and brother-poet, Davenant, for attempting to effect the escape of the earl of Strafford,—and flying to France for safety, where he died in 1641, a bachelor,' at the age of either 28 or 32, according as the different accounts of his birth may be correct. Suckling's verses are easy and debonnair, often ill-formed in their structure, and still more frequently slovenly in their dress. They every where betray an artificial sensibility,—the great fault of poets of his day. These faults are almost redeemed by his constant sprightliness and good humour, and now and then by a touch of profounder thought than we are prepared to meet with in such a writer. His letters are good specimens of the epistolary style: often elegant, sometimes stiffly antithetical, always witty.' George Sandys. BORN A. D. 1577.-died a. D. 1643. GEORGE SANDYS, the seventh and youngest son of Edwin, archbishop of York, was born at the archiepiscopal palace of Bishop-thorpe, in 1577. In 1588 he matriculated at St Mary's hall, Oxford; but he does not appear to have taken a degree at the university. In 1610, he visited the continent of Europe, and thence proceeded to the East, taking an extensive tour through Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land. Returning to Europe, he resided some time in Rome, and afterwards in Venice, at both which places he appears to have employed himself chiefly in literary researches, and in giving the last polish to his classical acquirements which were highly respectable. In 1615, he presented the public with the result of his observations made during his travels in the East. His work was well received, and has continued a favourite in its department of literature ever since. There have been eight or ten editions of it published, and subsequent travellers have borne unanimous testimony to the accuracy and veracity of the author. Most of the plates, however, with which it was subsequently enriched, were copied from the Devotissimo Viaggio di Zuallardo,' Roma, 1587, 4to. In 1632, Sandys appeared as a poet. His translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, published in that year, was very favourably received, though Dryden objects to it as too close and literal. years afterwards he published a 'Paraphrase on the Psalms of David,' which, Wood tells us, afforded much solace to Charles I. when a prisoner in Carisbrook castle.2 In 1640, he produced a poetical 1 See Retrospective Review, vols. viii. ix. Four The edition of this work was published in 1640, with the Psalms set to music by one of the musical brothers, Lawes. 6 version of a posthumous drama by Grotius, entitled Christus patiens,' he also wrote a metrical paraphrase of the Song of Solomon,' and a few other religious pieces. Langbaine says of Sandys, as a poetical translator, that "he will be allowed an excellent artist in it by learned judges;" and adds somewhat quaintly, "he comes so near the sense of his author that nothing is lost; no spirits evaporate in the decanting of it into English; and if there be any sediment, it is left behind." An opinion, for which we have the higher authority of Pope, who, in his notes to the Iliad, declares that English poetry owes much of its present beauty to the model furnished by Sandys in his translations. Sandys appears to have been a man of singular integrity and much simplicity of manners. He spent the greater part of his latter years with his brother-in-law Sir Francis Wenman of Caswell, Oxfordshire, probably choosing that situation on account of its proximity to his beloved friend Lucius, Lord Viscount Falkland, who addressed some elegant poems to him, which are preserved in Nichols' Select Collection.' died at the house of his nephew Sir Francis Wyat of Bexley in Kent, in 1643. He was interred in the chancel of the parish church of Bexley without any inscription; but in the parish-register is this entry: "Georgius Sandys, poetarum Anglorum sui sæculi facile princeps, sepultus fuit Martii 7. stilo Anglice, ann. Dom. 1643." William Cartwright. BORN A. D. 1615?-DIED A. D. 1643. He THIS poet and divine of the 17th century has had many biographers, all of whom differ in respect to the precise time of his birth. Lloyd affirms that he was born in 1615, and was the son of Thomas Cartwright, of Burford in Oxfordshire; others suppose him to have been the son of a Mr William Cartwright, that he was born at Northway in Gloucestershire, in 1611,—and that his father, after dissipating a large fortune, became an inn-keeper at Cirencester, at the free school of which town his son was educated. However this may be, it is certain that he was a king's scholar at Westminster, and was thence chosen student of Christ's college, Oxford, in the year 1631, where he took orders, and became-to use the language of Anthony Wood—“ a most florid and seraphic preacher" in the university; he was also appointed proctor, and metaphysical lecturer, and was a poet and divine, all before the age of thirty. In 1642, he was made succentor to the church of Salisbury, and one of the council of war, or delegacy, at Oxford, for providing for the troops sent by the king to protect the colleges. For this last service he was imprisoned by the parliamentary forces, but was soon released. Lloyd asserts that he studied sixteen hours a day, relieving his severer pursuits by the cultivation of poetry. He became in his day an object of universal admiration. His praises employed the most learned pens; Fell, bishop of Oxford, said that he was "all that man could arrive at ;" and Ben Jonson exclaimed, "My son Cartwright writes all like a man !" Notwithstanding all this com 'Gent. Mag. vol. ii. p. 368. |
