From 'The Last Verses in the Book.'
The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er;
So calm are we when passions are no more:
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made :
Stronger by weakness wiser men become,

As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.

Editions of Waller are those of Fenton (1729), and Mr G. Thorn Drury in The Muses Library' (1893; who gives the 1686 text of the poems). Mr Gosse in his Cambridge lectures, From Shakespeare to Pope (1885), has been thought to attach too much importance to the influence of Waller. See also Julia Cartwright's Sacharissa (1892), and Mr Beeching's essay on 'Waller's Distich' in An English Miscellany (1901).

Sir William D'Avenant, poet and playwright, was born in February 1606, and was the son of a vintner at Oxford. A scandalous story was told by Pope to Oldys, and to Pope by Betterton the player that he was the natural son of Shakespeare, who was in the habit of putting up at the Crown Tavern on his journeys between London and Stratford. This tradition was evidently encouraged by D'Avenant himself, who was ostentatious in admiring Shakespeare above all other poets, and 'one of the first essays of whose muse' in boyhood was an Ode to Shakespeare. D'Avenant's career led him through some strange vicissitudes. He was entered at Lincoln College, but left without taking a degree; he then became page to the Duchess of Richmond, and afterwards was in the service of the poet Lord Brooke. About 1628 he began to write for the stage; and in 1638, the year after the death of Ben Jonson, he was appointed Laureate. About the same time he lost his nose through an illness—a calamity which exposed him to the merriment of Suckling, Denham, and other wits. He became in 1639 manager of Drury Lane, but entering into the intrigues of the Civil War, fell under the suspicion of Parliament and fled to France. When the queen sent over to the Earl of Newcastle a quantity of military stores, D'Avenant resolved to return to England, and he distinguished himself so much in the cause of the royalists that he was knighted by Charles I. at the siege of Gloucester (September 1643). On the decline of the king's affairs he returned to France, and wrote part of his Gondibert. His next move was to sail for Virginia, sent by the queen in charge of new colonists; but the vessel was captured by one of the Parliamentary ships-of-war, and D'Avenant was lodged in prison at Cowes Castle in the Isle of Wight. In 1650 he was removed to the Tower, in order to be tried by the High Commission Court-a danger from which he was released after two years' imprison

ment.

Milton is said to have interposed on his

behalf; and as D'Avenant is reported to have interfered in favour of Milton when the royalists were again in the ascendant after the Restoration, one would gladly believe in this graceful reciprocity. When the author of Gondibert obtained his enlargement, he set about establishing a theatre, and, to the surprise of all, succeeded in the attempt (1658), having two years earlier produced in a private house what was practically the first opera in England. By these semi-public performances in a private house, D'Avenant may be said to have revived the stage in England under the Commonwealth, and with the sanction of the authorities. But his earliest dramatic piece, Albovine, King of Lombardy, was written in 1629, and deals with some of the same personages as the poem Gondibert. It is the first of a long series of five-and-twenty plays, some in prose, some in blank verse; while the opera The Siege of Rhodes and some of the masques are in rhyme. Not a few of the plays are fairly readable; they are usually more decorous than those of his contemporaries, but in some the humour is even coarser than the diction, and the author rollicks in tales of lust and horror. The Platonick Lovers is not so coarse as might have been expected in a comedy satirising Lovers of a pure

Celestial kind such as some style Platonical (as one of the characters says in words Byron might have written); though it sufficiently appears that as to Plato, in the author's opinion,

They father on him a fantastic love He never knew, poor gentleman. After the Restoration he again basked in royal favour, and engaged the services of some highly accomplished actors. Killigrew and he had licenses for theatres in 1661, and were both formally empowered to employ women actors for women's parts-heretofore a sporadic occurrence. But Southey, not without some reason, says: 'His last work was his worst: it was an alteration of the Tempest, executed in conjunction with Dryden ; and marvellous indeed is it that two men of such great and indubitable genius should have combined to debase and vulgarise and pollute such a poem as the Tempest? D'Avenant, who continued to write and superintend the performance of plays till his death, 7th April 1668, was buried in Westminster Abbey.

The epic poem of Gondibert (1651), which was regarded by D'Avenant's friends and admirersCowley and Waller being of the number-as a great and durable monument of genius, has retained a certain interest which the author's dramas have entirely lost. The scene is laid in Lombardy; but names like Oswald and Hurgonill, Astragon and Paradine, show that no attempt is made to ensure local colour or historic vraisemblance. The critics were from the very first strangely at variance as to its merits, doubtless because the poem, though not without a certain solidity of

composition, and though it has really fine passages here and there, is on the whole obscure and dull, and in its longer parts indeed almost unreadable. The prodigious length of the thing (6000 lines) repels; and its long four-lined stanza with alternate rhymes, borrowed from Sir John Davies and copied by Dryden in his Annus Mirabilis, requires a lighter hand than D'Avenant's. The poet prefixed a long and elaborate prose preface to his poem, which may be considered the precursor of Dryden's admirable critical introductions to his plays. It is addressed 'to his much honour'd friend Mr Hobs,' and drew from the Malmesbury philosopher a disquisition on aesthetics by way of reply, also prefixed to the poem. D'Avenant's worship of Shakespeare continued unabated to the last; but in later years he modelled himself upon the French tragedians. Dryden in his preface to his and D'Avenant's version of the Tempest declares that he did not set any value on what he had written in that play, but cherished it out of gratitude to the memory of Sir William D'Avenant, who, he adds, 'did me the honour to join me with him in the alteration of it. It was originally Shakespeare's a poet for whom he had particularly a high veneration, and whom he first taught me to admire.' So was veneration for Shakespeare understood in the brave days of Glorious John, of Shadwell, and of Nahum Tate! Most of the miscellaneous work of D'Avenant, once prized so highly, is now not merely unread but contemned; and he is by some modern critics unfeelingly ranked amongst the poetasters.

To the Queen,

Entertained at night by the Countess of Anglesey.

Faire as unshaded light, or as the day
In its first birth, when all the year was May;
Sweet as the altars smoak, or as the new
Unfolded bud, swel'd by the early dew;
Smooth as the face of waters first appear'd,
Ere tides began to strive, or winds were heard ;
Kind as the willing saints, and calmer farre
Than in their sleeps forgiven hermits are.
You that are more than our discreeter feare
Dares praise, with such full art, what make you here?
Here, where the summer is so little seen,

That leaves, (her cheapest wealth,) scarce reach at green;
You come, as if the silver planet were
Misled a while from her much injur'd sphere;
And, t' case the travels of her beames to-night,
In this small lanthorn would contract her light.

Song.

The lark now leaves his watry nest,

And climbing shakes his dewy wings: He takes this window for the east,

And to implore your light he sings: Awake, awake, the morn will never rise, Till she can dress her beauty at your eies! The merchant bowes unto the seamans star,

The ploughman from the sun his season takes; But still the lover wonders what they are

Who look for day before his mistress wakes:

She ne'r saw courts, yet courts could have undone
With untaught looks, and an unpractis'd heart;
Her nets the most prepar'd could never shun,
For Nature spread them in the scorn of Art.

She never had in busie cities bin,

Ne'r warm'd with hopes, nor e'er allay'd with fears; Not seeing punishment could guess no sin;

And sin not seeing, ne'r had use of tears.

But here her father's precepts gave her skill,
Which with incessant business fill'd the houres;
In spring she gathered blossoms for the still;
In autumn, berries; and in summer, flowers.

And as kinde Nature, with calm diligence,
Her own free vertue silently imploys,
Whilst she unheard does rip'ning growth dispence,
So were her vertues busie without noise.

Whilst her great mistris, Nature, thus she tends,
The busie household waites no less on her;

By secret law, each to her beauty bends,
Though all her lowly minde to that prefer.

Gracious and free she breaks upon them all
With morning looks; and they, when she does rise,
Devoutly at her dawn in homage fall,

And droop like flowers when evening shuts her eyes.

Beneath a mirtle covert she does spend

In maids weak wishes her whole stock of thought; Fond maids! who love with mindes fine stuff would mend, Which Nature purposely of bodys wrought.

She fashions him she lov'd of angels' kinde;
Such as in holy story were imploy'd
To the first fathers from th' Eternal Minde,
And in short vision only are injoy'd.

As eagles then when nearest heav'n they fly,
Of wild impossibles soon weary grow;
Feeling their bodies finde no rest so high,
And therefore peerch on earthly things below;

So now she yields; him she an angel deem'd Shall be a man, the name which virgins fear; Yet the most harmless to a maid he seemed, That ever yet that fatal name did bear.

Soon her opinion of his hurtless heart

Affection turns to faith; and then love's fire To heaven, though bashfully, she does impart, And to her mother in the heav'nly quire.

If I do love (said she), that love, O Heav'n! Your own disciple, Nature, bred in me; Why should I hide the passion you have given, Or blush to shew effects which you decree?

And you, my alter'd mother, grown above

Great Nature, which you read and reverenc'd here, Chide not such kindness as you once called love, When you as mortal as my father were.

This said, her soul into her breast retires!

With love's vain diligence of heart she dreams Herself into possession of desires,

And trusts unanchor'd hope in fleeting streams.

In 'A Journey into Worcestershire' in wet weather, on horseback, and along with Endymion Porter and others, he thus refers to London annoyances, including inconsiderate tailors' bills: And I whom some odd hum'rous planets bid To register the doughty acts they did, Took horse; leaving i' th' town ill plays, sowre wines, Fierce serjeants, and the plague, besides of mine An Ethnick taylor too, that was far worse Than these or what just Heaven did ever curse.

D'Avenant's poem on Madagascar is probably as little explored as the most inaccessible part of the island-home of aye-ayes and traveller's trees. It provides neither amusement nor instruction, being a sort of vision, addressed to Prince Rupert, foreshadowing his fitness to be made governor of an English colony in Madagascar-a project seriously recommended to King Charles I. in 1636.

The last verse of a nautical poem on Winter Storms (of which the first verses begin 'Blow, blow,' and 'Port, port') is as follows:

Aloof, aloof! Hey, how those carracks and ships Fall foul and are tumbled and driven like chips! Our boatsen, alass, a silly weak grisle,

For fear to catch cold

Lies down in the hould:

We all hear his sighs, but few hear his whistle. D'Avenant's Dramatic Works have been edited by Maidment and Logan (5 vols. 1872-75). The old standard edition of the Works is the folio of 1673. Aubrey is the main authority for the Life.

Sir John Suckling (1609–42) possessed such a natural liveliness of fancy and exuberance of animal spirits that he often broke through the artificial restraints imposed by the literary taste of his times, but he never rose into the poetry of strong passion. He is a delightful writer of what have been called 'occasional poems.' His polished wit, playful fancy, and knowledge of life and society enabled him to give interest to trifles and to clothe familiar thoughts in the garb of poetry. His own life seems to have been one summer day; like the voyager on Gray's gilded vesselYouth at the prow, and Pleasure at the helm-he dreamed of enjoyment, not of fame. His father, Sir John Suckling (1569–1627), was Secretary of State and comptroller of the household to James I. and Charles I. The year before his death the son, who was born at Whitton, in Twickenham parish, had passed from Trinity College, Cambridge, to Gray's Inn; emancipated from all restraint, and with an immense fortune, he set off in 1628 on his travels to France and Italy. Knighted in 1630, he next year joined an auxiliary army of 6000 raised in England, and commanded by the Marquis of Hamilton, to act under Gustavus Adolphus in Germany. He served in several sieges and battles, and on his return in 1632 became celebrated for his wit, gallantry, and munificence at the court of Charles I. He was also considered the best bowler and card-player in England (cribbage was his invention); and his sisters, it is said, distressed and alarmed at his passion for gambling, 'came one day to the Peccadillo bowling-green, crying for the fear he should lose all their portions.' Fortune, however, would not seem to have yet deserted the poet, for when, in 1639, Charles I. took up arms against the Scots, Suckling presented the king with a hundred horsemen, richly equipped and maintained at his own expense, at a cost, it is said, of £12,000. This gaudy regiment formed part of the cavalry commanded by Lord Holland; but no sooner had they come within sight of the Scots encampment on Duns Law than they turned and fled. Suckling was no worse than the rest, but he was made the subject of numerous lampoons and satires. A rival wit and poet, Sir John Mennes (1599-1671), who was successively a military and naval commander, and author of several pieces in the Musarum Delicia (1656), indited a ballad on the retreat, which is worth reprinting here as a lively political ditty of the period :

Sir John he got him an ambling nag,

To Scotland for to ride-a,

With a hundred horse more, all his own,
To guard him on every side-a.

No errant-knight ever went to fight
With half so gay a bravado,

he swore,

Had you seen but his look, you'd have sworn on a book
He'd have conquered a whole armado.

The ladies ran all to the windows to see
So gallant and warlike a sight-a,
And as he passed by, they began to cry:
'Sir John, why will you go fight-a?'

But he, like a cruel knight, spurred on;
His heart would not relent-a,

For, till he came there, what had he to fear?
Or why should he repent-a?

The king (God bless him !) had singular hopes
Of him and all his troop-a;

The Borderers they, as they met him on the way,
For joy did hollo and whoop-a.

None liked him so well as his own colonell,
Who took him for John de Weart-a;

But when there were shows of gunning and blows,
My gallant was nothing so pert-a.

For when the Scots army came within sight,
And all prepared to fight-a,

He ran to his tent; they asked what he meant ;
He swore he could not go right-a.

The colonell sent for him back agen,

To quarter him in the van-a,

But Sir John did swear he would not come there,
To be killed the very first man-a.

But now there is peace, he's returned to increase
His money, which lately he spent-a ;
But his honour lost must lie still in the dust;
At Berwick away it went-a.

Suckling continued steadfast to the royal cause, even when it seemed desperate. He joined in a scheme to promote the escape of Strafford from the Tower; but the plot being detected, he fled in May 1641 to France, and died shortly afterwards. A hideous story is told of his death. Having robbed him, his valet is said to have put an open razorone account says a penknife, another a nail-in his master's boot, which divided an artery, and fever and death ensued. Aubrey, however, states that Suckling took poison at Paris, and family tradition confirms the statement-a sufficiently sad close to the life of the cavalier-poet.

Suckling's works consist of miscellaneous poems, four plays-possessing no vivid dramatic interesta short prose treatise on Religion by Reason, and a small collection of letters written in a studied artificial style. His poems are all short, and the best of them are dedicated to love and gallantry. He writes with an irregularity which is absolutely extraordinary. In his Fragmenta Anna will be found, side by side, some of the prettiest and some of the feeblest lyrics of the age. Suckling seems

to have had no self-criticism and no criterion

of style. His ambitious compositions are clumsy and confused, and it is only by a few singularly brilliant songs and bursts of genuine feeling that he is able to justify the prominence which his name continues to hold. Among these happy lyrics a leading place must be given to his Ballad upon a Wedding, which is inimitable for its witty levity and artful simplicity of expression. It has touches of graphic description and sprightliness hardly surpassed by earlier or later rivals.

Song.

'Tis now, since I sat down before

That foolish fort, a heart,

(Time strangely spent !) a year and more;
And still I did my part :

Made my approaches, from her hand
Unto her lip did rise;

And did already understand
The language of her eyes;
Proceeded on with no less art-
My tongue was engineer;

I thought to undermine the heart
By whispering in the ear.

When this did nothing, I brought down
Great cannon oaths, and shot

A thousand thousand to the town,
And still it yielded not.

I then resolved to starve the place,
By cutting off all kisses,
Praising and gazing on her face,
And all such little blisses.

To draw her out, and from her strength,
I drew all batteries in ;

And brought myself to lie at length,
As if no siege had been.

When I had done what man could do,
And thought the place mine own,
The enemy lay quiet too,

And smiled at all was done.

I sent to know from whence, and where,
These hopes, and this relief?

A spy informed, Honour was there,
And did command in chief.

'March, march,' quoth I; 'the word straight give;
Let's lose no time, but leave her;
That giant upon air will live,

And hold it out for ever.

'To such a place our camp remove As will no siege abide;

I hate a fool that starves for love, Only to feed her pride.'

A Ballad upon a Wedding. I tell thee, Dick, where I have been, Where I the rarest things have seen; Oh, things without compare! Such sights again cannot be found In any place on English ground, Be it at wake or fair.

At Charing Cross, hard by the way

Where we (thou know'st) do sell our hay,

There is a house with stairs;

And there did I see coming down
Such folk as are not in our town,
Forty at least, in pairs.

Amongst the rest, one pestilent fine-
His beard no bigger, though, than mine-
Walked on before the rest :

Our landlord looks like nothing to him:
The king, God bless him! 'twould undo him
Should he go still so drest.

SIR JOHN SUCKLING.

From the Portrait by Theodore Russel after Vandyke in the National Portrait Gallery.

At Course-a-park, without all doubt, He should have first been taken out By all the maids o' the town: Though lusty Roger there had been, Or little George upon the green,

Or Vincent of the Crown.

But wot you what? the youth was going
To make an end of all his wooing;
The parson for him staid :
Yet by his leave, for all his haste,
He did not so much wish all past,

Perchance, as did the maid.

The maid, and thereby hangs a tale, For such a maid no Whitsun-ale

Could ever yet produce: No grape that's kindly ripe could be So round, so plump, so soft as she, Nor half so full of juice.

Her finger was so small, the ring
Would not stay on which they did bring;
It was too wide a peck :

Her mouth so small, when she does speak, Thou 'dst swear her teeth her words did break,

That they might passage get:

But she so handled still the matter,
They came as good as ours, or better,
And are not spent a whit. . . .

Passion o' me! how I run on!

There's that that would be thought upon,
I trow, besides the bride :

The bus'ness of the kitchen's great,

For it is fit that men should eat ;

Nor was it there denied.

Just in the nick, the cook knocked thrice, And all the waiters in a trice

His summons did obey ;

Each serving-man, with dish in hand,
Marched boldly up, like our trained band,
Presented, and away.

When all the meat was on the table,
What man of knife or teeth was able

To stay to be entreated?

And this the very reason was,
Before the parson could say grace,
The company was seated.

Now hats fly off, and youths carouse;
Healths first go round, and then the house,
The bride's came thick and thick;
And when 'twas named another's health,
Perhaps he made it hers by stealth,

And who could help it, Dick?

O' the sudden up they rise and dance;
Then sit again, and sigh, and glance:
Then dance again, and kiss.
Thus several ways the time did pass,
Till every woman wished her place,
And every man wished his.

By this time all were stolen aside
To counsel and undress the bride:

But that he must not know: