decisions, and other professional writings. All these are marked by a vigorous and ornamented style, and are among the finest specimens of the prose literature of that age.

For more extended reading on this topic consult Macaulay's essay on Bacon, Whipple's essays in The Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, Lewes's Biographical History of Philosophy, Hallam's Literature of Europe, The Baconian Philosophy, by Tyler, Fischer's Bacon and His Times.

A. s. Develin

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CHAPTER XII.

THE SO-CALLED METAPHYSICAL POETS.

LTHOUGH the literature of the seventeenth century indicates no marvellous outburst of creative power, it has yet left deep and enduring traces upon the English thought and upon the English language. The influences of the time produced a style of writing in which intellect and fancy played a greater part than imagination or passion. Samuel Johnson styled the poets of that century the metaphysical school; that tendency to intellectual subtilty which appears in the prose and verse of the Elizabethan writers, and occasionally extends its contagion to Shakespeare himself, became with them a controlling principle. As a natural consequence, they allowed ingenuity to gain undue predominance over feeling; and in their search for odd, recondite, and striking illustrations they were guilty of frequent and flagrant violations of reason. Towards the close of the period Milton is a grand and solitary representative of poets of the first order. He owed little to his contemporaries. They were chiefly instrumental in generating the pseudo-correct and artificial manner which characterizes the classical writers of the early part of the eighteenth century.

John Donne (1573-1631) has been mentioned already among our first satirists. He was a representative of the highest type of the extravagances of his age (50). His ideal of poetical composition was fulfilled by clothing every thought in a series of analogies, always remote, often repulsive and inappropriate. His versification is singularly harsh and tuneless, and the crudeness of his expression is in unpleasant contrast with the ingenuity of his thinking. In his own day his reputation was very high. Ben" pronounced him "the first poet in the world in some things,” but declared that "for not being understood he would perish.” This prophecy was confirmed by public opinion in the eighteenth

"Rare

century, but has been somewhat modified by the criticism of our day, which discovers much genuine poetical sentiment beneath the faults of taste. His writings certainly give evidence of rich, profound, and varied learning.

Donne's early manhood was passed in company with the famous wits of the Mermaid Tavern. The chief productions of his youthful muse were his Satires, the Metempsychosis, and a series of amatory poems. When forty-two years of age, he was ordained as a priest in the Church of England. He soon became a famous preacher, and was appointed Dean of St. Paul's.

Favoring circumstances rather than substantial desert give Edmund Waller (1605-1687) his prominent position in the literary and political history of his time. From his youth his associations were with that polished society which could at once appreciate and develop his varied talents. Versatility, brilliant wit, graceful and fascinating manners, and an underlying fund of time-serving shrewdness gained him political distinction, and made him a social idol. But his character was timid and selfish; and his principles were modified by every change that affected his own interests. Unfortunately for him he was a relative of Cromwell and a member of the Long Parliament. Although constrained by policy to avow the republican principles of the Puritans, he was at heart a royalist, and lost no opportunity of secretly abetting the Stuart cause. His consummate adroitness long averted the consequences of this double-dealing; but in 1643 he was convicted of a plot for restoring the authority of Charles I. Severe penalties were inflicted upon him, and he bowed to them in abject submission. The Restoration renewed his prosperity, and he promptly panegyrized Charles II. with the same fervor which had marked his encomiums of the Protector. He died shortly after the accession of James II., having, with characteristic sagacity, foretold the ruinous issues of that monarch's policy.

Most of Waller's poems are the verses of love (107), addressed to Lady Dorothy Sidney, whom he long wooed under the name of Sacharissa. Playfulness of fancy, uniform elegance of expression and melody, which are the chief merits of his verses, can scarcely atone for their lack of enthusiasm. Two eulogies of Cromwell, one composed during the Commonwealth, the other after the Protector's death, contain passages of dignity and power. He was less felici

tous in a poem on Divine love, and in his longer work, The Battle of the Summer Islands, which describes in a half-serious, half-comic strain an attack upon two stranded whales in the Bermudas.

In his own day and by the succeeding generation, Waller was thought to have perfected the art of expressing graceful and sensible ideas in clear and harmonious language. Both Dryden and Pope have acknowledged their obligations to his influence as the "Maker and model of melodious verse.' But his fame rested on the mechanical perfections of his style and on the good taste which avoided striking faults, rather than on the power of imagination which is the main source of positive beauty and enduring interest in poetry. At the present day his works are little read.

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) was the most popular English poet of his time. He affords a remarkable instance of intellectual precocity; when a mere child he had a passionate admiration for the Faery Queene, and his first poems were published when he was only fifteen years of age. After a residence of seven years at Cambridge, whence he was ejected on account of his being a royalist, he studied at Oxford until that town was occupied by the Parliamentary forces. He then joined Queen Henrietta, the wife of Charles I., who was residing in France; and he remained upon the

Continent for nearly twelve years, exerting all his energies 1660] in behalf of the house of Stuart. When the Restoration

was accomplished and his fidelity and self-sacrifice were forgotten by worthless Charles II., Cowley resolved "to retire to some of the American plantations and forsake the world forever;" but he abandoned this purpose and settled in rural life at Chertsey on the Thames. He received a lease of lands belonging to the Crown, and from it he derived a moderate revenue, which secured him against actual want.

Cowley was highly esteemed as a scholar, a poet and an essayist. Extensive and well-digested reading, sound sense and genial feeling, joined to a pure and natural expression, render his prose works very entertaining. As a poet he exhibits the bad qualities of the metaphysical school in their most attractive form. He has not poetic passion; he seems to be ever on the alert for striking analogies, and when he finds one he shows the electric spark of wit, rather than the fervent glow of genius. This fantastic play of the intelect displaces the natural outpouring of feeling