Critical Notices [pp. 582-600]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
plausibility, without adaptation of parts-and it is
needless to add, without a jot of imagination.
We have been much delighted with the Shepherd's
Hunting, by Wither-a poem partaking, in a strange
degree, of the peculiarities of the Penseroso. Speaking
of Poesy he says
By the murmur of a spring
Or the least boughs rusteling,
By a daisy whose leaves spread
Shut when Tytan goes to bed,
Or a shady bush or tree
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man.
By her help I also now
M1ake this churlish place allow
Something that may sweeten gladness
In the very gall of sadnessThe dull loneness, the black shade
That these hanging vaults have made,
The strange music of the waves
Beating on these hollow caves,
This black den which rocks emboss
Overgrown with eldest moss,
The rude portals that give light
More to terror than delight,
This my chamber of neglect
Walled about with disrespectFrom all these and this dull air
A fit object for despair,
She hathi taught me by her might
To draw comfort and delight.
But these verses, however good, do not bear with
them much of the general character of the English
antique. Something more of this will be found in
the following lines by Corbet-besides a rich vein of
humor and sarcasm.
Farewell rewards and fairies!
Good housewives now you may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they:
And though they sweep their hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanliness
Finds sixpence in her shoe?
Lament, lament, old Abbies,
The fairies' lost command,
They did but change priests' babies,
But some have changed your land;
And all your children stolen from thence
Are now grown Puritanes,
Who live as changelings ever since
For love of your demaines.
At rrmorning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep and sloth
These pretty ladies had:
When Tom came home from labor
Or Ciss to milking rose,
Then merrily wvent their tabor
And nimbly went their toes.
Witness those rings and roundelays
Of theirs which yet remain,
Were footed in Q.ueen Mary's days
On many a grassy plain;
But since of late Elizabeth
And later James came in
They never danced on any heath
As when the time hath bin.
By which we note the fairies Were of the old profession,
Their songs were Ave Marys,
Their dances were procession;
But now alas they all are dead
Or gone beyond the seas,
Or farther for religion fled Or else they take their ease.
A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure,
And whose kept not secretly
Their mirth was punished sure;
It was a just and christian deed
To pinch such black and blue0 how the commonwealth doth need
Such justices as you!
Now they have left our quarters
A register they have,
Who can preserve their charters A man both wise and grave.
An hundred of their merry pranks
By one that I could name
Are kept in store; con twenty thanks
To William for the same.
To William Churne of Staffordshire
Give land and praises due,
Who every meal can mend your cheer
With tales both old and true.
To William all give audience
And pray you for his noddle,
For all the fairies evidence
Were lost if it were addle.
The MIaiden lamenting for her Fawn, by Marvell, is,
we are pleased to see, a favorite with our firiends of the
American Monthly. Such portion of it as we now
copy, we prefer not only as a specimen of the elder
poets, but, in itself, as a beautiful poem, abounding in
the sweetest pathos, in soft and gentle images, in the
most exquisitely delicate imagination, and in truth-to
any thing of its species.
It is a wondrous thing how fleet
'Twas on those little silver feet,
With what a pretty skipping grace
It oft would challenge me the race,
And when't had left me far away
'Twould stay and run again and stay;
For it was nimbler much than hinds,
And trod as if on the four winds.
I have a garden of my own,
But so with roses overgrown,
And lilies that you would it guess
To be a little wilderness,
And all the spring-time of the year
It only loved to be there.
Among the beds of lilies I
Have sought it oft where it should lie,
Yet could not till itself would rise
Find it although before mine eyes.
For in the flaxen lilies shade,
It like a bank of lilies laid,
Upon the roses it would feed
Until its lips even seemed to bleed,
And then to me'twould boldly trip,
And print those roses on my lip,
But all its chief delight was still
On roses thus itself to fill,
And its pure virgin limbs to fold
In whitest sheets of lilies cold.
Had it lived long it would have been
Lilies without, roses within.
How truthful an air of deep lamentation hangs here
upon every gentle syllable! It pervades all. It comes
over the sweet melody of the words, over the gentleness
and grace which we fancy in the little maiden herself,
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