תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

and the haven is at a distance". At another, it is a spring trickling from the fummit of the Alps, which gathering force in its fall, at length overflows all the plain beneath. Sometimes, it is a gun, which being overcharged, expands the flame within itself, and bursts in pieces. Sometimes it is like a prodigious mountain, which is perpetually weeping in copious fountains, and fending forth fighs from its forests: which bears more leaves than fruits: which breeds wild-beafts, the proper emblems of rage, and harbours birds that are always finging'. In another of his fonnets, he says, that all nature fympathises with his paffion. The woods refound his elegies, the rivers ftop their course to hear him complain, and the grafs weeps in dew. These thoughts are common and fantastic. But he adds an image which is new, and has much nature and fentiment, although not well expreffed.

The hugy okes have rored in the winde,

Eche thing, methought, complaining in theyr kinde.

This is a touch of the penfive. And the apostrophe which follows is natural and fimple.

Ah ftony hart, who hath thus framed thee

So cruel, that art clothed with beautie!

And there is much strength in thefe lines of the lover to his bed.

The place of flepe, wherein I do but wake,
Befprent with tears, my bed, I thee forfake"!

But fuch paffages as these are not the general characteristics of
Wyat's poetry. They ftrike us but seldom, amidst an imprac-

[blocks in formation]

ticable mass of forced reflections, hyperbolical metaphors, and complaints that move no compaffion.

But Wyat appears a much more pleafing writer, when he moralifes on the felicities of retirement, and attacks the vanities and vices of a court, with the honeft indignation of an independent philofopher, and the freedom and pleafantry of Horace. Three of his poetical epiftles are profeffedly written in this ftrain, two to John Poines", and the other to fir Francis Bryan: and we must regret, that he has not left more pieces in a style of compofition for which he seems to have been eminently qualified. In one of the epiftles to Poines on the life of a courtier, are these spirited and manly reflections.

Myne owne John Poines, fince ye delite to know
The causes why that homewarde I me drawe,
And flee the preafe" of courtes, where so they go ';
Rather than to live thrall under the awe

Of lordly looks, wrapped within my cloke;
To will and luft learning to fet a law:

It is not that, because I fcorne or mocke

The power of them, whom Fortune here hath lent
Charge over us, of Right' to ftrike the stroke:
But true it is, that I have alwayes ment
Leffe to esteeme them, (than the common fort)
Of outwarde thinges that judge, in their entent,
Without regarde what inward doth refort.
I graunt fometime of glory that the fire
Doth touch my heart. Me lift not to report *
Blame by honour, nor honour to defire.
But how can I this honour now attaine,
That cannot die the colour black a liar?

He feems to have been a person about the court. See LIFE of Sir Thomas Pope, P. 46.

Prefs. Croud.

The court was perpetually moving from one palace to another. y Juftice.

z To speak favourably of what is bad.

My

My Poines, I cannot frame my tune to faine,
To cloke the truth, &c.

In pursuit of this argument, he declares his indifpofition and inability to disguise the truth, and to flatter, by a variety of inftances. Among others, he protests he cannot prefer Chaucer's TALE of SIR THOPAS to his PALAMON AND ARCITE.

Prayfe SIR THOPAS for a noble tale,

And fcorne the STORY that the KNIGHT tolde;
Praise him for counsell that is dronke of ale:

Grinne when he laughes, that beareth all the sway;
Frowne when he frownes, and grone when he is pale:
On others luft to hang both night and day, &c.

I mention this circumstance about Chaucer, to fhew the esteem in which the KNIGHT'S TALE, that noble epic poem of the dark ages, was held in the reign of Henry eighth, by men of taste.

The poet's execration of flatterers and courtiers is contrafted with the following entertaining picture of his own private life and rural enjoyments at Allingham-castle in Kent.

This is the cause that I could never yet

Hang on their fleeves, that weigh, as thou maist se,
A chippe of chaunce more than a pounde of wit:

This maketh me at home to hunt and hawke,

[ocr errors][merged small]

In frost and fnowe then with my bow to stalke;

No man doth marke whereso I ride or go:

In lufty leas' at liberty I walke:

And of these newes I fele no weale nor wo :

Perhaps the reading is tongue.

In large fields. Over fruitful grounds.

Save that a clogge doth hange yet at my hele';
No force for that, for it is ordred fo,

That I may leape both hedge and dike ful wele.
I am not now in Fraunce, to judge the wine, &c.
But I am here in Kent and Christendome,

Among the Mufes, where I reade and rime;
Where if thou lift, mine owne John Poines to come,
Thou shalt be judge how do I spende my time *.

In another epistle to John Poines, on the security and happiness of a moderate fortune, he verfifies the fable of the City and Country Moufe with much humour.

My mother's maides, when they do fowe and spinne,
They fing a fong made of the feldifhe mouse, &c.

This fable appofitely suggests a train of fenfible and pointed obfervations on the weakness of human conduct, and the delufive plans of life.

C

Alas, my Poines, how men do feke the best,
And finde the worse by errour as they ftray:
And no marvell, when fight is fo oppreft,
And blindes the guide: anone out of the way
Goeth guide and all, in feking quiet lyfe.

O wretched myndes! There is no golde that may
Graunt that you seke no warre, no peace, no ftrife:
No, no, although thy head were hoopt with golde:
Serjaunt at mace, with hawbert', fworde, nor knife,
Cannot repulse the care that folow shoulde.
Eche kinde of life hath with him his disease:
Live in delites, even as thy luft would,

Probably he alludes to fome office which he ftill held at court; and which fometimes recalled him, but not too frequently, from the country.

[blocks in formation]

And thou shalt finde, when luft doth most thee please,
It irketh ftrait, and by itself doth fade.

A fmall thing is it, that may thy minde appease ?
None of you al there is that is fo madde,

To feke for grapes on brambles or on breeres;
Nor nonne, I trowe, that hath a wit fo badde,
To fett his hay for conneyes oer rivères.
Nor yet fet not a drag net for a hare :
And yet the thing that most is your defire
You do miffeke, with more travell and care.
Make plaine thine hart, that it be not knotted
With hope or dreade: and se thy will be bare
From all affects, whom vice hath never spotted.
Thyself content with that is thee affinde*;
And use it wel that is to the allotted.
Then feke no more out of thyself to fynde,
The thing that thou hast sought so long before,
For thou shalt feele it sticking in thy mynde.-

These Platonic doctrines are closed with a beautiful application of virtue perfonified, and introduced in her irresistible charms of visible beauty. For those who deviate into vain and vicious pursuits,

None other paine pray I for them to be,

But when the rage doth leade them from the right,

That, loking backwarde, VIRTUE they may fe
Even as the is, fo goodly faire and bright!!

With thefe difinterested strains we may join the following fingle stanza, called THE COURTIERS LIFE.

So read, instead of bryars,
Free.

* Affigned.

1 Fol. 45, 46.

i Paffions.

« הקודםהמשך »