Imatges de pàgina
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My Castara lives unknown,
To no looser eye betray'd,

For she's to herself untrue,

Who delights i' th' public view.

Such is her beauty, as no arts
Have enrich'd with borrow'd grace;
Her high birth no pride imparts,
For she blushes in her place.
Folly boasts a glorious blood,
She is noblest, being good.

Cautious, she knew never yet
What a wanton courtship meant;
Nor speaks loud, to boast her wit;
In her silence eloquent:

Of herself survey she takes,

But 'tween men no difference makes.

She obeys with speedy will

Her grave parents' wise commands;
And so innocent, that ill

She nor acts, nor understands:
Women's feet run still astray,
If once to ill they know the way.

She sails by that rock, the court,
Where 'oft, honour, splits her mast:
And retiredness thinks the port,
Where her fame may anchor cast:
Virtue safely cannot sit,

Where vice is enthron'd for wit.

She holds that day's pleasure best,
Where sin waits not on delight;
Without mask, or ball, or feast,
Sweetly spends a winter's night:

O'er that darkness, whence is thrust
Prayer and sleep, oft governs lust.

She her throne makes reason climb,
While wild passions captive lie:
And, each article of time,

Her pure thoughts to Heaven fly:

All her vows religious.be,

And her love she vows to me."

The stanzas to Castara, upon an embrace, are pretty, and much more harmonious than the greater portion of Habington's

Poems.

" 'Bout the husband oak, the vine

Thus wreaths to kiss his leafy face;
Their streams thus rivers join,

And lose themselves in the embrace :
But trees want sense when they enfold,
And waters, when they meet, are cold.

Thus turtles bill, and groan

Their loves into each other's ear:

Two flames thus burn in one,

When their curl'd heads to Heaven they rear:

But birds want soul, though not desire,

And flames material soon expire.

If not profane, we'll say,

When angels close, their joys are such;
For we no love obey

That's bastard to a fleshly touch:
Let's close, Castara, then, since thus
We pattern angels, and they us."

Habington's want of judgment is conspicuous in the poem next quoted. He alternates between the good and the bad: rises finely in the first stanza, drops his wing in the second, rises again in the third, and falls to the dust in the last. It is, however, strongly characteristic of the writers of the times; they were not content with saying a few good things on a subject; they must say every thing that could be said, and imagine every contingency that might happen. The piece alluded to is entitled," Against them who lay unchastity to the sex of women."

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Go, cure your fevers; and you'll say
The dog-days scorch not all the year :
In copper mines no longer stay,

But travel to the west, and there
The right ones see,

And grant all gold's not alchymy.

What madman, 'cause the glow-worm's flame
Is cold, swears there's no warmth in fire?
'Cause some make forfeit of their name,
And slave themselves to man's desire;
Shall the sex, free

From guilt, damn'd to the bondage be?

Nor grieve, Castara, though 'twere frail;
Thy virtue then would brighter shine,
When thy example should prevail,
And every woman's faith be thine :
And were there none,

'Tis majesty to rule alone."

But Habington abounds with extravagant conceits, and execrable bad taste. Castara is not the only one whose presence restrains the elements, brings warmth to the spring, and calms "the torrid south." The Countess of Carlisle has a poetical endowment of similar properties. The sun himself derives his light from her, and the frozen Baltic melts at her approach. In the lines upon Castara's recovery, he says, If she had died,

"I, without a groan,

Had suddenly congeal'd into a stone:
There stood, a statue, till the general doom
Had ruin'd time and memory with her tomb;
While in my heart, which marble, yet still bled,
Each lover might this epitaph have read :

'Her earth lies here below; her soul's above:
This wonder speaks her virtue, and my love.""

If Habington be without pathos, he has more than enough of bathos. In addressing William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, the poet says,

"Nor shall your day ere set, till the sun,
From the blind heaven, like a cinder fall."

In a serious eulogium on a country life, addressed to a friend, he commences with the following draper-like line :-"I like the green plush which your meadows wear," and ends with an idea as extravagant as this is mean.

"I retire

To my Castara, and meet such a fire
Of mutual love, that if the city were

Infected, that would purify the air."

Again, in describing a feast, the poet imagines heaven raining showers of amber comfits, and clouds of "suckets" concealing the sky; so

"That it was question'd whether heaven were

Blackfriars, and each star a confectioner."

There are others of the same species, but these will suffice for specimens; for we do not find much variety in his far-fetched attempts at wit. His fancy might be pregnant, as Mr. Elton alleges, but it has produced very little fruit: he is perpetually using the same images; the phoenix, for example, supplies him with similes for all occasions, to paint the beauties of a mistress, or the delicacies of a feast. We have noticed its occurrence six times at least.

The

Habington was also the author of a play, called, Queen of Aragon, which he presented to Philip, Earl of Pembroke, ford chamberlain of the household to Charles the First, and he caused it to be acted at Court, and afterwards to be published without the author's consent. It was revived at the Restoration (the author being then dead) with a prologue and epilogue, written by the author of Hudibras. These are the only two pieces of a complimentary kind in all Butler's performances, and the compliments are not to the play or the author, but to the Duke and Duchess of York, before whom it was represented. The play, indeed, possesses little that can be praised, either in incident, character, or imagery. Habington also completed an historical work, begun by his father, The History of Edward VI. King of England, and was the author of Observations on History.

To conclude his poetical character; he was a middling poet of the worst school of poetry, possessed the coldness without the smoothness and polish of Waller, and sacrificed grace and feeling to the utterance of clever or strange things: his amatory poetry is without passion, his funeral elegies without grief, and his paraphrases of scripture without the warmth or elevation of the originals.~

ART. VI.—Another Traveller; or Cursory Remarks, and Tritical Observations, made upon a Journey through part of the Netherlands, in the latter end of the year 1766, by Coriat, Junior, 3 vols. 12mo. London, Printed for Joseph Johnson, and J. Payne, in Paternoster Row; and T. Cadell, in the Strand. 1767.

In a previous volume, we called the attention of our readers to the Crudities of Coryat; we now lay before them the wanderings of his son, by adoption, Tom Coriat, Junr.: whether he was altogether a worthy son of such a sire, is a question we shall not try to answer; but that, in many of his labours, he has afforded us considerable amusement and instruction, is an acknowledgement, which it is at once our duty and our pleasure to make.

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Perhaps it is not known to many of our readers, that Coriat, Junr., was Mr. Samuel Paterson, bookseller, and bookauctioneer, in London; a man, whose brief history well merits a place in any retrospective view of the literature of the last century. He was the son of a respectable woollen draper, in St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and was born March 17th, 1728. He lost his father when he was only twelve years of age, and his guardian having involved his property in ruin, and, probably, on this account, finding his presence disagreeable, sent him to France, where he acquired a very extensive knowledge of foreign literature and books. When little more than twenty years of age, he resolved to turn this knowledge to account, by opening a shop, in the Strand, and engaging in the importation and sale of foreign books. His plan appeared to be a good one, and was at first successful; but, after a struggle of sixteen years, he was compelled, either by the misconduct of his agents abroad, or from other causes, to relinquish the business altogether. At his outset in life, he entered, also, into the matrimonial state with Miss Hamilton, a lady of respectable connexions, in North Britain, who had not then completed her eighteenth year, by whom he afterwards had a numerous family. While a bookseller, he published Mrs. Charlotte Lennox's Poems, Dr. Pottingal's Dissertation, and various other works.

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Paterson now commenced the sale of books, by auction, and, for this purpose, opened rooms at Essex House. His new business soon afforded opportunities of exhibiting his wonderful knowledge of books. Indeed, previous to this period, bibliography was little known in England, though prosecuted with considerable vigour in Germany. Oldys, in the " British Librarian," had exerted himself to introduce, and promote, the science among his countrymen, but his efforts were unsuccessful,

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