FOR

Coleridge: Letters to Lamb, and Notes on Samuel Daniel's Poems

Shropshire Ballad, by R. C. Warde

Cowley and Gray, No. IV.

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Pagan Observance on the West Coast of Ireland Minor Queries:-"Nobilis antiquo veniens," &c.Volume of French Poetry -St. Mary Overy's painted Windows The Host Epigram on the Monastic Orders-Greville's Ode to Indifference-Clock Motto -Does the Furze Bush grow in Scandinavia ?-Duke of Orleans-Ferdinando Conde D'Adda - Constables of France-Lady Mary Grey and Thomas Keyes, 1568 -Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, and Adrian Stokes Queen Mary de Conci, Widow of Alexander II., King of Scots-Milan Author of the Gradus-Mutability ! of the Substance of the Human Body - Beech Tree never struck by Lightning - Derivation of Knightsbridge MINOR QUERIES ANSWERED: - Henrie Smith-Thomas Stanley, Bishop of Man, 1510 Thomas Watson, Bishop of St. David's, 1687 to 1699-J.M. Turner, fourth Bishop of Calcutta, 1829 to 1831 S. Gobat, Bishop in Jerusalem, 1846-Distemper - Wright's Louthiana

REPLIES:

Government of St. Christopher's

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COLERIDGE LETTERS TO LAMB, AND NOTES ON
SAMUEL DANIEL'S POEMS.

[We are indebted to the kindness of Mr. William Hazlitt for the loan of a copy of The Poetical Works of Mr. Samuel Daniel, Author of the English History (2 vols. 12mo. 1718), which had formerly belonged to Charles Lamb: and from the second volume of which we transcribe the following characteristic Letters from Coleridge to Lamb; and his admirable and interesting notes upon a poet who is not nearly so well known as he deserves to be.]

The first is written on the first fly-leaf of vol. ii.: "Tuesday, Feb. 10th, 1808 (10th or 9th). "Dear Charles,

"I think more highly, far more, of the 'Civil Wars' than You seemed to do on Monday night, Feb. 9th, 1808. The verse does not tease me; and all the while I am reading it, I cannot but fancy a plain England-loving English Country Gentleman, with only some dozen books in his whole library, and at a time when a 'Mercury' or 'Intelligencer' was seen by him once in a month or two, making this his newspaper and political Bible at the same time, and reading it so often as to store his memory with its aphorisms. Conceive a good man of that kind, diffident and passive, yet rather inclined to Jacobitism; seeing the reasons of the Revolutionary Party, yet by disposition and old principles leaning, in quiet nods and sighs, at his own parlour fire, to the hereditary right-(and of these characters there must have been many)and then read this poem, assuming in your heart his character-conceive how grave he would look, and what pleasure there would be, what unconscious, harmless, humble self-conceit, self-compliment in his gravity: how wise he would feel himself, and yet after all how forbearing. How much calmed by that most calming reflection (when it is really the mind's own reflection). Ay, it was just so in Henry VI.'s time, always the same passions at work, &c. Have I improved 139 thy Book- -or wilt thou like it the better therefore? But I have done as I would gladly be done by-thee at least.

MISCELLANEOUS :

On second fly-leaf Coleridge has noted, “Vol. v. p. 217., a fine stanza."

The following is the stanza referred to: "Whilst Talbot (whose fresh Ardor having got A marvellous Advantage of his Years), Carries his unfelt Age as if forgot,

Whirling about where any Need appears. His Hand, his Eye, his Wits all present, wrought The Function of the Glorious Part he bears : Now urging here, now cheering there, he flies: Unlocks the thickest Troops, where most Force lies."

And to it Coleridge has appended the following

note:

"What is there in description superior even in Shakspeare? Only that Shakspeare would have given one of his Glows to the first line, and flattered the mountain Top with his surer Eye-intead of that poor

“A marvellous advantage of his years." But this, however, is Daniel - and he must not be read piecemeal. Even by leaving off, and looking at a stanza by itself, I find the loss.

"S. T. COLERidge." "O Charles! I am very, very ill. Vixi."

"Second Letter-five hours after the first. "Dear Charles,

"You must read over these Civil Wars' again. We both know what a mood is. And the genial mood will, it shall, come for my soberminded Daniel. He was a Tutor and a sort of Steward in a noble Family in which Form was religiously observed, and Religion formally; and yet there was such warm blood and mighty muscle of substance within, that the moulding Irons did not dispel, tho' they stiffened the vital man within. Daniel caught and recommunicated the Spirit of the great Countess of Pembroke, the glory of the North; he formed her mind, and her mind inspirited him. Gravely sober in all ordinary affairs, and not easily excited by any yet there is one, on which his Blood boils-whenever he speaks of English valour exerted against a foreign Enemy. Do read overbut some evening when we are quite comfortable at your fire-side-and oh! where shall I ever be, if I am not so there that is the last Altar on the Ί horns of which my old Feelings hang, but alas! listen and tremble. Nonsense! - well! I will read it to You and Mary. The 205, 206, and 207th page; and above all, that 93rd stanza; and in a different style the 98th stanza, p. 208.; and what an image in 107, p. 211. Thousands even of educated men would become more sensible, fitter to be members of Parliament or ministers, by reading Daniel-and even those few who, quoad intellectum, only gain refreshment of notions already their own, must become better English

men. O, if it be not too late, write a kind note about him. S. T. COLERIDGE."

On the fourth fly-leaf he has written,—

"Is it from any hobby-horsical love of our old writers (and of such a passion respecting Chaucer, Spenser, and Ben Jonson, I have occasionally seen glaring proofs in one the string of whose shoe I am not worthy to unloose), or is it a real Beauty, the interspersion I mean (in stanza poems) of rhymes from polysyllables-such as Eminence, Obedience, Reverence. To my ear they convey not only a relief from variety, but a sweetness as of repose-and the Understanding they gratify by reconciling Verse with the whole wide extent of good Sense. Without being distinctly conscious of such a notion, having it rather than reflecting it, (for one may think in the same way as one may see and hear), I seem to be made to know that I need have no fear; that there is nothing excellent in itself which the Poet cannot express accurately and naturally, nay no good word.'

SHROPSHIRE BALLAD.

In no collection of ballads to which I have access does the following appear. It exists in my memory only in a mutilated state. I forward it with the hope that some one among your numerous readers may be able to supply the missing part, which is evidently the commencement of it.

The hero is supposed to have been a journey: on his return the following scene occurs:

"I went into the stable,

To see what I could see;
I saw three gentlemen's horses,
By one, by two, by three;

I called to my loving wife,
'Coming, sir,' says she.

What meaneth these three horses here,
Without the leave of me?'

You old fool! you blind fool!
Can't you won't you see?
They are three milking-cows, that
My mother sent to me.'

Odds bobs! here's fun!
Milking-cows with saddles on!
The likes I never see:

I cannot go a mile from home,
But a cuckold I must be !'

"I went into the parlour,
To see what I could see;
I saw there three gentlemen,
By one, by two, by three;
I called to my loving wife,

'Coming, sir,' said she.

'What bringeth these three gentlemen here, Without the leave of me?'

You old fool! you blind fool!

Can't you won't you see?

They are three milking-maids, that
My mother sent to me.'
'Odds bobs! here's fun!
Milking-maids with breeches on!
The likes I never see.

I cannot go a mile from home,

But a cuckold I must be !""

The unhappy husband next wanders into the pantry, and discovers "three pairs of huntingboots," which his spouse declares are

"Milking-churns, which
My mother sent to me.'
'Odds bobs! here's fun!
Milking-churns with spurs on!
The likes I never see.

I cannot go a mile from home,
But a cuckold I must be !'"

The gentlemen's coats, discovered in the kitchen, are next disposed of; but here my memory fails me. I have a dim recollection of a winding-up verse, in which the "Milking-cows with saddles on," the " Milking-maids with breeches on," and all the other bones of contention mentioned in the ballad, are figured. I should feel obliged by a reference to where this ancient ballad may be found. Has any collection of Shropshire songs and ballads ever been printed? Many are the curious "tales of warlike deeds" shrined in verse, with which the long nights are whiled away in this county. A rich harvest yet remains to be gathered, particularly on Folk Lore. I may, perhaps, send you shortly extracts from my "Note Book" this upon subject. R. C. WARDE.

Kidderminster.

COWLEY AND GRAY, NO. IV.

(Vol. iv., pp. 204. 252. 465.)

The three former communications received from me on the subject of "Gray and Cowley" were written in complete unconsciousness of the amount of learned labour and research ably and judiciously expended upon Gray's Poems by Mr. Mitford. I therefore most gladly withdraw any remarks I may have made as to the necessity of another edition, with parallel passages; for I do not think we have a better and more satisfactorily executed volume in our language than Mr. Pickering's Aldine edition of Gray. And I must also thank your correspondent K. S. for reminding me of the Eton edition, which I will get as speedily as possible. However, as the few unconnected remarks I have already made, or am now about to make, do not appear to have been anticipated, I will still ramble on in my own incoherent way, and not hold myself responsible for anything that the learning and diligence of others may have collected. Indeed, I set out with the intention of comparing Gray with Cowley, in some few passages, and with Cowley alone; for I never could

have entered upon the wide field of Gray's similarities to other poets in general, within the narrow and otherwise well-occupied columns of the "N. & Q."

Disraeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, “Poetical Imitations and Similarities," vol. ii., London, 1824, seems to think the connexion between the sublime and the ridiculous to be so close, that Gray borrowed his description of the hair and beard of his bard from the memorable description of Hudibras:

"This hairy meteor did denounce

The fall of sceptres and of crowns," &c. Part i. cant. i. 247. Butler used the same comparison again in the Cobler and Vicar of Bray, to which the learned notes of Dr. Zachary Grey's edition refer me:

"A grisly meteor on his face," &c.

I do not know whether any one has ever suggested Thomas Tickell's "Imitation of the Prophecy of Nereus," from Horace, as something not quite unknown to Gray:

"On Perth's bleak hills he chanc'd to spy
An aged wizard six foot high,

With bristled hair and visage blighted, Wall-eyed, bare-haunched, and second-sighted. The grisly sage, in thought profound, Beheld the chief with back so round, Then roll'd his eye-balls to and fro O'er his paternal hills of snow, And into these tremendous speeches Broke forth the prophet without breeches," &c. However, I feel quite justified in my former assertion, that Gray was alluding to hair, and not to a standard, and in having given a reference or two which any one who doubted the fact of such an allusion being common might investigate for himself. The occurrence of the word loose in the couplet of Gray, and also in that of Cowley, seems at least singular, if Gray knew nothing of Cowley's description.

The same idea is found in a passage of Nonnus (Dionysiacks, lib. ii. p. 43., Antverpiæ, 1569), but it is too long to give at full length; and we must not forget the seventh book of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, even as translated by Hoole, line 581: "As shaking terrors from his blazing hair, A sanguine comet gleams through dusky air To ruin states and dire diseases spread, And baleful light on purple tyrants shed. So flam'd the chief in arms, and sparkling ire He roll'd his eyes, suffus'd with blood and fire." I will now only add the Poet-Bishop to a list which might be indefinitely multiplied, by referring from one book to another:

(sic)

"The first regular production of Gray's muse" was a Sapphic ode addressed to Mr. West. The Sapphics were followed in the same letter by some Latin prose and an Alcaic stanza.

We will pass over the Sapphics, for they bear a faint resemblance to some passages already referred to, and extract part of the prose from Mason's edition, vol. i. 134:

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Quicquid enim nugarum el oxoλñs inter ambulandum in palimpsesto scriptitavi, hisce te maxume impertiri visum est, quippe quem probare, quod meum est, aut certe ignoscere solitum probe novi."

A very natural idea, which Cowley had very naturally expressed :

"To him my muse made haste with every strain, Whilst it was new, and warm yet from the brain. He lov'd my worthless rhymes, and, like a friend, Would find out something to commend." On the Death of Mr. W. Hervey.

Indeed, any one who will read our Cowley's lines on Crashaw and Harvey, will unite with me in the firm conviction that Gray reproduced them both, either in his poems to Mr. West or upon him.

The Alcaic stanza contains the words "Fons lacrymarum," which reminds us of "the sacred source of sympathetic tears" in The Progress of Poesy, and which Mr. Wakefield adduces from some imaginary ηy daкрówν in Eschylus. Mr. Mitford more correctly refers to Sophocles, Antiq. 803.; but at Jeremiah ix. 1. we have, in the Greek, Latin, and English respectively, "nyn δακρύων," ," "Fons lacrymarum," and "Fountains of tears." Æschylus uses κλαυμάτων πηγαί," Agam. 861.; and Nonnus, “Tidakα daкpvóeσσav," Dionysiacks, lib. xlvi. ad finem. The idea is common in English poetry. Gray also speaks of "The soft springs of pity" in his Agrippina.

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Let us now wander in another direction; and in quoting from Cowley's Latin Poems I use Bishop Sprat's edition, London, 1688, 8vo., mentioning the pages, as the lines are not marked: "The bloom of young desire, and purple light of love." The Progress of Poesy.

Mr. Mitford has adduced some really beautiful parallels. I shall only venture upon one or two:

"Per me purpurei formosum lumen honoris
Et niveam illustrat gratia viva cutem."
Cowley, p. 10.

Again:

"Felices animæ gens jam defuncta periclis Humanis."- Vida's Christiad, lib. vi. 270.

"The laughing flowers that round them blow Drink life and fragrance as they flow." Ode on the Progress of Poesy.

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It seems almost a pity to dissect these marvellously beautiful lines. Laughing flowers;" "Quid faciat lætas segetes."-Virg. Georgic, i. 1. "The valleys shall stand so thick with corn that they shall laugh and sing."-Psalm lxv. 14. “Astrum, quo segetes gauderunt frugibus."-Virg. Ecl. ix. 48.

"Auram nectaream undequaque fundens,
Nullam præposuisse fertur olim,
Ridenti mihi dulce, dulce olenti."

Cowley, Plantarum, p. 178.

"Drink life and fragrance as they flow."
"Quæ Fontes Fluviosque bibunt."

"Dulcia Flumina libo.".

Cowley, p. 1.

"Perpetuumque bibunt folia insatiata liquorem."

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Id. p. 12.

Id. p. 31.

Id. p. 34.

Deque venenato flumine vita bibit.” "In quibus ipse animus vitam animamque bibit." Id. p. 46.

Also in the very bold figure:

"O ver! O pulchræ ductor pulcherrime gentis !
O Florum Xerxes innumerabilium?
Quos ego (nam gens est non aversata liquores)
Epotare etiam Flumina posse reor."
Id. 152.

that wets its face."-Bp. J. Taylor, Sermon vi., The "So does a thirsty land drink all the dew of heaven

Return of Prayers, Part. III.

"The earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it." Hebr. vi. 7.

I cannot refrain from quoting Anacreon:

"Et terra sicca potat,
Terrasque silva, et aura
Sylvas, et æquor auras,
Et sol repotat æquor,
Et luna solem."

Epigramm., lib. i. ad calcem.

Barnes, in his Life of Anacreon, adduces the following from Maximilianus Virentius, Epigr. lib. iv.:

"Terra parens venis sitientibus imbibit imbres;
Tellurem atque imbres arbor alumna bibit;
Oceanus salso sparsos bibit æquore ventos;
Sol avido oceanum flammeus ore bibit.
Solis inardentis radios bibit ebria luna

Rursus et hanc euri, terra, salumque bibunt :
Cuncta bibunt sursum spirantia, sive deorsum ;

Dis Styga, Dii pleno nectar ab ore bibunt.” Prefixed to Barnes' edit. of Anac. p. lx.: Lond. 1734. Nonnus too, in his Dionysiacks, has a passage quite to our purpose:

“Ήδη γὰρ ζεφύροιο προάγγελος ἔγγυος ὥρη

σχιζομένων καλύκων δροσεροὺς ἐμέθυσεν ἀήτας·
καὶ λιγυρὴ μερόπεσσι συνέστιος εἴαρι κήρυξ
ὄρθριον ὕπνον ἄμερσε λάλος τρύζουσα χελιδών,
ἀρτιφανὴς καὶ γυμνὸν ἀπ ̓ εὐόδμοιο καλύπτρης
εἰαρίναις ἐγέλασσε λελούμενον ἄνθος ξέρσαις
Swordvors."-Lib. iii. 10.

Let us now come to Gray's "Ode on the Spring,' which will abundantly occupy our time for the present:

"Lo! where the rosy bosom'd Hours,

Fair Venus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attick warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring;

While, whisp'ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling."

A hymn by Orpheus thus describes the Hours:

“Ωραι θυγάτερες Θέμιδος καὶ Ζηνὸς ἄνακτος, Εὐνομίη τε, Δίκη τε, καὶ Εἰρήνη πολύολβε, Εἰαριναὶ, λειμωνιάδες, πολυάνθεμοι, ἁγναί, Παντόχροοι, πολύοδμοι, ἐν ἀνθεμοείδεσι πνοιαῖς Ωραι ἀειθαλέες, περικυκλάδες, ἡδυπρόσωποι· Πέπλους ἐννύμεναι δροσεροὺς ἄνθων πολυθρέπτων.” In representing the Hours as "Venus' train," Gray had, most probably, the "Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite" in mind (Hymn E.). It was they who had received Venus as she issued from the foam of the sea, and had introduced her to the immortal gods. Indeed, these graceful beings were her constant attendants; and Theocritus represents them as bringing Adonis also to her. (See Id. xv. 102.; and the notes in Ringwood's charming edition: Dublin, 1846.)

In the same passage Theocritus also calls them "μαλακαίποδες ὥραι,” and describes them in a manner which will exactly illustrate the "long expecting" flowers of Gray :

“Βάρδισται μακάρων, Ωραι φίλαι, ἀλλὰ ποθειναὶ Ερχονται, πάντεσσι βροτοῖς αἰεί τι φέροισαι.” Where Mr. Ringwood gives us this comfortable

note :

"The impatience of expectation explains the epithet 'Bapdioral' in the text, as the 'nox longa,' 'dies lenta,' and 'piger annus' of Hor. 1. epist. 1. 20, 21."