turn flows more and more from the remote and the unexpected; the spontaneity and artlessness of the simple emotions disappear; feeling becomes sophisticated; men come to think in two ways: the cavalier and courtier poets affect a light and cynical gaiety and stake their all on the prizes of this world; while to Donne and to the writers of the religious lyric, Puritan, Anglican, and Catholic, the natural and the mere external things of this world grow less and less. Finally, the influence of the classical reaction begins to make itself felt; the conventional and the artificial in form and feeling become of greater weight, and the normalizing spirit of the reformers subdues the note of individualism apparent in Donne and the poets of the Fantastic School. Then the Puritan reaction follows and the Englishman sings no longer. He has become prudential and he is in trouble about his soul. Lyric. The lyrical product of the Restoration period is of no great importance and offers few, if any, The Restoration original features. The poets who represent the transition from the preceding age are Waller, Cowley, Denham, and Davenant. The chief lyrical writers typical of the period are Dryden, Dorset, Sedley, and Rochester. Dryden's great odes are a marked advance in respect of rhetoric, of harmonious versification, and of native power, over the Pindariques of Cowley and of Cowley's imitators. But otherwise the Restoration lyric seems essentially to represent the mere survival and decadence of the Cavalier and Courtier lyric of the age of Charles I. With the transformation of general poetic style and the predominance of the couplet, we observe the pinching-out of the lyric vein and the disappearance of lyrical inspiration. The sonnet is no longer written, and the range of lyric form is greatly narrowed. Didactic, descriptive, and satiric verse take the place of the varied lyrical kinds of the Elizabethan period. There is no longer food for the lyrical spirit. The nation is exhausted with its long civil discord. Life is no longer new and fresh, nor is it intensely earnest. Literature no longer voices any deep national moods or aspirations. It appeals to 'the town', and not to the nation, and 'wit', regulated by judgment, rather than by imagination and fancy, becomes the measure of literary performance. With the new classicism the lyrical spirit has little in common, and the true English lyric must wait for its revival until the next romantic period. ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. (1500-1700.) JOHN SKELTON. TO MISTRESS MARGERY WENTWORTH. Skelton's slender but genuine lyric vein seems to have been obscured by the satirical tendency of most of his verse-writing. He is a genius manqué, but a genius, and may fitly be put first in point of time among modern representatives of English lyric poetry. His works are accessible in the second volume of Chalmers' edition of Johnson's English Poets (1810), and in a separate edition by Dyce (1843). WITH marjoram gentle, The flower of goodlyhede1, Ye be, as I divine, Benign, courteise, and meke, 1 goodlihead, goodness. 2 flatter. With marjoram gentle, TO MISTRESS ISABEL PENNELL. MY maiden Isabel, Reflaring1 rosabel, The flagrant2 cammamel, The columbine, the nept3, The jeloffer well set, Ennewed your colouer Star of the morrow gray, Of womanhede the lure, It were an heauenly health, To hear this nightingale Good year and good luck, With chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck! 1 perfumed. i.e. fragrant. 3 catmint. 4 * gilliflower. • Renewed |