Arthur Henry Bullen

“ Milton, as Warton was the first to point out, gathered hints for 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso' from the verses ('The Author's Abstract of Melancholy') prefixed to the 'Anatomy.' There is no keener delight to an appreciative student than to shut himself in his study and be immersed 'from morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve,' in Burton's far-off world of forgotten lore. Commonplace writers have described the 'Anatomy' as a mere collection of quotations, a piece of patchwork. The description is utterly untrue. On every page is the impress of a singularly deep and original genius. ”

“ In the autumn of 1765 Beattie addressed a letter in terms of extravagant flattery to the poet Gray, who was on a visit to the Earl of Strathmore at Glammis Castle. 'Will you permit us,' he wrote, 'to hope that we shall have an opportunity at Aberdeen of thanking you in person for the honour you have done to Britain and to the poetic art by your inestimable compositions?' In response arrived a letter of invitation to Glammis; a very cordial meeting followed, and a lasting friendship sprang up between the poets. A new edition of Beattie's poems appeared in 1766. ”

“ God forgive you this, master sheriff.' Then having asked the people to pray for him he turned to John Leaf and said: 'Be of good comfort, brother, for we shall have a merry supper with the Lord this night.' His last words were: 'Strait is the way and narrow is the gate that leadeth to salvation, and few there be that find it.'
Bradford was a man of singularly gentle character. ”

“ Henry Lawes wrote the music to the songs, and among the actors was Richard Busby, who ‘approv'd himself a second Roscius.’ The play was mounted at considerable cost (the actors appearing in Persian costume) , and gave such satisfaction that the court ‘unanimously acknowledg'd that it did exceed all things of that nature which they had ever seen.’ The queen was so charmed with the ‘Royal Slave’ that in the following November the king's company was ordered to represent it at Hampton Court; but the performance of the professional players was judged far inferior to that of the amateurs. ”

“ A consummate artist, he successfully attempted a variety of metrical experiments. But apart from its formal excellence his poetry has a fresh natural charm that the simplest may appreciate. Some of his poems (particularly his ‘Litany’) were handed down orally at Dean Prior when he had been forgotten by the critics. Though he professed a distaste for his Devonshire vicarage, no poet has described with equal gusto the delights of old English country-life—the wakes and wassails, the Christmas and Twelfth-tide sports, the May-day games and harvest-homes. ”

“ In the address to the reader, Crowne says that he had to prepare the entertainment in ‘scarce a month.’ He was directed to introduce only seven persons, who were all to be ladies, and two only were to appear in men's habits. The writing of masques was a lost art at this date; but Crowne's attempt at a revival has considerable merit. In 1675 the ‘Country Wit,’ a favourite play with Charles II, was acted with applause at the Duke's Theatre; it was published in the same year, with a dedication to Charles, earl of Middlesex. ”

“ Sir Hildebrand Jacob (d. 1790) , the poet's son, who succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his grandfather in 1740, is said to have been excelled by few as a general scholar, and ‘in knowledge of Hebrew scarcely equalled.’ It is related of him that in early life, as soon as the fine weather set in and the roads were clear, he used to start off with his man, ‘without knowing whither they were going.’ When it drew towards evening he inquired at the nearest village whether ‘the great man in it was a lover of books and had a fine library. ”

“ Greene is himself charged with cheating: 'Aske the Queen's Players if you sold them not Orlando Furioso for twenty nobles, and when they were in the country sold the same play to the Lord Admirals men for as much more. Was not this plaine Conny-catching, R. G.?' Nevertheless it is not improbable that Greene wrote this 'Defence,' or at least was privy to the publication. He would certainly have had no objection to let it be known that he had gulled the players. The whole series of 'conny-catching' pamphlets (some of which are adorned with curious woodcuts) is full of interest. ”

“ Hoping to gain favour by submission,Armstrong, with thirty-six followers, came into the king's presence. But the king 'bade take the tyrant out of his sight,' saying, 'What wants this knave that a king should have?' Armstrong offered to maintain himself and forty followers always ready at the king's service, without doing injury to any Scot, and undertook to bring any English subject, duke, earl, or baron, before the king within a fixed number of days. ”

“ Browne has always been a favourite with the poets. Passages in Milton's 'L'Allegro' are imitated from the 'Pastorals;' Keats's early poems show clear traces of Browne's influence ; and Mrs. Browning took some lines from 'Britannia's Pastorale' as the motto of her 'Vision of the Poets.' Browne was indeed, as Michael Drayton says of him in the epistle to Henry Keynolds, a 'rightly born poet.' There is preserved (in the library of Alfred H. Huth) a copy of the first edition of 'Britannia's Paslorals' containing notes in the handwriting of Milton. ”

“ Steward (7 Nov. 1699) , described him as ‘a poet who writes good verses without knowing how or why; I mean, he writes naturally well, without art or learning or good sense.’ Giles Jacob (Poetical Register) says that he might have made a fortune in any scene of life, but that he was always more ready to serve others than to look after his own interests. ”

“ AUSTIN, SAMUEL, the elder (fl. 1629) , religious poet, was the son of Thomas Austin, Esq., of Lostwithiel, Cornwall. He entered Exeter College, Oxford, in 1623, at the age of seventeen, took the degree of B.A. in 1627, and that of M.A. in 1630, 'about which time, being numbered with the Levites,' he 'was beneficed in his own country' (Wood, Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 499) . At Oxford he spent much time in composing a long poem on scriptural subjects, which was given to the world in 1629 under the title of 'Austin's Urania, or the Heavenly Muse,' 8vo. ”

“ Mountfort and Colley Cibber were famous in the character of Sir Courtly. In the dedicatory epistle Crowne states that the play was written at the command of Charles II, on the model of the Spanish play ‘No Puedesser, or It cannot be.’ Dennis relates that Crowne was tired of play-writing; that Charles promised to give him an office if he would first write another comedy, and when Crowne replied that he plotted slowly, the king put into his hands the Spanish play. On the very last day of the rehearsal Charles died, and ‘Sir Courtly Nice’ was the first comedy acted after the succession of James. ”

“ Religious tolerance was not one of his virtues, and the State Papers show that he put much pressure on the quakers. As a lawgiver he was esteemed wise and just. To him, in 1662, Moryson dedicated the 'Laws of Virginia now in force,' stating in the dedicatory address that Berkeley was the author of all the best laws. In 1676 he resigned the governorship and returned to England, and on 13 July 1677 he was buried at Twickenham. An unpublished play, 'Cornelia,' 1662, by 'Sir William Hartley,' is ascribed in 'Biographia Dramatica' — and no doubt correctly — to Berkeley. ”

“ One of the poems was a long piece in blank verse, ‘Ancient Idols, or the Fall of the Gods,’ which he regarded as his most considerable work. He appointed as his literary executor Mr. H. Buxton Forman, who in 1872 had reprinted from ‘Household Words’ (14 June 1851) his striking poem, ‘The Great Peace-maker; a Submarine Dialogue,’ on the laying of the submarine cable between Dover and Calais.
Horne was a talented, energetic, and versatile writer. His epic and his early tragedies have much force and fire, but they are not born for immortality. ”

“ For I cannot with honour or decency associate myself with one who has distinguished himself by abusing my country. I am with all due sincerity, Sir, your most humble servant, John Armstrong.' Had it not been for the publication of the unfortunate 'Day,' he would probably have continued on familiar terms with Wilkes, who (it is supposed) had procured him the post of physician to the army, and to whom he was certainly indebted for much pecuniary help. In some very vigorous lines of Churchill's posthumous satire, 'A Journey,' published in 1764, Armstrong is held up to unsparing ridicule ”

“ During his lifetime, and early in the next century, critics were at a loss to know on what work his fame rested. Edmund Bolton in ‘Hypercritica’ says that he ‘had not seen much of Sir Edward Dyer's poetry;’ and William Drummond, coupling his name with Raleigh's, observes: ‘Their works are so few that have come to my hands, I cannot well say anything of them.’ Rawl. MS. Poet. 85 contains a few poems ascribed, with more or less authority, to Dyer. ”

“ The character of La-Writ, which Coleridge declared to be ‘conceived and executed from first to last in genuine comic humour,’ is Fletcher's creation. ‘A Very Woman,’ printed in 1655 as the work of Massinger, was written by Fletcher and revised by Massinger. It is to be identified with a comedy called ‘The Woman's Plot,’ which was acted at court in 1621. On 9 Sept. 1653 it was entered in the ‘Stationers' Register’ by Humphrey Moseley under the title of ‘A Very Woman, or the Woman's Plot,’ as a play of Massinger. ”

“ Another Scotch poet, Sir William Alexander, was his friend. Jonson told Drummond that ‘Sir W. Alexander was not half kinde unto him, and neglected him, because a friend to Drayton.’ In his epistle to Henry Reynolds he mentions ‘the two Beaumonts’ (Francis Beaumont and Sir John Beaumont) and William Browne as his ‘deare companions and bosome friends.’ Samuel Austin in ‘Urania,’ 1629, claims, acquaintance with Drayton. There is no direct evidence to show that Shakespeare and Drayton were personal friends, but there is strong traditional evidence. ”

“ Pepys saw the piece at the Theatre Royal on 12 June 1663, and describes it as ‘a merry but indifferent play,’ but, like Evelyn, commends Lacy's acting. It is the best of Howard's plays, and long held the stage. An adaptation (by T. Knight) , under the title of ‘The Honest Thieves,’ was acted at Covent Garden on 9 May 1797, and became a stock play. The ‘Vestal Virgin’ was fitted with two fifth acts; it was intended for a tragedy, but might be turned into a comedy (after the manner of Suckling's ‘Aglaura’) . In the ‘Indian Queen,’ a tragedy in heroic verse, Howard was assisted by Dryden. ”

“ He seems to have adopted no profession, but to have devoted himself from his youth upwards to literary pursuits. In 1649 he contributed an elegy on Henry, lord Hastings, to Richard Brome's ‘Lachrymæ Musarum,’ and in 1651 he prefixed some commendatory verses to Edmund Prestwich's translation of Seneca's ‘Hippolytus.’ No collection of Cotton's poems was published until after his death, but they had been passed among his friends in manuscript. ”

“ Readers, however, must be prepared to find the style somewhat difficult; neologism is unavoidable in the conduct of such inquiries-besides, the writer is addressing not the illiterate many, but them discerning few. To modern readers ‘Vulgar Errors' presents an inexhanstible store of entertainment. The attainment of scientific truth was not for Browne the sole object; it is in the discussion itself that he delights, and the more marvellous a fable is, the more sedulously he applies himself to the investigation of its truth. ”

“ In the following May he returned to Scotland, and sat in the parliament which met on the 22nd of that month. Strong measures were passed in this parliament against the presbyterians, Adamson and Montgomery being the leading counsellors. But while he stood high in the king's favour and constantly preached before him, Adamson became daily an object of greater dislike to the people, so much so that on one occasion, when he was preaching at the High Church, Edinburgh, the majority of the congregation rose from their seats and abruptly left the building. ”

“ In the preface to the 1684 collection Archbishop Tenison, speaking of Browne's unpublished manuscripts, referred to this tract in the following terms: 'Amongst these manuscripts there is one which gives a brief account of all the monuments of the cathedral of Norwich. It was written merely for private use, and the relations of the author expect such justice from those into whose hands some imperfect copies of it are fallen, that, without their consent first obtained, they forbear the publishing of it. The truth is, matter equal to the skill of the antiquary was not there afforded.' 3. ”

“ The impressions gained during his residence at Faraoun are apparent in the descriptive passages of his best and most celebrated poem, written many years afterwards, the 'Minstrel.' With a view to entering the church he returned during the winter to the Marischal College, in order to attend some divinity lectures. In 1758 he was appointed to a vacant mastership at the grammar school of Aberdeen; and two years afterwards, much to his own surprise, was raised, by the influence of a powerful friend, to the chair of moral philosophy and logic in the Marischal College. ”

“ Browne's orthodoxy was vigorously assailed abroad for many years, and vigorously defended. The editor of the Paris edition (1644) of Merryweather's translation was convinced that Browne, though nominally a protestant, was in reality a Roman catholic; but the papal authorities judged otherwise, and placed the treatise in the 'Index Expurgatorius.' Samuel Duncon, a quaker residing at Norwich, conceived the hope of inducing Browne to join the Society of Friends. It is not surprising that such divergence of opinion should have existed in regard to the purport of Browne's speculations ”