Volume II Part 1 (1/2)
The Romance of Biography.
Vol 2.
by Anna Jameson.
CHAPTER I.
CAREW'S CELIA.--LUCY SACHEVEREL.
From the reign of Charles the First may be dated that revolution in the spirit and form of our lyric poetry, which led to its subsequent degradation. The first Italian school of poetry, to which we owed our Surreys, our Spensers, and our Miltons, had now declined. The high contemplative tone of pa.s.sion, the magnanimous and chivalrous homage paid to women, gradually gave way before the French taste and French gallantry, introduced, or at least encouraged and rendered fas.h.i.+onable, by Henrietta Maria and her gay household. The muse of amatory poetry (I presume there _is_ such a Muse, though I know not to which of the Nine the t.i.tle properly applies,) no longer walked the earth star-crowned and vestal-robed, ”col dir pien d'intelletti, dolci ed alti,”--”with love upon her lips, and looks commercing with the skies;”--she suited her garb to the fas.h.i.+on of the times, and tripped along in guise of an Arcadian princess, half regal, half pastoral, trailing a sheep-hook crowned with flowers, and sparkling with foreign ornaments,
Pale glistering pearls and rainbow-coloured gems.
Then in the ”brisk and giddy paced times” of Charles the Second, she flaunted an airy coquette, or an unblus.h.i.+ng courtezan, (”unveiled her eyes--unclasped her zone;”) and when these sinful doings were banished, she took the hue of the new morals--new fas.h.i.+ons--new manners,--and we find her a court prude, swimming in a hoop and red-heeled shoes, ”conscious of the rich brocade,” and ogling behind her fan; or else in the opposite extreme, like a _bergre_ in a French ballet, stuck over with sentimental common-places and artificial flowers.
This, in general terms, was the progress of the lyric muse, from the poets of Queen Elizabeth's days down to the wits of Queen Anne's. Of course, there are modifications and exceptions, which will suggest themselves to the poetical reader; but it does not enter into the plan of this sketch to treat matters thus critically and profoundly. To return then to the days of Charles the First.
It must be confessed that the union of Italian sentiment and imagination with French vivacity and gallantry, was, in the commencement, exceedingly graceful, before all poetry was lost in wit, and gallantry sunk into licentiousness.
Carew, one of the first who distinguished himself in this style, has been most unaccountably eclipsed by the reputation of Waller, and deserved better than to have had his name hitched into line between Sprat and Sedley;
Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more.[1]
As an amatory poet, he is far superior to Waller: he had equal smoothness and fancy, and much more variety, tenderness, and earnestness; if his love was less ambitiously, and even less honourably placed, it was, at least, more deep seated, and far more fervent. The real name of the lady he has celebrated under the poetical appellation of Celia, is not known--it is only certain that she was no ”fabled fair,”--and that his love was repaid with falsehood.
Hard fate! to have been once possessed As victor of a heart, Achieved with labour and unrest, And then forced to depart!
From the irregular habits of Carew, it is possible he might have set the example of inconstancy; and yet this is but a poor excuse for _her_.
Carew spent his life in the Court of Charles the First, who admired and loved him for his wit and amiable manners, though he reproved his _libertinage_. In the midst of that dissipation, which has polluted some of his poems, he was full of high poetic feeling, and a truly generous lover: for even while he wooes his fair one in the most soul-moving terms of flowery adulation and tender entreaty, he puts her on her guard against his own arts, and thus sweetly pleads against himself;
Rather let the lover pine, Than his pale cheek should a.s.sign A perpetual blush to thine!
And his admiration of female chast.i.ty is elsewhere frequently, as well as forcibly, expressed.--With all his elegance and tenderness, Carew is never feeble; and in his laments there is nothing whining or unmanly.
After lavis.h.i.+ng at the feet of his mistress the most pa.s.sionate devotion, and the most exquisite flattery, hear him rebuke her pride with all the spirit of an offended poet!
Know, Celia! since thou art so proud, 'Twas I that gave thee thy renown; Thou hadst in the forgotten crowd Of common beauties, lived unknown, Had not my verse exhaled thy name, And with it impt the wings of fame.
That killing power is none of thine, I gave it to thy voice and eyes, Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine.
Thou art my star--s.h.i.+n'st in my skies; Then dart not from thy borrowed sphere Light'ning on him, who fixed thee there.
The ident.i.ty of his Celia is now lost in a name,--and she deserves it: perhaps had she appreciated the love she inspired, and been true to that she professed, she might have won her elegant lover back to virtue, and wreathed her fame with his for ever. Disappointed in the object of his idolatry, Carew plunged madly into pleasure, and thus hastened his end.
He died, as Clarendon tells us, with ”deep remorse for his past excesses, and every manifestation of Christianity his best friends could desire.”