BERT DEVEREUX, Une famous Earl of Essex (1900-1001),

ready been mentioned (note on No. 74. 147) as having captu diz in 1596. In 1599 he was made Governor-general eland. Two years later he was condemned for treason a ecuted. At the trial at Westminster Hall his former frie -con, spoke for the prosecution.

Another version of this poem has so many interesting va ons from the one adopted in the text that it is worth giving 11:

Happy were he could finish forth his fate

In some unhaunted desert most obscure
From all societies, from love and hate

Of worldly folk; there might he sleep secure,
Then wake again, and ever give God praise,

Content with hips, and haws, and bramble-berry;
In contemplation spending all his days,

And change of holy thoughts to make him merry: Where, when he dies, his tomb may be a bush,

Where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush." . the first stanza of a chanson by Philippe Desportes (15 06):

"O bien heureux qui peut passer sa vie

Entre les siens, franc de haine et d'envie,
Parmy les champs, les forests et les bois,
Loin du tumulte et du bruit populaire ;
Et qui ne vend sa liberté pour plaire
Aux passions des princes et des rois !”

CLI

. also Pope's youthful poem in praise of Solitude (G. T., 1. Happy were he could..., Happy would he be that could 2. unhaunted, unfrequented.

66

4. secure, free from care. Cp. No. 52. 7, secure she sleep 5. Then (should he) wake again.

7. still, always.

8. Cp. St. James, v. 13, "Is any among you afflicted? let 1 ay. Is any merry? let him sing psalms."

10. robin. Cp. No. 66, Call for the robin-redbreast and

'en."

84. The last and greatest Herald of Heaven's King is by no mere accident—as those who have observed the care

First Book, which began with so light-hearted a strain, ends upon a deeply solemn note. The life of court and camp and bower, rich in music and colour-to what has it led? It is not only the philosopher (No. 81) that is dissatisfied with "the World's Way": player (No. 82) and courtier (No. 83) are weary of it too. But these are times when it is hardly possible to spend "silent days" in "harmless joys" (No. 79) or in the study of the book of Nature (No. 80). We have come to the epoch of the fierce struggle between Puritan and Cavalier. Only distant echoes of that conflict reach us in the charmed precincts of The Golden Treasury. Here, as it were, the best of both sides meet and understand each other. We close the First Book upon We open Drummond, the Cavalier with the heart of a Puritan. the Second Book upon Milton, the Puritan with the soul of a Cavalier, in whose Nativity Hymn and Lycidas the two worlds of Paganism and Christianity, of romance and moral earnestness, are strangely blended and reconciled.

APPENDIX.

A. METRE.

the comments on metre, which will be found at the e the introductory note to most of the poems, an attem been made to supply such guidance as will enable the stude ily to overcome the first difficulties of the subject. Techni ns have therefore been avoided as far as possible, and there pretence of exhaustive treatment. Elizabethan metres are, ale, very simple, admitting far fewer variations than are to nd in the lyric metres of Book Fourth of the Golden Treasu is disputed whether the classical measurement of feet licable at all to English poetry, on the ground that Engl ts write not by quantity of syllables but by accentual stre t, even if by a 'long' syllable we mean simply, in the case glish verse, a syllable on which the verse accent falls, and short' syllable one on which it does not fall, it is convenie retain such names as iambus (~~), trochee (—~), anapa ~~), spondee (——), dactyl (—~~). It must be reme ed that these terms have been familiar to nearly all Engl ts. The iambic foot is the prevalent one in Elizabeth try, and many lines which we might be tempted at first n differently (e.g. No. 37. 1, "When icicles hang by the wall 1 be found on examination to be really iambic.

The subtler melodies of English poetry, as indeed of all poet end on the presence in the verse of two distinct rhythm ich we may call the rhythms of the sense-stress and of t nsion. This fact is seldom understood, though we nearly upon it in reading blank-verse. We condemn anyone w ds the first line of Mark Antony's speech

'Friends, Rómans, countrymén, lend mé your ears,"

ugh we all scan it as an iambic line of five accents. Yet d it

T

better to ignore the verse-rhythm than the sense-rhyth ennyson used to say that if people would only read his poet oud naturally and intelligently they would find no difficul out the metre. But it is better still to ignore neither. rse-rhythm is often a guide to the true sense-rhythm: the tw e always in some relation, and we may sometimes miss th et's meaning through not comprehending the rhythm that w his mind. And the musical quality of the verse can never lly enjoyed until we read with an appreciation, conscious stinctive, of the twofold rhythm, the sense-rhythm bein minant while the verse-rhythm runs on in a rippling underton just audible but essential musical accompaniment. For a ample we need go no further than the first line of the Golde

reasury:

"Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king"

66

e sense-rhythm says to us, whilst the verse-rhythm is saying 'Spring, the sweet Spring || is thé year's pléasant kíng.' Dr. J. B. Mayor's Handbook of Modern English Metre (Pit ess), published since these notes were written, will be foun eful by students and teachers.

B. THE SONNET.

A sonnet consists of fourteen lines, each of five iambic feet s written by Petrarch and other Italian poets, from whom ou izabethan poets first learnt the metre, it consists of two unequa rts: (a) the first, or octave, of eight lines; (b) the second, o stet, of six lines. (a) In the first part there are two stanzas, in ch of which the two middle lines rhyme together, and the tw tside lines rhyme together; and the second stanza repeats the me rhymes as the first-i.e. the first, fourth, fifth, and eightl nes rhyme together, and the second, third, sixth, and seventh nes rhyme together--abba, abba. (b) In the sestet, the first cond, and third lines rhyme severally with the fourth, fifth d sixth (three rhymes-cde, cde), or the first, third, and fiftl yme together, and the second, fourth, and sixth rhyme gether (two rhymes-cd, cd, cd).

Such are the rules of the Italian sonnet, observed generally by ilton, and, though with less strictness, by Wordsworth. But ey were never observed at all carefully by the Elizabethans. r Philip Sidney, whose example was largely responsible for the shion of sonnet-writing, observes the division into octave and

Sir P. Sidney given in this book, two are faithful to Italia s about the arrangement of rhymes in the octave (Nos. 13 an while the third (No. 40) limits the rhymes to two, b nges them differently. The same freedom of arrangemen bined with strictness in limiting the rhymes to tw racterises the sonnets by Drummond of Hawthornden-No 80, 81, 84.

ut many of the Elizabethan poets departed far more con ely from Italian rules. As written by them the sonnet ply made up of three stanzas of four lines each, the lin ning alternately, and a concluding couplet. All Shakespeare ets are on this plan; so are the sonnets by Sylvester (No. 34 iel (No. 46), Drayton (No. 49). A sonnet by Alexander (N observes the Italian order of rhymes in the octave, but do limit them to two.

has been sometimes said-as by Mark Pattison in his Life 'on-that the Shakespearean sonnet has nothing in comm the true sonnet except the name. The statement is high eading. A comparison of the sonnets by Shakespeare wit sonnets by Sir P. Sidney contained in this volume will pro essentially they belong to the same class of poem. Nor is t to speak of the freer type followed by Shakespeare as if e a variation due to ignorance of the rules. It was adopte berately; and like every variation made by the instinct us it is amply justified by its success. The stricter rules a to be despised: their very difficulty checks too facile compos of verses. But such checks are, after all, more needed 1 amateur and the learner than by the mature poet; and it ma significant that Keats, who could write the Italian sonn y (G. T. ccx., CCXCII.), adopted the Shakespearean model ral sonnets (G. T. CCXLII., CCXLIII., CCCXXXIII.).

C. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS.

3.-Arabic numerals refer to the order of poems in this Book; Rom: erals to the order of the sonnets as given in Shakespeare's Works.

is Book of the Golden Treasury contains twenty of Shak re's sonnets. The following table may be found useful :

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced,