SACRED POETRY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

THE forthcoming number of the Sacred Classics commences a -selection from the Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century. The plan is excellent ; the execution good; and when this sec- tion of the series is completed, it will not only forma collection which the Christian reader will value for its devotional spirit, but which should occupy a place on the shelves of every lover of poetry, or student of' our native literature. Various reasons may be adduced for this recommendation. The work will be very cheap ; and it will present, in a uniform and readable shape, the pith of many volumes, the whole of which are hardly procurable at any price, and few of them without great trouble. By its means the purchaser will have the best specimens of numerous half-forgotten authors, of whom it may be desirable to know some- thing, but whose productions would not repay the perusal, if the " genuine entire" did not repel it. What is more than all, these Sacred Extracts will throw a strong light upon the history of English literature during a memorable period, when society was in a state of fermentation. The pleasure they will afford depends greatly upon the character of the reader. The idler, who only reads for amusement, will at first be struck with the peculiarity of the manner, but soon wearied by the metaphysical nature of their thoughts; or offended by the homeliness of some of their images, by their frequent ruggedness of versification, and by the incongruous mixture of familiar with lofty and even sacred ideas. The reader for profit will find his perusal well rewarded : he will meet with much thought and much learning; great strength, and sometimes felicity, of diction ; singular acuteness in discovering a cninexion between apparently remote ideas, and aptitude in uniting them; conceits and a quaintness which are sometimes amusing and sometimes startling; with specimens of versification that show in a novel light the capabilities of our language, and might be useful in improving the art of English poetry. Here and there, too, will be found touches of tenderness, ease, and sweetness, which MOORE has never reached ; though very seldom without some dash of the pedant or the parson.

The authors, of whom specimens are given in the volume before us, are eleven ; there are also four anonymous pieces, now printed for the first time. Of two of the poets, MILTON and SPENSER, it is not necessary to speak : of the remainder, QUARLES is perhaps the best known, as well by the sarcasms of the wits of the Augus- tan age, as by his own " Emblems," editions of which are of com- mon occurrence, if indeed one has not been issued within these few years. A favourable idea of HERBERT is given to the popular ,reader by his verses inserted in the " Complete Angler, be- ginning

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky ! The dew shall weep thy fall tonight, For thou must die."

CRASHAW is characterized by JOHNSON, in his life of WEST, as a poet and a saint (though they were many other "makers" of de- votional verses who excelled him in poetry); and BYRON has used his name as a rhyme to " Paella.' WITHERS has a niche in the Danciad ; and the name of the poetical lawyer, Sir JOHN DAVIES, is sometimes mentioned. His work, we suspect, is seldom read, though praised for its combination of logical and poetical power, and said by JOHNSON rarely to disappoint the ear : a quality, however, which seems to coexist with verses of a prosaic spirit ; whilst his matter and his reasoning are alike drawn from the subtilties and conceits of the Schoolmen, intermingled fre- quently with better things. Of the four other authors in this col- ICCli011,—SANDYS, KING, and the two FLETCHERS,—We believe both the names and the works will alike be new to the generality. Among them, Bishop KING may perhaps stand the highest for his poetical feeling ; GILES FLETCHER (a cousin of the dramatist), for the length and consistency of his "Christ's Victory and Triumph." This poem, which may have suggested Paradise Re- gained, is presented almost entire : its subject is the life, resurrec- tion, and ascension of Christ ; and its treatment presents a strange mixture of narrative, allegory, and supernatural machinery ; its sentiments, a union of far-fetched conceits with natural thoughts; and its execution, strength and harmony of versification astonish- ing for the early part of the seventeenth century. Here is a spe- cimen, descriptive of

THE BLEST IN HEAVEN.

No sorrow now hangs clouding on their brow, No bloodless malady emirates their face, No age drops on their hairs his silver snow, No nakedness their bodies doth embase, No poverty themselves and theirs disgrace,

No fear of death the joy of life devours,

No unchaste sleep their precious time deflowers, No loss, no grief, no change wait on their winged hours.

But now their naked bodies scorn the cold, And from their eyes joy looks, and laughs at pain; The infant wonders how he came so old, . The old man how he rame so young again ; Still resting, though from sleep they still refrain;

Where all are rich, and yet no gold they owe, And all are kings, and yet no subjects know, All full, and yet no time on food they do bestow.

For things that pass are past, and in this field The indeficient spring no winter fears; The trees together fruit and blossom yield, The unfading lily leaves of silver bears, And crimson rose a scarlet garment wean;

And all of these on the saints' bodies grow, Not, as they wont, on baser earth below : Three rivers here, of milk, and wine, and honey, flow.

Had the taste of KING not been corrupted by that of his ag6 he might perhaps have been without a rival in elegaic poetry, for he seems to have had all the elements necessary to success ; bet his quibbles injure the effect of his productions to a greater extent than the lackadaisical sentimentality of the writers of the succeed- ing century. The following lines, full of images, tersely expressed give a favourable sample of him, though disfigured by the home• liness of the fourth couplet.

LIFE.

Like to the falling of a star, Or as the flights of eagles are,

Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue, Or silver drops of morning dew, Or like a wind that chafes the flood, Or bubbles which on water stood— Even such is man, whose borrow'd light Is straight call'd in, and paid to night. The wind blows out; the bubble dies ; The spring entornb'd in autumn lies; The dew dries up ; the star is shot ; The flight is past—and man forgot.

We have spoken of versification ; and those stanzas from QUARLES may be taken as an example,—exhibiting great har- mony, and great variety of pauses, with a skill (or luck) in break- ing up the lines into brief sentences, yet without destroying the verse,—an excellence which succeeding writers never seem to have attempted.

VANITY OF THE WORLD.

What well-advised ear regards What earth can say? Thy words are gold, but thy rewards Are painted clay :

Thy cunning can but pack the cards,

Thou canst not play :

Thy game at weakest, still thou vy'at;

If seen, and then revy'd, deniest:

Thou art not what thou seeest ; false world, thou yd.

Thy tinsel bosom seems a mint

Of new-coin'd treasure;

A paradise, that has no stint,

No change no measure;

A painted cask, but nothing in't, Nor wealth, nor pleasure: Vain earth ! that falsely thus comply'st With man ; vain man ! that thou rely'st

On earth ; vain man, thou chest; vain earth, thou lest.

What mean dull souls, in this high measure,

To haberdash

In earth's base wares, whose greatest treasure

Is dross and trash?

The height of whose enchanting pleasure Is but n flash ?

Are these the goods that thou supply'st Us mortals with ? Arz these the high'st ? Can these bring cordial peace? false world, thou ly'st.

These quotations shall be closed with one from HERBERT. It will illustrate the -remark just made on the facility with which these writers combined remote ideas. Who, for instance, but a School divine would have thought of enforcing a temporary regard for earth by a simile drawn from birds drinking ?

MAN'S MEDLEY.

Bark how the birds do sing, And woods do ring.

All creatures have their joy, and man bath his.

Yet, if we rightly measure, Alan's joy and pleasure Rather hereafter, than in present, is.

To this life things of sense Make their pretence :

In the other angels have a right by birth :

Man ties them both alone, And makes them one,

With one hand touching heav'n, with the other earth.

In soul he mounts and flies,

In flesh he dies:

He wears a stuff, whose thread is coarse and round,

But trimm'd with curious lace,

And should take place After the trimming, not the stuff and ground.

Not that he may not here Taste of the cheer :

But as birds drink, and straight lift up their heads ; So must lie sip, and think

Of better drink

He may attain to, after he is dead.

But as his joys are double, So is his trouble.

He hath two winters, other things but one:

Both frosts and thoughts do nip, And bite his lip ;

And he, of all things, fears two deaths, alone.

Yet ev'n the greatest griefs

May be reliefs, Could he but take them right, and in their ways. Ha_ppy is he, whose heart

Hail found the art

To turn his double pains to double praise.

Mr. CATTERMOLE, who has ably executed his task of selection, has also added very short notices to each author. They would have been more satisfactory had they been fuller, but they are sufficient to convey a notion of the life and to give a hint as to the times of the poet,