As a man of letters, as a politician, and as a writer whose purpose was eminently serious, Drummond is entitled to respect. His verse is sometimes beautiful, it is always sincere, and rises occasionally to a strain which, as in the sonnet "Saint John Baptist," seems to anticipate the solemn aim of Milton. His record of "Conversations with Ben Jonson has awakened much wrath in some virtuous critics, for the book contains passages which present the dramatist in a very unfavourable light. But this at least should be remembered to Drummond's credit. He did not rush into print with the work upon the death of Jonson, when its interest for scandal-lovers and Grub Street poets would have been great, but kept the record by him in manuscript; and in that form it remained for two centuries.

[Drummond's poetical works, edited by William B. Turnbull, appeared in 1856, and they are also to be found in that vast repository of worth and weakness, of poets and poetasters, the collection made by Chalmers.]

1577-1643.

When Sir Philip Sidney was about twenty-three years old, George Sandys was born; and about fifty years after Sidney's early George Sandys, death, Sandys' version of the Psalms was published. It is difficult to believe that so brief a period separated the versions of the two men. Sidney's rhymes are for the most part rough and halting, while Sandys' verse, masculine and careful in construction, glides smoothly along

and delights the ear with its music. The "so much admired Sandys," as Dryden calls him, is now almost unknown; but in his own day, and long after his day, his fame as a versifier and translator was considerable. Dryden said that if Sandys, who translated the first book of the " Æneid," had completed the work, he would not have attempted his version. Joseph Warton declared that Sandys had done more by his paraphrases to polish the English language than either Denham or Waller; and Richard Baxter said, "Next the Scripture poems, there are none so savoury to me as Mr. George Herbert's and Mr. George Sandys';" and he adds, "It did me good when Mrs. Wyat invited me to see Boxley Abbey, in Kent, to see upon the old stone wall in the garden a summer-house with this inscription in great golden letters, that in that place Mr. G. Sandys, after his travels over the world, retired himself for his poetry and contemplations." Pope, when a boy, is said to have liked Sandys' version of Ovid extremely; and when we come nearer to our own day, we find James Montgomery writing that Sandys' rendering of the Psalms is "incomparably the most poetic in the English language." Sandys produced also several other paraphrases, and turned the Book of Job into heroic couplets. Such attempts are not to be commended, and all we need say of Sandys' honest effort is that it is greatly to be preferred to the feeble, commonplace version of a part of the book written by Young, who confesses that he has

omitted, added, and transposed and has "thrown the whole into a method more suited to our notions of regularity;" from which you may judge that the author of the "Night Thoughts" was not especially distinguished for taste or modesty. It is always interesting to note the links which bind our poets together, and there is one, slight, indeed, but noteworthy, that joins Sandys to Milton--the ardent loyalist and Churchman to the great Puritan and iconoclast. Both of these poets tried their skill in metrical versions of the Psalms. Milton failed utterly in the attempt, while Sandys had a large measure of success.

[An admirable edition of Sandys' poetical works, "now first collected," appeared in 1872 (John Russell Smith). It is edited, with introduction and notes, by the Rev. Richard Hooper.]

George

Wither, 1588-1667.

George Wither, who was born eleven years later than Sandys, also published the "Psalms of David, translated into Lyric Verse," and not content with this, produced a volume called "Hymns and Songs of the Church." In the first part of the volume Bible songs, prayers, and prophecies, and even the Ten Commandments, are put into metre, and it need scarcely be said injured in the process; but the smoothness of the versification is remarkable. The second part may have suggested the plan of the "Christian Year" to Keble. Wither's "Songs," however, celebrate only the principal festivals and saints' days of the Church, and in beauty and poetic art are infinitely

inferior to the verses of the latest and greatest of Church singers. Wither does not, like Herbert, Vaughan, and Keble, live on his reputation as a sacred poet. He tried his verse-making skill in a variety of directions, and is sometimes eminently successful, his verses being marked by tenderness, pathos, and much sweetness of expression. The poem written "When upon the Seas" is worthy of a place in any selection, and his charming lyric"Shall I, wasting in despair,

Die because a woman's fair?"—

is universally known, and uninjured by popularity.

Wither had a poet's eye for natural beauty. His chief fault is diffuseness, a habit which he defends. If readers find his verses tedious, he says they can let them alone, but he will not "change a syllable or measure."

"Pedants shall not tie my strains
To our antique poets' veins;
As if we in latter days

Knew to love but not to praise.
Being born as free as these,
I will sing as I shall please;
Who as well new paths may run
As the best before have done.
I disdain to make my song

For their pleasures short or long ;
If I please I'll end it here,
If I list I'll sing this year.
And though none regard of it,
By myself I pleased can sit,

And with that contentment cheer me,
As if half the world did hear me."

Much might be said of George Wither, did the plan of this volume allow of more than a brief reference to minor poets. On parting with him it will be interesting to recall a suggestive fact in his history-I mean the warm friendship that existed between him and William Browne. At one time, indeed, the two poets linked their fortunes together in the same volume.

[In the "Library of Old Authors" (John Russell Smith) George Wither's "Songs of the Church" appeared in 1856, and a very dainty edition of his "Fair Virtue" appeared in the early years of the century, edited by Sir Egerton Brydges; but there has been no recent demand for his poems, which are only to be met with in large libraries. "The two critical essays on Sidney and Wither," says Mr. Ainger, "contain some of Lamb's most subtle criticism and most eloquent writing."]

Richard Baxter did not confine his praise to Sandys, but wrote, as we have seen, at the same time in praise of the younger poet, George Herbert. "I know," he says, "that Cowley and others far exceed Herbert in wit and accurate composure, but, as Seneca takes with me above all his contemporaries because he speaketh things by words feelingly and seriously, like a man that is past jest, so Herbert speaks to God like one that really believeth a God."

The story of his life is beautifully, if not always quite accurately told by Izaak Walton. George