=LETTER= XIX.
There was never a poet more admired in his life or more despised after
his death than Quarles. He was patronized by the best of his age while
living, and when dead was first criticised, then contemned, and last
of all totally forgotten, unless when some bard wanted a name of one
syllable to fill up a list of miserable rhymers. Pope was the last who
made this use of him, and at the same time, in a note, abused Benlowes
for being his patron. I think it is Sir Philip Sidney who says that no
piece was ever a favourite of the common people without merit. Now,
though every thing I had heard of Quarles was much in his disfavour,
I could not help thinking but that he had something good in him, from
my never seeing one of his books of emblems that was not worn to rags;
a sign of its being read a good deal, unless it may be imagined that
it was so used by children in turning over the prints. Be that as it
may, I have perused as much of him as a very dirty tattered book would
give me leave, and will risque the declaring, that where he is good,
I know but few poets better. He has a great deal of genuine fire,
is frequently happy in similies, admirable in epithets and compound
words, very smooth in his versification, so different from the poets
of his own age; and possessed that great qualification of keeping you
in perpetual alarm, so very different from the elegant writers of the
present times.
I have run through his book of emblems to select some passages for
your observation—they are buried, it must be confessed, in a heap
of rubbish, but are of too much value not to be worth some pains in
recovering.—Where Quarles is bad, “he sounds the very base-string
of humility”—but this may be said of Shakspeare and Milton as
well.—I mean not to put him in the same rank with these two poets; he
has a much greater proportion of bad to good than is to be found in
them, so much indeed as almost to prevent his good from appearing at
all. My intention is to clear some of his shining passages of their
incumbrances; which may occasion their being noticed, and preserved
from oblivion.
What think you of the following similies?
Look how the stricken hart that wounded flies
Oe’r hills and dales, and seeks the lower grounds
For running streams, the whilst his weeping eyes
Beg silent mercy from the following hounds;
At length, embost, he droops, drops down, and lies
Beneath the burthen of his bleeding wounds:
Ev’n so my gasping soul, dissolv’d in tears, &c.