His rhythm is perfect. We have not space for
extended illustrations, but the reader will notice this in the lady's song
in Comus--the address to
Sweet Echo, sweeter nymph that liv'st unseen
Within thy airy shell,
By slow Meander's margent green!
* * * * *
Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere,
So may'st thou be translated to the skies,
And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies.
And again, the description of Chastity, in the same poem, is inimitable in
the language:
So dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity,
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her.
HIS SCHOLARSHIP.--It is unnecessary to state the well-known fact, attested
by all his works, of his elegant and versatile scholarship. He was the
most learned man in England in his day. If, like J. C. Scaliger, he did
not commit Homer to memory in twenty-one days, and the whole of the Greek
poets in three months, he had all classical learning literally at his
fingers' ends, and his works are absolutely glistening with drops which
show that every one has been dipped in that Castalian fountain which, it
was fabled, changed the earthly flowers of the mind into immortal jewels.
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