Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/196

176 altogether, like Donne, eschew the help of Cupid and the gods. Jonson is more directly his master than Donne. Superficial feeling, elegant, occasionally outrageous, conceit, correct expression—natural both in diction and order,—musical verse, these are the characteristics of Carew's work. In songs like "Ask me no more" and "He that loves a coral lip," classical finish and polish of style are given to the high-flown fantastic conceit of the Renaissance.

In the employment of wit for the purpose of gallant, high-flown flattery, no one went further without becoming, like Cleveland, absolutely nauseous than Richard Lovelace (1618-1658), a brilliant courtier, and in the years of trouble and disaster a loyal cavalier. No one makes more frequent or extravagant use of the consuming fire of love, tears that drown, beauty which outshines the sun and out-perfumes the east; nor is this extravagance of conceit redeemed by perfection of workmanship. Nevertheless two of Lovelace's lyrics, quite characteristic in conceit and style, are the brightest gems of cavalier poetry. In "Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind" and "When Love with unconfined wings," conceit is glorified by becoming the expression of noble and passionate sentiment.

There is more of spontaneity and of wit, in the modern sense of the term, in the poems of Sir John Suckling (1608-1641) than in either Lovelace or Carew. If the last is the voluptuous and the second the gallant, Suckling is the gay and reckless courtier. His passion for