Commence mon repos et finit mon tourment, With these stanzas from Racan may be compared, in particular, the eighth and tenth divisions of Cotton's ode, The Retirement: VIII. "Oh, my beloved Rocks! that rise To awe the Earth, and brave the Skies; Giddy with pleasure, to look down, And from the Vales to view the noble heights above! X. "Lord! would men let me alone, What an over-happy one Should I think myself to be, Might I in this desert place, Which most men by their voice disgrace, Would I manage Winter's cold And the Summer's worst excess, Try to live out to sixty full years old, And all the while Without an envious eye, On any thriving under Fortune's smile, Here, it is to be remarked, Cotton is the more vigorous; Racan the more gentle and restrained. But after all, this difference between the two in point of execution may be largely a difference of national idiom. Cotton is the English, so to speak, of Racan, and Racan is the French of Cotton. It can scarcely be doubted, in recapitulating the influence of the French lyrists upon Cotton, that the general clearness and simplicity of his poetry are due in a considerable measure to their combined influence. But in these respects Malherbe's influence was, perhaps, the predominating one, an influence which was, however, pervasive rather than deep. Other superficial tendencies in Cotton may be traced, in part at least, to these French lyrists: his fondness for military imagery to Desportes, for mythological allusion to Malherbe, for pointe to Maynard, and for amplification by antithesis to Voiture. But it was in Théophile de Viaud and in Racan that he found vital encouragement. Between him and these two there is real kinship. Like him, they are poets of compromise, assimilating and adapting everything suitable to their purpose. Like him, though careless workmen, they are in feeling and conception genuinely poetic. Théophile's fervor and picturesqueness, and Racan's tender sensibility must, to judge by what seems most distinctive in Cotton's own work, have appealed to him strongly. The poetic point of view in all three is the same. It is that of simple-hearted, almost naïve egoism,—an egoism that, having no misgivings, expresses itself frankly, and yet is tempered by a sincere desire to be found worthy of what is so egoistically sought. It has an insistence at once so natural and tender -at times so wistful-that one easily condones its selfishness. It is an attitude toward love very different from the cynical attitude of most of Cotton's contemporaries at home, and, whether he derived it from these French lyrists or not, he held it in common with them. THE POETRY OF NATURE AND OF MEDITATION In spite of what Cotton has said about the "cold and blustering climate of the Peak" his beloved Beresford Dale was a bit of Arcadia. Its color and warmth, and its atmosphere of soft holiday-calm must have served as the setting for the "Invitation to Phillis," the theme of which is that of Marlowe's exquisite lyric, "Come with me and be my love And thou shalt all the pleasure prove." He set himself too great a task in attemptingif he did attempt to rival Marlowe. But his amplification has a beauty of its own; the variations, though superabundant, have remarkable fluency and grace: "Thy Summer's bower shall over-look From this thy sphear thou shalt behold And when Sol's Rayes shall all combine Where crystal Dove runs murm'ring still, The companion piece to this, the "Entertainment to Phillis," is written in the same vein, expressing the same naïve and indiscriminate satisfaction in beauty whether of art or of nature. The note which has been struck with most perfect success by Marlowe in the well-known couplet, "A belt of straw and ivy-buds, With coral clasps and amber studs,' Cotton here elaborates with the zest of youth: "Within my Love will find each room Cups cut in Amber, Myrrh, and gold; To the wrought mantle of the Spring. I have such Fruits, too, for thy taste, |