recognised no distinctions between things great or small, and his fancy wove curious webs of speculative beauty around the most homely objects. Above all other characteristics he was a humourist in the truest sense of the word, as it is defined by Walter Pater: "He is one to whom all the world is but a spectacle, in which nothing is really alien from himself, who has hardly a sense of the distinction between great and little among things that are at all, and whose half-pitying, half-amused sympathy is called out especially by the seemingly small interests and traits of character in the things or the people around him."

In his book on "Vulgar Errors" he gets together and discusses at length, and with a wonderful display of learning, the most amazing collection of popular superstitions and beliefs: that crystal is really congealed ice; that a pot full of ashes can contain as much water as it would when empty; that an elephant has no joints, and is caught by felling the tree against which it rests its stiff limbs in sleep; that ostriches feed upon horseshoes; and that storks will only live in republics and free states.

In his work on "Urn-Burial" he discusses the various customs of interment among the nations of antiquity, with the minute learning and strange

mixture of dreamy faith and fantastic imagery that run through all his writings. "To live indeed," he says at the end of the book, "is to be again ourselves, which being not only an hope, but an evidence in noble believers, 'tis all one to lie in St. Innocent's churchyard as in the sands of Egypt."

He was a most industrious writer throughout his long life, and his works well repay careful study, though they cannot be fully discussed here. His style has a charm of its own, and one which left its mark upon the prose of the time at which he wrote.

And so the quiet years went by, and he passed the threescore years and ten, and saw his children's children around him.

Then in the midst of his busy life of learning he was suddenly stricken down in his seventyseventh year, and died on his birthday, October the 19th, 1682.

His life was spent apart from that of the multitude; the blast of trumpets and the roar of cannon had no place in his quiet routine; the angry debates at Westminster, and the religious dissensions which shook England to her foundations had no power to lure him from the shadowy speculative land in which he dwelt. He might have lived in any age and belonged to none. In theology, in

art, and in philosophy he seems to stand always ready to discuss with equal impartiality and with any audience the authenticity of miracles, the comparative merits of urn-burial or churchyard monument, and such questions as the capture of a sleeping elephant, or "dreams out of the ivory gate and visions before midnight."

CHAPTER XI

THE POETS: WALLER, CAREW, HERRICK, LOVELACE, AND SUCKLING. VAUGHAN, TRAHERNE, CRASHAW, AND COWLEY

MANY singers, lyrical and religious, arose during the troubled years between the reigns of James I. and James II.

It was significant of the time that the careers of so many among them were so brief. Herbert, Crashaw, Lovelace, Suckling, and Traherne, all died before they were forty; and one cannot but wonder what wealth of lyric poetry would be ours, had the clash of arms, and the poverty of a country at war with itself, not intervened to silence many a sweet song.

The band of Court poets, as they may be called, stands prominently forth, their lives and their verses alike dedicated to the service of their King; and among them we may number Waller, Carew, Herrick, Lovelace, and Suckling. Vaughan and Traherne may be looked upon as entirely religious poets, and Crashaw as chiefly so, while Cowley stands somewhat by himself.

Edmund Waller was a Hertfordshire man, born in 1606, of an ancient and dignified family, and educated at Eton, and King's College, Cambridge.

He was wealthy, accomplished, clever, and fascinating, but of a poor, timid nature, which unfitted him to take his place in public life at the time of the Civil War.

Had his character been equal to his ability, he might have had a grand career, for he was in Parliament when only seventeen, and was so much admired there for the aptness and brilliancy of his speeches that he was called "the darling of the House of Commons."

His witty repartees were always ready, but he had no sound judgment or disinterested views with which to second his brilliant but more superficial qualities.

Although he was a first cousin of Hampden's, and so nearly connected with Cromwell himself, he shifted constantly between the two parties; and in 1643 he was discovered in a plot for betraying London into the hands of the King.

He was fined £10,000, imprisoned for a time in the Tower, and then banished from the country, to return amid the band of gallant soldiers, earnest Churchmen, and men of letters, who followed Charles II. to his Restoration.