It is entirely in keeping with the solid and terrestrial character of Restoration literature in general, that no description of poetry should manifest so grievous a lapse from the standard of the preceding age as the lyrical. The decline of the drama has attracted more attention, partly from the violent contrast of two schools which had hardly one principle or one method in common, partly because our own age had but imperfectly realized the exceeding wealth in song of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, until Mr. Arthur Bullen showed what unsuspected treasures of poetry were hidden in old music books. Whatever else an Elizabethan or Jacobean lyric may be, it is almost certain to be melodious. The average Restoration lyric is correct enough in scansion, but the melody is conventional, poor and thin. Here and there, and especially in Dryden, we are surprised by a fine exception; but as a rule the Restoration song is deficient alike in the simple spontaneity which inspired such pieces as Come live with me and be my love, and in the more intricate harmonies of its predecessors. It was as though a blight had suddenly fallen upon the nation, and men’s ears had become incapable of distinguishing between sweetness and smoothness. So, indeed, they had as respected the music of verse; but how little technical music, whether vocal or instrumental, was neglected, even in private circles, we may learn from Pepys’s Diary, and it is a remarkable proof how little this music and the music of poetry have to do with each other, that this age of degeneracy in the one produced the greatest of all English masters, Purcell, in the other; while the still more hopelessly unmelodious age of the first Georges was the age of Handel. Poetry makes melody, not melody poetry; and the only explanation is, that the age preceding that of the Restoration was poetical, and the Restoration age was prosaic. It could not well have been otherwise if, as all critics agree, the special literary mission of the Restoration period was to prune the luxuriance of English prose, and by introducing conciseness, perspicuity, and logical order, to render it a fit instrument for narrative, reasoning, and the despatch of business.

Such lyric as the age possessed is almost entirely comprehended in Dryden; for Marvell, of whom we must nevertheless speak, belongs in spirit to a former age. The songs in Dryden’s plays, to be mentioned shortly, prove that he was by no means destitute of spontaneous lyrical feeling; but he no doubt succeeded best when, having first penetrated himself with a theme sufficiently stirring to generate the enthusiastic mood which finds its natural expression in song, he sat down to frame a fitting accompaniment by the aid of all the resources of metrical art. The principal examples of this lyrical magnificence which he has given us are the elegy on Anne Killigrew and the two odes on St. Cecilia’s Day. Of the first of these two latter, Johnson says that ‘it is lost in the splendour of the second,’ and such is the fact; but had Dryden produced no other lyric, he would still have ranked as a fine lyrical poet. Of the second ode, better known as Alexander’s Feast, it is needless to say anything, for all readers of poetry have it by heart, and all recognize its claim to rank among the greatest odes in the language—the greatest, perhaps, until Wordsworth and Shelley wrote, and little, if at all, behind even them. Johnson, indeed, prefers the memorial ode on Anne Killigrew, and if all the stanzas equalled the first he would be right; but this is impossible; as he himself remarks, ‘An imperial crown cannot be one continued diamond.’ The inevitable falling off, nevertheless, would have been less apparent if Dryden had shown more judgment in the selection of his topics, or at least more tact in handling them. The morals of the age were, indeed, bad enough, as he well knew who had helped to make them so; but such frank treatment of a disagreeable theme jars exceedingly with an ode devoted to the celebration of chastity and virtue. Notwithstanding this flaw, the entire ode deserves Mr. Saintsbury’s eulogy, ‘As a piece of concerted music in verse it has not a superior.’ The hyperbolical praise of Anne Killigrew’s now forgotten poems is explained, and in some measure excused, by the fact that it was written to be prefixed to them. The first stanza, appropriate to thousands beside its ostensible subject, appeals to the general human heart, and indicates the high-water mark of Restoration poetry:

The poet who so excelled in majestic artificial harmonies was also the one poet of his day who could occasionally sing as the bird sings. Dryden has never received sufficient praise for his songs, inasmuch as these are mostly hidden away in his dramas, and not always adapted for quotation. The following, with a manifest political meaning, is a good example of his simple ease and melody:

The following song is from The Mock Astrologer:

The Muse who could mourn to such purpose for Anne Killigrew might have been expected to soar high in celebrating and lamenting Charles II., parts of whose history and character certainly lent themselves to poetry. Whether from haste, indifference, or whatever reason, Dryden was clearly unable to penetrate himself with the subject, and it is perhaps to his honour that his composition should so little simulate an inspiration he was evidently far from feeling. The choice of subjects is judicious, but the treatment is in general inanimate and perfunctory, except when the poet is going to say something absurd, and then his motto is Pecca fortiter. There is, perhaps, nothing nearer burlesque in all Dryden’s rhyming plays than this couplet:

The poet is also weighted by having to flatter Charles and his successor at the same time. The concluding lines, however, eulogizing James’s care for the navy, will always echo in the heart of Britain:

This latter fine phrase had occurred already in Astraea Redux and Annus Mirabilis.

Andrew Marvell, though unequal, is an excellent lyric poet. His best song, Where the remote Bermudas ride, is such a household word that we select a less known piece:

In fancy as in melody this and Marvell’s other gems belong to the age of Charles I. Apart from Dryden, the Restoration has little to show beside three songs of genuine inspiration in the plays of Crowne, to be mentioned in his place as a middling dramatist; Sir Charles Sedley’s charming verses to Chloris; others, mostly from the same hand Motteux, and, strange to say, the Dryasdust Rymer, which have found a harbour in Mr. Arthur Bullen’s Musa Proterva; a few songs of Rochester’s and Aphra Behn’s; some few carols in Mr. Ebsworth’s collections; and the elegant and animated To all you ladies now at land of Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset (1637-1706), less known for his occasional verses, these excepted, than as the arbiter of taste and the benefactor of needy men of letters.

It was but natural that the lyrists, like the dramatists, should endeavour to make up in bombastic extravagance for their deficiencies in simplicity and truth to nature. An appropriate instrument was at hand in the Pindaric ode, the miscreation of a true poet, Cowley. So little were the genuine characteristics of Pindaric versification then understood even by scholars, that it is no wonder that Cowley should have conceived them to be equivalent to absolute irregularity. His own compositions are not within our province; but it may be remarked that they are distinguished from the Pindarics of Charles II.’s time by the preponderance of what was then called wit, which we should describe as a perverse ingenuity in discovering superficial resemblances between dissimilar things. It is impossible not to admire in a measure some of the feats of this kind performed by Cowley, Crashaw, and Donne; but common sense intimates that the real criterion of the merit of a comparison is its justice. The movement, nevertheless, had considerable significance as indicating the exhaustion of the old forms of poetry. It had triumphed in Italy and in Spain in the persons of Marino and Gongora, with most disastrous effects on the literature of those countries. Fortunate it was for England that this fashion arrived late, and before it could take much root was dislodged by the saner methods of France. Pindarics, however, went on existing, but with comparatively little wit, and even less poetry. Sprat, of whom we shall have to speak as the historian of the Royal Society, was perhaps the most conspicuous practitioner. The following lines on Prometheus are a bright example of his amalgam of poetry and wit:

Congreve is equally absurd in his personification of Sleep:

This poet, nevertheless, who, as pointed out by Dr. Johnson and Mr. Gosse, has the critical merit of having given the English Pindaric a regular structure, was capable of much better things. The opening of the ode which yields the above choice morceau (To Mrs. Arabella Hunt, Singing) is in a fine strain of poetry: