The Art of Letters | Page 9

these English airs," he wrote in one of his prefaces, "I have chiefly
aimed to couple my words and notes lovingly together." It would be
impossible to improve on this as a description of his achievement in
rhyme. Only one of his good poems, "Rosecheek'd Laura," is to be
found among those which he wrote according to his pseudo-classical
theory. All the rest are among those in which he coupled his words and
notes lovingly together, not as a duty, but as a diversion.
Irish critics have sometimes hoped that certain qualities in Campion's
music might be traced to the fact that his grandfather was "John
Campion of Dublin, Ireland." The art--and in Campion it was art, not
artlessness--with which he made use of such rhymes as "hill" and
"vigil," "sing" and "darling," besides his occasional use of internal
rhyme and assonance (he rhymed "licens'd" and "silence,"
"strangeness" and "plainness," for example), has seemed to be more
akin to the practices of Irish than of English poets. No evidence exists,
however, as to whether Campion's grandfather was Irish in anything
except his adventures. Of Campion himself we know that his training
was English. He went to Peterhouse, and, though he left it without
taking a degree, he was apparently regarded as one of the promising
figures in the Cambridge of his day. "I know, Cambridge,"
apostrophized a writer of the time, "howsoever now old, thou hast some
young. Bid them be chaste, yet suffer them to be witty. Let them be
soundly learned, yet suffer them to be gentlemanlike qualified"; and the
admonitory reference, though he had left Cambridge some time before,
is said to have been to "sweet master Campion."
The rest of his career may be summarized in a few sentences. He was
admitted to Gray's Inn, but was never called to the Bar. That he served
as a soldier in France under Essex is inferred by his biographers. He

afterwards practised as a doctor, but whether he studied medicine
during his travels abroad or in England is not known. The most
startling fact recorded of his maturity is that he acted as a go-between
in bribing the Lieutenant of the Tower to resign his post and make way
for a more pliable successor on the eve of the murder of Sir Thomas
Overbury. This he did on behalf of Sir Thomas Monson, one of whose
dependants, as Mr. Percival Vivian says, "actually carried the poisoned
tarts and jellies." Campion afterwards wrote a masque in celebration of
the nuptials of the murderers. Both Monson and he, however, are
universally believed to have been innocent agents in the crime.
Campion boldly dedicated his Third Book of Airs to Monson after the
first shadow of suspicion had passed.
As a poet, though he was no Puritan, he gives the impression of having
been a man of general virtue. It is not only that he added piety to
amorousness. This might be regarded as flirting with religion. Did not
he himself write, in explaining why he mixed pious and light songs;
"He that in publishing any work hath a desire to content all palates
must cater for them accordingly"? Even if the spiritual depth of his
graver songs has been exaggerated, however, they are clearly the
expression of a charming and tender spirit.
Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore, Never tired
pilgrim's limbs affected slumber more, Than my wearied sprite now
longs to fly out of my troubled breast. O come quickly, sweetest Lord,
and take my soul to rest.
What has the "sweet master Campion" who wrote these lines to do with
poisoned tarts and jellies? They are not ecstatic enough to have been
written by a murderer.

IV.--JOHN DONNE
Izaak Walton in his short life of Donne has painted a figure of almost
seraphic beauty. When Donne was but a boy, he declares, it was said
that the age had brought forth another Pico della Mirandola. As a

young man in his twenties, he was a prince among lovers, who by his
secret marriage with his patron's niece--"for love," says Walton, "is a
flattering mischief"--purchased at first only the ruin of his hopes and a
term in prison. Finally, we have the later Donne in the pulpit of St.
Paul's represented, in a beautiful adaptation of one of his own images,
as "always preaching to himself, like an angel from a cloud, though in
none; carrying some, as St. Paul was, to Heaven in holy raptures, and
enticing others by a sacred art and courtship to amend their lives." The
picture is all of noble charm. Walton speaks in one place of "his
winning behaviour--which, when it would entice, had a strange kind of
elegant irresistible art." There are no harsh phrases even in the
references to those