The Epistle to the Reader
READER,
IX HESE Poetical Fragments, (except three heretofore
printed) were so far from being intended for the Press, that
they were not allowed the sight of many private friends,
“or thought worthy of it. Only had I had time and heart
have finished the first, (which itself, according to the
after and designed method, would have made a Volume
r bigger than all this, being intended as a thankful, his-
.rical commemoration of all the notable passages of my
re) I should have published it as the most self-pleasing
irt of my writings. But as they were mostly written in
various passions, so passion hath now thrust them out into
the world. God having taken away the dear companion
of the last nineteen years of my life, as her sorrows and
sufferings long ago gave being to some of these Poems (for
reasons which the world is not concerned to know) so my
grief for her removal, and the revived sense of former
things, have prevailed with me to be passionate in the open
sight of all.
I confess that passion is oft such a hindrance of judgment, that a man should be very suspicious of himself till it be laid. But I am assured that God made it not in vain; and that reason is a sleepy half-useless thing, till some passion excite it; and learning to a man asleep is no better for
that time thun ignorance. And God usually beginneth the awakening of reason, and the conversion of sinners, by Um awakening of their useful passions, their fear, their grief, repentance, desire, &c. I confess, when God awakeneth in me those passions which I account rational and holy, I am so far from condemning them, that I think I was half a fool before, and have small comfort in sleepy reason. Lay by all the passionate part of love and joy, and it will be hard to have any pleasant thoughts of Heaven.
In short, I am an adversary to their philosophy that vilify sense, because it is in brutes, and am past doubt that the noble spirits of sensitives are debased ignorantly, by pretending wits, that know not what they say or glory in; and human souls are not less sensitive for being rational, but are eminently sensitive. Yea, reason hath in it more of eminent internal sensation, than those men think that debase sense. The Scripture that saith of God, that he is life and light, saith also, that he is love, and love is complacence, and complacence is joy; and to say God is infinite, essential love and joy, is abetter notion, than with Cartesians and Cocceians, to say that God, and angels, and spirits, are but a thought, or an idea. What is Heaven to us, if there be no love and joy?
I will do my wise friends, whose counsel I have much followed, that right, as to acquit them from all the guilt of the publication of these Fragments. Some of them say, that such work is below me; and those that I think speak wiselier, say, I am below such work. These I unfeignedly believe. I have long thought that a painter, a musician, and a poet, are contemptible, if they be not excellent: and that I am not excellent, I am satisfied: but I am more patient of contempt than many are. Common painters serve for poor men’s work; and a fiddler may serve at a country wedding: such cannot aspire to the attainments of the higher sort; and the vulgar are the greater number. Dr. Stillingfleet saith, I seldom follow my friends’ advice. In this I justify him; though in other things my advisers contradict him.
TO THE READER. Ill
I know that natural temper makes poetry savour to several wise and learned men, as differently as meats do to various appetites. I know suck learned discreet men, that know not what a tune is, nor can difference one from another. I wonder at them, and oft doubt whether it be an accident, or an integral of humanity which they want. Annatus, the Jesuit, in his answer to Dr. Twisse, De Scientia Media, commends his poetry (for a Poem added in the end) in scorn, as if it were a disgrace to a School-Divine. I take one sign of an acumen of wit to make it likely that the man hath the same wit for other work.
For myself, I confess that harmony and melody are the pleasure and elevation of my soul, and have made a Psalm of Praise in the Holy Assembly the chief delightful exercise of my religion and my life; and hath helped to bear down all the objections which I have heard against Church-music, and against the 149th and 150th Psalms. It was not the least comfort that I had in the converse of my late dear wife, that our first in the morning, and last in bed at night, was a Psalm of Praise (till the hearing of others interrupted it.) Let those that savour not melody, leave others to their different appetites, and be content to be so far strangers to their delights.
These times have produced many excellent Poets; among whom, for strength of wit, Dr. Abraham Cowley justly bears the bell. I much value Mr. Woodford’s paraphrase on the Psalms, though his genius (or somewhat else) expound some Psalms, so as the next age will confute. A woman’s Poems, the Lady Katherine Philips’s, are far above contempt. But that is best to me which is the most holy.
I have known good men that were skilled in music, and much delighted in it, and yet had a conceit that it was unlawful in a Psalm or holy exercise. I so much differed from them, that I scarce cared for it any where else; and if it might not be holily used, it should never have been used for me.
Honest George Withers, though a rustic Poet, hath been very acceptable, as to some for his Prophecies, so to others for his plain country honesty. The vulgar were the more pleased with him for being so little courtly as to say,
“If I should have been hung, I knew not how
“To teach my body how to cringe and bow;
“And to embra.ce a fellow’s hinder quarters,
“As if I meant to steal away his garters.
“When any bow’d to me with congees trim,
° All I could do, was stand and laugh at him.
“Bless me, thought I, what will this coxcomb do?
“When I perceiv’d one reaching at my shoe.
Quarles yet out-went him, mixing competent wit with piety (especially in his Poem against rest on earth).
Silvester on Du Bartas seems to me to out-go them both.
Sir Fulk Grevil, Lord Brook, (a man of great note in his age) hath a Poem lately printed for subject’s liberty, which I greatly wonder this age would bear. There are no books that have been printed these twenty years, that I more wonder at, (that ever they were endured) than Richard Hooker’s eight books of ecclesiastical polity, dedicated by Bishop Gauden to our present king, and vindicated by him; and these Poems of Sir Fulk Grevil, Lord Brook. Davie’s Nosce teipsum is an excellent Poem in opening the nature, faculties, and certain immortality of man’s soul. But I must confess, after all, that next the Scripture-Poems, there are none so savoury to me as Mr. George Herbert’s, and Mr. George Saiadys’s. I know that Cowley and others far exceed Herbert in wit and accurate composure. But (as Seneca takes with me above all his contemporaries, because he speaketh things by words, feelingly and seriously, like a man that is past jest, so) Herbert speaks to God like one that really believeth a God, and whose business in this world is most with God. Heart-work and Heaven-work make up his books. And Du Bartas is seriously divine. And George Sandy’s
Omne tulit punctum, dum miscuit utile dulci.
TO THE READER. V
His Scripture-Poems are an elegant and excellent paraphrase, but especially his Job, whom he hath restored to its original glory. O that he had turned the Psalms into metre fitted to the usual tunes. It did me good when Mrs. Wyat invited me to see Boxley-Abbey in Kent, to see upon the old stone wall in the garden, a summer-house with this inscription in great golden letters, that in that place Mr. G. Sandys, after his travels over the world, retired himself for his poetry and contemplations. And none are fitter to retire to God, than such as are tired with seeing all the vanities on earth.
Sure there is gomewhat of Heaven in Holy Poetry. It charmeth souls into loving harmony and concord. We have two brothers in this city, of whom one hath written a book, called a Friendly Debate, to make those seem odious or contemptible who are against his way. It had too much success, and so far destroyed love and concord, as will not easily be recovered in this age. His brother (Mr. Patrike of the Charter-house) hath with pious skill and seriousness turned into a new metre many of David’s Psalms, and the advantage for holy affections and harmony hath so far reconciled the nonconformists, that divers of them use his Psalms in their congregations, though they have their old ones, Rouse’s, Bishop King’s, Mr. White’s, the New England’s, Davison’s, the Scots, (agreed on by two nations) in competition with it. But I digress too far.
All that I have to say for these Fragments, is, I, That being fitted to women, and vulgar wits, which are the far greatest number, they may be useful to such, though contemptible to those of higher elevation and expectation. 2. And being suited to afflicted, sick, dying, troubled, sad, and doubting persons, the number of such is so great in these calamitous times, as may render them useful to more than I desire. 3. And if my present grief may but excuse the publication, he that needeth them not may let them alone.
Some of them need an exposition, which I must not give the world. 1 have added two or three printed here-VI TO THE READER.
tofore, that they may be altogether. The Lord by his merciful providence and his grace, tune up our dull and drooping souls to such joy lid praises, as may prepare us for his everlasting praise in Heaven. Amen.
London, at the Door of Eternity,
Aug. 7, 1081.
RICH. BAXTER.
POEMS.