The Poems of Lord Fairfax. 245 
come from the pen of the general rather than from the tutor of 
his daughter.? 
To observe for one’s self, to describe one’s feelings, demands a 
certain amount of originality, and this is precisely what Fairfax 
lacked. The greater part of his religious verse was paraphrase, 
and we naturally look for translation in his secular poems. Pages 
602—10 of the manuscript are taken, he tells us, from the French, the 
Italian, the Latin. With the exception of the Mazarinades, all these 
translations are directed against Rome, showing his strong Puritan 
sympathies. It is interesting to notice that when he translates 
Petrarch he does not choose the sonnets to Laura, but 7he Char- 
acter of the Romish Church?  Petrarchism, brought in by Wyatt 
and Surrey a century before, had spent its force, and the lyrics of 
Philip Ayres, 1687, fill the last book that shows the old sway of 
the founder of the modern lyric. As confirmation of Fairfax’s lack 
of skill in writing, it is noticeable that he is unable to reproduce 
the sonnet form, and turns the quatorzains into poems of twelve 
lines. 
Eight pages of translation, however, constitute but a small part 
of his secular verse. As we read it, we are impressed by the con- 
trasts it shows, contrasts that can not be explained by assuming 
that certain poems are separated by long intervals of time. Lady 
Carey had written to Fairfax a metrical epistle on the death of his 
wife, and he felt called upon to answer it. Knowing his devotion 
to Lady Fairfax, we expect him to rise above himself under the 
inspiration of his grief, but his thought is so trivial, and so feebly 
expressed, that Zo the Lady Cary Upon her Verses on my deare 
Wife is one of the poorest poems. A few lines will show this more 
plainly than any comment: 
Madam 
Could I a Tribute of my thanks express 
As you have done in love and purer verse, 
On my best selfe then I might Justly raise 
Your Elogy t’ Encomiums of your Prayse 
And soe forgett the Subject that did move 
Me to a thankfulness as ’t did you to love. 
O ’twere to great a Crime but pray allow 

1 See Marvell’s Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland. 
2 Sonnets, De Vario Argumento, Nos, 14 and 16. 
3 Lyric Poems, made in Imitation of the Italians, London, 1687. 
