The Poems of Lord Fairfax. 247 



of the Caroline and Commonwealth period read and thought. They 

 are like an old diary in which a great man has jotted down a hst 

 of the books he owns, or of poems he has memorized : they are 

 like a package of old letters, in which the writer teUs us of his 

 favorite authors and his literary tastes. It is to be observed that 

 this moralist, who mentions but one English writer— his great-uncle — 

 turns to French literature. La Solitude is certainly not only Saint- 

 Amant's best piece of work, but one of the finest French poems 

 of the period, and the evident admiration of Fairfax for it speaks 

 well for his taste. Though Saint-Amant had twice visited London 

 and was possibly known there as a poet, only two other unimpor- 

 tant translations of his verse have been noticed in EngHsh literature.^ 

 It is worthy of mention that Saint-Amant himself had some very 

 pronounced opinions concerning Fairfax, who probably never read 

 the Frenchman's Epigramme Endiable'e sur Fairfax?- 



There is another interesting point concerning La Solitude. It is 

 well known that in 1650 Andrew Marvell came to Appleton House 

 as a tutor for Mary Fairfax. He had already written verse, but it 

 had not been nature-poetry; his grotesque Flecnoe and his absurd 

 verses Upon the Death of Lord Hastings have nothing of the meadow 



* See A. H. Upham, The Frmch Influence in English Literature from the 

 Accession of Elizabeth to the Restoration, New York, 1908, pp. 345, 405, 409, 

 412 It is interesting to read Saint-Amant's brief reference to Ben Jonson 

 in his L' Albion. 



^ Je crois qu"il doit bien estre en peine, 



L'execrable tyran qui preside aux enfers, 

 Qnand, dans les feux et dans les fers, 

 11 songe ail noir object des foudres de ma liaine; 

 Son vieux sceptre enfume tremble en sa liere main: 

 II redonte Fairfax, ce prodige inliumain; 



II craint que ce monstre n'aspire 

 Au degre le phis liaut de son horrible (^mpire, 

 Le degre le plus bant est celuy le ])lus l)as, 



C'est on ce prince des sabats, 

 Des endroits les plus clairs aux endroits les plus soinbres, 



Tomba pour regner sur les ombres ; 

 C'est la, dis-je, qu'il craint que ])ar (iuelque attentat. 



Que par quelque moyen oblique, 

 Fairfax n'aille du moins renverser son estat 



Pour en faire uue repu])lique. 

 Et voila les raisons qui Tout fait hcsiter 

 Jusqu'a cette lieuie a I'emporter. 

 Octivres Completes de Saint-Amant (Paris, 1H55), vol. 1, y. \~cl. 



