“A cuff neglectful and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note
In the tempestuous petticoat.”

Then Suckling strikes up a reckless military air; a warrior he is who has seen many a siege of hearts—­hearts that capitulated, or held out like Troy-town, and the impatient assailant whistles: 

“Quit, quit, for shame:  this will not move,
This cannot take her. 
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her—­
The devil take her.”

So he rides away, curling his moustache, hiding his defeat in a big inimitable swagger.  It is a pleasanter piece in which Suckling, after a long leaguer of a lady’s heart, finds that Captain honour is governor of the place, and surrender hopeless.  So he departs with a salute: 

“March, march (quoth I), the word straight give,
Let’s lose no time but leave her: 
That giant upon air will live,
And hold it out for ever.”

Lovelace is even a better type in his rare good things of the military amorist and poet.  What apology of Lauzun’s, or Bussy Rabutin’s for faithlessness could equal this?—­

   “Why dost thou say I am forsworn,
      Since thine I vowed to be? 
   Lady, it is already morn;
      It was last night I swore to thee
      That fond impossibility.”

Has “In Memoriam” nobler numbers than the poem, from exile, to Lucasta?—­

   “Our Faith and troth
   All time and space controls,
   Above the highest sphere we meet,
   Unseen, unknown, and greet as angels greet.”

How comes it that in the fierce fighting days the soldiers were so tuneful, and such scholars?  In the first edition of Lovelace’s “Lucasta” there is a flock of recommendatory verses, English, Latin, even Greek, by the gallant Colonel’s mess-mates and comrades.  What guardsman now writes like Lovelace, and how many of his friends could applaud him in Greek?  You, my Gifted, are happily of a pacific disposition, and tune a gentle lyre.  Is it not lucky for swains like you that the soldiers have quite forsworn sonneting?  When a man was a rake, a poet, a warrior, all in one, what chance had a peaceful minor poet like you or me, Gifted, against his charms?  Sedley, when sober, must have been an invincible rival—­invincible, above all, when he pretended constancy: 

   “Why then should I seek further store,
      And still make love anew? 
   When change itself can give no more
      ’Tis easy to be true.”

How infinitely more delightful, musical, and captivating are those Cavalier singers—­their numbers flowing fair, like their scented lovelocks—­than the prudish society poets of Pope’s day.  “The Rape of the Lock” is very witty, but through it all don’t you mark the sneer of the contemptuous, unmanly little wit, the crooked dandy?  He jibes among his compliments; and I do not wonder that Mistress Arabella Fermor was not conciliated by his long-drawn cleverness and polished lines.  I prefer Sackville’s verses “written at sea the night before an engagement”: