In this poem (full of beauties) there are two passages of preeminent merit.  The first is where the lover, after a flight of rapturous commendation, expresses his wonder why all men that are about his mistress, even to her very servants, do not view her with the same eyes that he does.

     “Sometime I do admire
  All men burn not with desire: 
  Nay, I muse her servants are not
  Pleading love; but 0! they dare not. 
  And I therefore wonder, why
  They do not grow sick and die. 
  Sure they would do so, but that,
  By the ordinance of fate,
  There is some concealed thing,
  So each gazer limiting,
  He can see no more of merit,
  Than beseems his worth and spirit. 
  For in her a grace there shines,
  That o’er-daring thoughts confines,
  Making worthless men despair
  To be loved of one so fair. 
  Yea, the destinies agree,
  Some good judgments blind should be,
  And not gain the power of knowing
  Those rare beauties in her growing. 
  Reason doth as much imply: 
  For, if every judging eye,
  Which beholdeth her, should there
  Find what excellences are,
  All, o’ercome by those perfections,
  Would be captive to affections. 
  So, in happiness unblest,
  She for lovers should not rest.”

The other is, where he has been comparing her beauties to gold, and stars, and the most excellent things in nature; and, fearing to be accused of hyperbole, the common charge against poets, vindicates himself by boldly taking upon him, that these comparisons are no hyperboles; but that the best things in nature do, in a lover’s eye, fall short of those excellences which he adores in her.

  “What pearls, what rubies can
  Seem so lovely fair to man,
  As her lips whom he doth love,
  When in sweet discourse they move,
  Or her lovelier teeth, the while
  She doth bless him with a smile? 
  Stars indeed fair creatures be;
  Yet amongst us where is he
  Joys not more the whilst he lies
  Sunning in his mistress’ eyes,
  Than in all the glimmering light
  Of a starry winter’s night? 
  Note the beauty of an eye—­
  And if aught you praise it by
  Leave such passion in your mind,
  Let my reason’s eye be blind. 
  Mark if ever red or white
  Any where gave such delight,
  As when they have taken place
  In a worthy woman’s face.

* * * * *

  “I must praise her as I may,
  Which I do mine own rude way,
  Sometimes setting forth her glories
  By unheard of allegories “—­&c.

To the measure in which these lines are written the wits of Queen Anne’s days contemptuously gave the name of Namby-Pamby, in ridicule of Ambrose Philips, who has used it in some instances, as in the lines on Cuzzoni, to my feeling at least, very deliciously; but Wither, whose darling measure it seems to have been, may show, that in skilful hands it is capable of expressing the subtilest movements of passion.  So true it is, which Drayton seems to have felt, that it is the poet who modifies the metre, not the metre the poet; in his own words, that