Note 354 — The Drawing Room. (continued 2)

The talents of Richard Braithwait do not appear to me to be so generally known and highly commended as they merit to be. His Nursery for Gentry, 1651, 4to. (with his portrait in an engraved frontispiece by Marshall), is written with the author's usual point and spirit; but, as I humbly conceive, is a less interesting performance than his English Gentleman, 1633, 4to. (with a frontispiece by Marshall), or English Gentlewoman, 1631, 4to. (also with a frontispiece by the same artist). There is a terseness and vigour in Braithwait's style which is superior to that of his contemporary, Peacham; who seems to excel in a calm, easy, and graceful manner of composition. Both these eminent writers are distinguished for their scholastic and gentlemanly attainments; but in the "divine art of poesy" (in which light I mean here more particularly to display the powers of Braithwait) Peacham has no chance of being considered even as a respectable competitor with his contemporary. Mr. George Ellis, in his pleasing Specimens of the early English Poets, vol. iii., p. 103, has selected two songs of Braithwait "from a work not enumerated by Wood;" calling the author, "a noted wit and poet." His fame, however, is not likely to "gather strength" from these effusions. It is from some passages in The Arcadian Princesse—a work which has been already, and more than once, referred to, but which is too dislocated and heterogeneous to recommend to a complete perusal—it is from some passages in this work that I think Braithwait shines with more lustre as a poet than in any to which his name is affixed. Take the following miscellaneous ones, by way of specimens. They are sometimes a little faulty in rhyme and melody: but they are never lame from imbecility.