Apparently to make one of a set with the _Nativity_, he began to write an ode on the _Passion_, but, finding the subject "above the years he had when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished." The fragment is full of unworthy, though skilful, and, for such, powerful conceits, but is especially interesting as showing how even Milton, trying to write about what he felt, but without yet having generated thoughts enow concerning the subject itself, could only fall back on conventionalities. Happy the young poet the wisdom of whose earliest years was such that he recognized his mistake almost at the outset, and dropped the attempt! Amongst the stanzas there is, however, one of exceeding loveliness: He, sovereign priest, stooping his regal head, That dropped with odorous oil down his fair eyes, Poor fleshly tabernacle enteréd, His starry front low-roofed beneath the skies. Oh what a masque was there! what a disguise! Yet more! the stroke of death he must abide; Then lies him meekly down fast by his brethren's side. In this it will be seen that he has left the jubilant measure of the _Hymn_, and returned to the more stately and solemn rhyme-royal of its overture, as more suited to his subject. Milton could not be wrong in his music, even when he found the quarry of his thought too hard to work. CHAPTER XV. EDMUND WALLER, THOMAS BROWN, AND JEREMY TAYLOR. Edmund Waller, born in 1605, was three years older than Milton; but I had a fancy for not dividing Herbert and Milton. As a poet he had a high reputation for many years, gained chiefly, I think, by a regard to literary proprieties, combined with wit. He is graceful sometimes; but what in his writings would with many pass for grace, is only smoothness and the absence of faults. His horses were not difficult to drive. He dares little and succeeds in proportion--occasionally, however, flashing out into true song. In politics he had no character--let us hope from weakness rather than from selfishness; yet, towards the close of his life, he wrote some poems which reveal a man not unaccustomed to ponder sacred things, and able to express his thoughts concerning them with force and justice. From a poem called _Of Divine Love_, I gather the following very remarkable passages: I wish they had been enforced by greater nobility of character. Still they are in themselves true. Even where we have no proof of repentance, we may see plentiful signs of a growth towards it. We cannot tell how long the truth may of necessity require to interpenetrate the ramifications of a man's nature. By slow degrees he discovers that here it is not, and there it is not. Again and again, and yet again, a man finds that he must be born with a new birth.