An earnest desire to rescue from oblivion the many beautiful thoughts and curious conceits pervading the verses of this poet, has induced the preparation of our article. These songs served to lighten the cares of the troublesome reign of Charles I., and, set to music, were the favorite melodies of his time. In an age when gallantry was the chief of virtues, and the smiles and encouragement of the gentler sex the sure reward that awaited every laudable undertaking. Carew seems to have devoted his talents to the ladies. In smooth and gentle verse he celebrated their varied charms—or in ardent strains declared his own impassioned admiration and love. The cruel glances of the eyes of his mistress he deprecates in lines like these— I’ll love no more those cruel eyes of hers, Which, pleased or angered, still are murderers, For if she dart, like lightning, through the air, Her beams of wrath, she kills me with despair, If she behold me with a pleasing eye, I surfeit with excess of joy and die. And he mourns in touching melancholy verse the death of the loved one, and in sweet strains laments The purest soul, that e’er was sent Into a clayey tenement, Informed this dust, but the weak mould Could the great guest no longer hold, The substance was too pure, the flame Too glorious, that hither came. Does he celebrate the beauties of the natural world, he is sure to institute a comparison of those beauties with the charms of his mistress—and in his glowing language, “winter’s snow-white robes” “and blue-eyed spring” welcomed to the earth “by a choir of chirping minstrels” shrink into insignificance by the comparison. Does he pine away, banished from the presence of his mistress, he compares himself with happy conceit “to one far from the shore in a storm-beaten boat, where love is the pilot,” but o’ercome with fear Of her displeasure, dares not homeward steer. Indeed, the warmth of his verse, and its flow of happy conceits, induced Sir William Davenant to call him “our English Anacreon”—but this perhaps is going too far; although adopting the words of Moore, applied to Anacreon, we might say of Carew—“That his descriptions are sometimes warm, but the warmth is in the ideas, not the words; he is often sportive, without being wanton, ardent, without being licentious.” Still, the distance between Carew and Anacreon is immeasurably great—the singular beauty of “The Tean Bard”—his copiousness of expression, his easy and joyous gayety—the enthusiasm of the grape pervading his songs,—has never yet been equaled by his numerous pretended imitators; who too often have sought in grossness of allusion, and the vulgar rant of intoxication, for sources of resemblance.