or that he possest


'Lucan's bold heights match'd to staid Virgil's care,
Martial's quick salt, joined to Musaeus' tongue.'


This superabundance of eulogy, when we remember the men and the age
from which it comes, tempts one to form such a conception of
Cartwright as, indeed, the portrait prefixed to his works (ed. 1651)
gives us; the offspring of an over-educated and pedantic age, highly
stored with everything but strength and simplicity; one in whom
genius has been rather shaped (perhaps cramped) than developed: but
genius was present, without a doubt, under whatsoever artificial
trappings; and Ben Jonson spoke but truth when he said, 'My son
Cartwright writes all like a man.' It is impossible to open a page
of 'The Lady Errant,' 'The Royal Slave,' 'The Ordinary,' or 'Love's
Convert,' without feeling at once that we have to do with a man of a
very different stamp from any (Massinger perhaps alone excepted) who
was writing between 1630 and 1640. The specific gravity of the
poems, so to speak, is far greater than that of any of his
contemporaries; everywhere is thought, fancy, force, varied learning.
He is never weak or dull; though he fails often enough, is often
enough wrong-headed, fantastical, affected, and has never laid bare
the deeper arteries of humanity, for good or for evil. Neither is he
altogether an original thinker; as one would expect, he has over-read
himself: but then he has done so to good purpose. If he imitates,
he generally equals. The table of fare in 'The Ordinary' smacks of
Rabelais or Aristophanes: but then it is worthy of either; and if
one cannot help suspecting that 'The Ordinary' never would have been