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479d Quarles, Francis. (1592-1644) Divine poems: containing the history
of {Jonah. Ester. Job. Sampson. Sions {Sonets. Elegies. Written and
newly augmented, by Fra: Qvarles.
London: Printed by M.F. for I. Marriot, and are to be sold
at his shop in St. Dunstans church-yard in Fleet-street, 1633
$1,100 Octavo, 5.5 x 3.6 in. Second edition, with
the first appearance of “Mildreiados.” The
engraved frontispiece is bound before the title.
“Francis Quarles, poet and essayist, born in Romford, Essex, the son of
a surveyor-general, or conveyor of supplies, for the Navy, Quarles graduated
from Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1608 and went on to study law, with
very little interest in the subject, at Lincoln’s Inn. In 1613 he was with
the diplomatic mission accompanying Princess Elizabeth to the Palatinate, and
from 1620 to about 1630 was in Ireland as secretary to James Usher, archbishop
of Armagh, the Biblical scholar now remembered for his attempt to give precise
historical dates to events in the Old Testament.”
“Quarles’ first book, A Feast of Worms Set Forth in a Poem of the
History of Jonah (1620), is a grim Biblical paraphrase in pentameter couplets
setting the tone of his subsequent scriptural narratives in verse, among which
are Hadassa, or the History of Queen Ester; Job Militant: with Meditations; Sion’s
Sonnets, a rendition of the Song of Solomon in couplets with interspersed prose
meditations; and The History of Samson. His Divine Poems (1630) include all of
his previously published works except the poem ‘Argalus and Parthenia’ (1629),
a secular romance in imitation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia.”
“In a way, Quarles was ideally equipped for the office of poet laureate
of the Protestant masses: his sensibilities were baroque, his style vaguely metaphysical;
he conveys George Herbert’s piety and simplicity without taxing readers
with Herbert’s angular wit and emotional depth; he riddles in hieroglyphics
like Richard Crashaw, another baroque poet, but he avoids Crashaw’s ‘papist’ ritualism
with humid sensuality. Like George Wither and John Bunyan, Quarles was greatly
admired by Puritans, whom, as a devout Anglican and Royalist, Quarles heatedly
attacked in two prose pamphlets, The New Distemper (1645) and Judgment and Mercy
for Afflicted Souls (1646).” (Ruoff)
STC 20534; Grolier’s Wither to Prior,
# 700; Horden VII.1
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