'May I find a woman rich, And of not too high a pitch!... May I find a woman wise, And her falsehood not disguise!... May I find a woman kind, And not wavering like the wind!...'
And, in truth, he talks throughout as if he did not expect to discover any such rarity. Everyone knows the little poem in which Ben Jonson details his preferences in women's dress, declaring that 'a sweet disorder' does more bewitch him 'than when art Is too precise in every part.' But elsewhere he paints for us, not a perfect feminine attire, but the faultless maid herself, as he would have her:
'I would have her fair and witty, Favouring more of Court than City, A little proud, but full of pity, Light and humorous in her toying, Oft building hopes and soon destroying... Neither too easy nor too hard, All extremes I would have barr'd.'
That, it would seem, was rare Ben's ideal.
Carew, it is notorious, professed to despise 'lovely cheeks or lips or eyes,' if they were not combined with 'A smooth and steadfast mind, Gentle thoughts, and calm desires.' A rosy cheek, a coral lip, and even star-like eyes, as he sagely said, would waste away. And in this somewhat priggish, and perhaps not wholly sincere, vein, he finds a rival in the anonymous bard who declared that he did not demand
'A crystal brow, the moon's despair, Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand, Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair,'
'A tender heart, a loyal mind, Which with temptation I would trust, Yet never link'd with error find--
'One in whose gentle bosom I Could pour my secret heart of woes, Like the care-burthen'd honey-fly That hides his murmurs in the rose.'
So Bedingfield, conceding to friend Damon 'the nymph that sparkles in her dress,' avows his own fondness for the maid 'whose cheeks the hand of Nature paints.' Of this young person he says:
'No art she knows or seeks to know; No charm to wealthy pride will owe; No gems, no gold she needs to wear; She shines intrinsically fair.'
Cowley, it will be remembered, in sketching his notion of true happiness, included in it the picture of
'A mistress moderately fair, And good as guardian angels are, Only beloved and loving me!'
With that 'one dear She'--and a few other things--he thought he could get on pretty comfortably. But probably at once the most obliging and most exigent of modern lovers was the sentimental gentleman to whose feelings Mrs. Bowen-Graves ('Stella') gave appropriate voice in the over-familiar 'My Queen.'
