The Romance of Biography (Vol 2 of 2‪)‬

The first Italian school of poetry, to which we owed our Surreys, our Spensers, and our Miltons, had now declined. The high contemplative tone of passion, the magnanimous and chivalrous homage paid to women, gradually gave way before the French taste and French gallantry, introduced, or at least encouraged and rendered fashionable, by Henrietta Maria and her gay household. The muse of amatory poetry (I presume there is such a Muse, though I know not to which of the Nine the title properly applies,) no longer walked the earth star crowned and vestal robed, "col dir pien d'intelletti, dolci ed alti", "with love upon her lips, and looks commercing with the skies;" she suited her garb to the fashion of the times, and tripped along in guise of an Arcadian princess, half regal, half pastoral, trailing a sheep hook crowned with flowers, and sparkling with foreign ornaments.