Rowlands at his best was but an indifferent poet,--hardly more
than a penny-a-liner. In his satirical pieces and epigrams, and in
that bit of genuine comedy, "Tis Merrie vvhen Gossips meete," his
work does have a real literary value, and is distinctly interesting as
presenting a vivid picture of London life at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. In "The Bride," it must be confessed, Rowlands
falls below his own best work. Yet the poem is by no means wholly
lacking in interest. If not his best work, "The Bride" is by no means
his worst. Like most of his poems, it is written in an heroic stanza
of six lines, and, as is not so common with him, is in dialogue form.
The dialogue for the most part is well sustained and sprightly. The
story of the birth of Merlin, it is true, seems to have been inserted
mainly to fill out the required number of pages; but this digression has an
interest of its own, in that the name here given to Merlin's mother,
"Lady Adhan," does not appear in the ordinary versions of the legend.
Of Rowlands's life almost nothing is known: that little is told in the
Memoir by Mr. Gosse prefixed to the Hunterian Club edition, and by
Mr. Lee in the Dictionary of National Biography, and need not be
repeated here.
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