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WILLIAM BROWNE.

name of Philarete in a pastoral poem; and Milton is supposed to have copied his plan in Lycidas. There is also a faint similarity in some of the sentiments and images. Browne has a very fine illustration of a

rose:

Look, as a sweet rose fairly budding forth

Betrays her beauties to th' enamour'd morn, Until some keen blast from the envious north Kills the sweet bud that was but newly born; Or else her rarest smells, delighting,

Make herself betray

Some white and curious hand, inviting
To pluck her thence away.

WILLIAM BROWNE (1590-1645) was a pastoral and descriptive poet, who, like Phineas and Giles Fletcher, adopted Spenser for his model. He was a native of Tavistock, in Devonshire, and the beautiful scenery of his native county seems to have inspired his early strains. His descriptions are vivid and true to nature. Browne was tutor to the Earl of Carnarvon, and on the death of the latter at the battle of Newbury in 1643, he received the patronage and lived in the family of the Earl of Pembroke. In this situation he realised a competency, and, according to Wood, purchased an estate. He died at Ottery-St-Mary (the birth-place of Coleridge) in 1645. Browne's works consist of Britannia's Pasto[A Descriptive Sketch.] rals, the first part of which was published in 1613, the second part in 1616. He wrote, also, a pastoral O what a rapture have I gotten now! poem of inferior merit, entitled, The Shepherd's Pipe. That age of gold, this of the lovely brow, In 1620, a masque by Browne was produced at Have drawn me from my song! I onward run court, called The Inner Temple Masque; but it was (Clean from the end to which I first begun), not printed till a hundred and twenty years after But ye, the heavenly creatures of the West, the author's death, transcribed from a manuscript In whom the virtues and the graces rest, in the Bodleian Library. As all the poems of Pardon! that I have run astray so long, Browne were produced before he was thirty years of And grow so tedious in so rude a song. age, and the best when he was little more than If you yourselves should come to add one grace twenty, we need not be surprised at their containing Unto a pleasant grove or such like place, marks of juvenility, and frequent traces of resem- Where, here, the curious cutting of a hedge, blance to previous poets, especially Spenser, whom There in a pond, the trimming of the sedge; he warmly admired. His pastorals obtained the Here the fine setting of well-shaded trees, approbation of Selden, Drayton, Wither, and Ben The walks there mounting up by small degrees, Jonson. Britannia's Pastorals are written in the The gravel and the green so equal lie, heroic couplet, and contain much beautiful descrip- It, with the rest, draws on your ling'ring eye: tive poetry. Browne had great facility of expression, Here the sweet smells that do perfume the air, and an intimate acquaintance with the phenomena Arising from the infinite repair of inanimate nature, and the characteristic features Of odoriferous buds, and herbs of price, of the English landscape. Why he has failed in (As if it were another paradise), maintaining his ground among his contemporaries, So please the smelling sense, that you are fain must be attributed to the want of vigour and con- Where last you walk'd to turn and walk again. densation in his works, and the almost total absence There the small birds with their harmonious notes of human interest. His shepherds and shepherdesses Sing to a spring that smileth as she floats: have nearly as little character as the silly sheep' For in her face a many dimples show, they tend; whilst pure description, that takes the And often skips as it did dancing go: place of sense,' can never permanently interest any Here further down an over-arched alley large number of readers. So completely had some That from a hill goes winding in a valley, of the poems of Browne vanished from the public You spy at end thereof a standing lake, view and recollection, that, had it not been for a Where some ingenious artist strives to make single copy of them possessed by the Rev. Thomas The water (brought in turning pipes of lead Warton, and which that poetical student and anti-Through birds of earth most lively fashioned) quary lent to be transcribed, it is supposed there To counterfeit and mock the sylvans all would have remained little of those works which In singing well their own set madrigal. their author fondly hoped would This with no small delight retains your ear, And makes you think none blest but who live there. Then in another place the fruits that be In gallant clusters decking each good tree, Invite your hand to crop them from the stem, And liking one, taste every sort of them : Then to the arbours walk, then to the bowers, Thence to the walks again, thence to the flowers, Then to the birds, and to the clear spring thence, Now pleasing one, and then another sense: Here one walks oft, and yet anew begin❜th, As if it were some hidden labyrinth.

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Keep his name enroll'd past his that shines
In gilded marble, or in brazen leaves.

Warton cites the following lines of Browne, as con-
taining an assemblage of the same images as the
morning picture in the L'Allegro of Milton :-

By this had chanticleer, the village cock,
Bidden the goodwife for her maids to knock ;
And the swart ploughman for his breakfast stayed,
That he might till those lands were fallow laid;
The hills and valleys here and there resound
With the re-echoes of the deep-mouth'd hound;
Each shepherd's daughter with her cleanly pail
Was come a-field to milk the morning's meal;
And ere the sun had climb'd the eastern hills,
To gild the muttering bourns and pretty rills,
Before the labouring bee had left the hive,
And nimble fishes, which in rivers dive,
Began to leap and catch the drowned fly,
I rose from rest, not infelicity.

[Evening.]

As in an evening, when the gentle air
Breathes to the sullen night a soft repair,

I oft have sat on Thames' sweet bank, to hear My friend with his sweet touch to charm mine ear: When he hath play'd (as well he can) some strain, That likes me, straight I ask the same again, And he, as gladly granting, strikes it o'er Browne celebrated the death of a friend under the With some sweet relish was forgot before:

I would have been content if he would play,
In that one strain, to pass the night away;
But, fearing much to do his patience wrong,
Unwillingly have ask'd some other song:
So, in this diff'ring key, though I could well
A many hours, but as few minutes tell,
Yet, lest mine own delight might injure you,
(Though loath so soon) I take my song anew.

[Night.]

The sable mantle of the silent night
Shut from the world the ever-joysome light.
Care fled away, and softest slumbers please
To leave the court for lowly cottages.
Wild beasts forsook their dens on woody hills,
And sleightful otters left the purling rills;
Rooks to their nests in high woods now were flung,
And with their spread wings shield their naked young.
When thieves from thickets to the cross-ways stir,
And terror frights the lonely passenger;
When nought was heard but now and then the howl
Of some vile cur, or whooping of the owl.

[Pastoral Employments.]

But since her stay was long: for fear the sun
Should find them idle, some of them begun
To leap and wrestle, others threw the bar,
Some from the company removed are
To meditate the songs they meant to play,
Or make a new round for next holiday;
Some, tales of love their love-sick fellows told;
Others were seeking stakes to pitch their fold.
This, all alone, was mending of his pipe;

FRANCIS QUARLES.

The writings of FRANCIS QUARLES (1592-1644) are more like those of a divine, or contemplative recluse, than of a busy man of the world, who held various public situations, and died at the age of fifty-two. Quarles was a native of Essex, educated at Cambridge, and afterwards a student of Lincoln's Inn. He was successively cup-bearer to Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, secretary to Archbishop Usher, and chronologer to the city of London. He espoused the cause of Charles I., and was so harassed by the opposite party, who injured his property, and plundered him of his books and rare manuscripts, that his death was attributed to the affliction and ill health caused by these disasters. Notwithstanding his loyalty, the works of Quarles have a tinge of Puritanism and ascetic piety that might have molsist of various pieces-Job Militant, Sion's Elegies, lified the rage of his persecutors. His poems conThe History of Queen Esther, Argalus and Parthenia, The Morning Muse, The Feast of Worms, and The Divine Emblems. The latter were published in 1645, and were so popular, that Phillips, Milton's nephew, styles Quarles the darling of our plebeian judgments.' The eulogium still holds good to some extent, for the Divine Emblems, with their quaint and grotesque illustrations, are still found in the cottages of our peasants. After the Restoration, when everything sacred and serious was either neglected or made the subject of ribald jests, Quarles seems to have been entirely lost to the public. Even Pope, who, had he read him, must have relished his lively fancy and poetical expression, notices only his bathos and absurdity. The better and more tolerant taste of modern times has admitted the divine emblemist into the 'laurelled fraternity of poets,' where,

That, for his lass, sought fruits, most sweet, most ripe. if he does not occupy a conspicuous place, he is at
Here (from the rest), a lovely shepherd's boy
Sits piping on a hill, as if his joy
Would still endure, or else that age's frost
Should never make him think what he had lost,
Yonder a shepherdess knits by the springs,
Her hands still keeping time to what she sings ;
Or seeming, by her song, those fairest hands
Were comforted in working. Near the sands
Of some sweet river, sits a musing lad,
That moans the loss of what he sometime had,
His love by death bereft: when fast by him
An aged swain takes place, as near the brim
Of's grave as of the river.

[The Syren's Song.]

[From the 'Inner Temple Masque."]

Steer hither, steer your winged pines,
All beaten mariners,

Here lie undiscover'd mines

A prey to passengers;
Perfumes far sweeter than the best
Which make the phoenix urn and nest;
Fear not your ships,

Nor any to oppose you save our lips;
But come on shore,

Where no joy dies till love hath gotten more.

For swelling waves our panting breasts,
Where never storms arise,
Exchange; and be awhile our guests;
For stars, gaze on our eyes.

The compass, love shall hourly sing,
And as he goes about the ring,

We will not miss

To tell each point he nameth with a kiss.

least sure of his due measure of homage and attention. Emblems, or the union of the graphic and poetic arts, to inculcate lessons of morality and religion, had been tried with success by Peacham and Wither. Quarles, however, made Herman Hugo, a Jesuit, his model, and from the 'Pia Desideria' of this author, copied a great part of his prints and mottoes. His style is that of his age-studded with conceits, often extravagant in conception, and presenting the most outré and ridiculous combinations. There is strength, however, amidst his contortions, and true wit mixed up with the false. His epigrammatic point, uniting wit and devotion, has been considered the precursor of Young's Night Thoughts.

Stanzas.

As when a lady, walking Flora's bower,
Picks here a pink, and there a gilly-flower,
Now plucks a violet from her purple bed,
And then a primrose, the year's maidenhead,
There nips the brier, here the lover's pansy,
Shifting her dainty pleasures with her fancy,
This on her arms, and that she lists to wear
Upon the borders of her curious hair;
At length a rose-bud (passing all the rest)
She plucks, and bosoms in her lily breast.

The Shortness of Life.

And what's a life?-a weary pilgrimage,
Whose glory in one day doth fill the stage
With childhood, manhood, and decrepit age.
And what's a life-the flourishing array
Of the proud summer meadow, which to-day
Wears her green plush, and is to-morrow hay.

9

Read on this dial, how the shades devour
My short-lived winter's day! hour eats up hour;
Alas! the total's but from eight to four.

Behold these lilies, which thy hands have made,
Fair copies of my life, and open laid

To view, how soon they droop, how soon they fade!
Shade not that dial, night will blind too soon;
My non-aged day already points to noon;
How simple is my suit !--how small my boon!

Nor do I beg this slender inch to wile
The time away, or falsely to beguile

My thoughts with joy: here's nothing worth a smile.

Mors Tua.

Can he be fair, that withers at a blast!
Or he be strong, that airy breath can cast?
Can he be wise, that knows not how to live?
Or he be rich, that nothing hath to give?
Can he be young, that's feeble, weak, and wan?
So fair, strong, wise, so rich, so young is man.
So fair is man, that death (a parting blast)
Blasts his fair flower, and makes him earth at last;
So strong is man, that with a gasping breath
He totters, and bequeaths his strength to death;
So wise is man, that if with death he strive,
His wisdom cannot teach him how to live;
So rich is man, that (all his debts being paid)
His wealth's the winding-sheet wherein he's laid;
So young is man, that, broke with care and sorrow,
He's old enough to-day, to die to-morrow:
Why bragg'st thou then, thou worm of five feet long?
Thou'rt neither fair, nor strong, nor wise, nor rich, nor
young.

The Vanity of the World.

False world, thou ly'st thou canst not lend
The least delight:

Thy favours cannot gain a friend,

They are so slight:

Thy morning pleasures make an end
To please at night:

Poor are the wants that thou supply'st,

And yet thou vaunt'st, and yet thou vy'st

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I love (and have some cause to love) the earth;
She is my Maker's creature; therefore good:
She is my mother, for she gave me birth;
She is my tender nurse-she gives me food;

But what's a creature, Lord, compared with thee!
Or what's my mother, or my nurse to me?

I love the air her dainty sweets refresh
My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me ;
Her shrill-mouth'd quire sustains me with their flesh,
And with their polyphonian notes delight me:

But what's the air or all the sweets that she
Can bless my soul withal, compared to thee?

I love the sea she is my fellow-creature,
My careful purveyor; she provides me store:
She walls me round; she makes my diet greater;
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore:

But, Lord of oceans, when compared with thee,
What is the ocean, or her wealth to me?

To heaven's high city I direct my journey,
Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,
Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky:

But what is heaven, great God, compared to thee?
Without thy presence heaven 's no heaven to me.
Without thy presence earth gives no refection;
Without thy presence sea affords no treasure;
Without thy presence air 's a rank infection;
Without thy presence heaven itself no pleasure:
If not possess'd, if not enjoy'd in thee,
What's earth, or sea, or air, or heaven to me!

With heaven; fond earth, thou boasts; false world, The highest honours that the world can boast,

thou ly'st.

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Are subjects far too low for my desire;
The brightest beams of glory are (at most)
But dying sparkles of thy living fire:

The loudest flames that earth can kindle, be
But nightly glow-worms, if compared to thee.
Without thy presence wealth is bags of cares;
Wisdom but folly; joy disquiet-sadness:
Friendship is treason, and delights are snares;
Pleasures but pain, and mirth but pleasing madness;
Without thee, Lord, things be not what they be,
Nor have they being, when compared with thee.
In having all things, and not thee, what have I
Not having thee, what have my labours got?
Let me enjoy but thee, what further crave I!
And having thee alone, what have I not?

I wish nor sea nor land; nor would I be
Possess'd of heaven, heaven unpossess'd of thee.

Decay of Life.

The day grows old, the low-pitch'd lamp hath made
No less than treble shade,

And the descending damp doth now prepare

To uncurl bright Titan's hair;

Whose western wardrobe now begins to unfold
Her purples, fringed with gold,

To clothe his evening glory, when the alarms

On earth; vain man, thou dot'st; vain earth, thou ly'st. Of rest shall call to rest in restless Thetis' armis.

Nature now calls to supper, to refresh The spirits of all flesh;

The toiling ploughman drives his thirsty teams,
To taste the slipp'ry streams:
The droiling swineherd knocks away, and feasts
His hungry whining guests:

The boxbill ouzle, and the dappled thrush,
Like hungry rivals meet at their beloved bush.
And now the cold autumnal dews are seen

To cobweb every green;

And by the low-shorn rowans doth appear
The fast-declining year:

The sapless branches doff their summer suits,

And wain their winter fruits;

And stormy blasts have forced the quaking trees

To wrap their trembling limbs in suits of mossy frieze.

Our wasted taper now hath brought her light

To the next door to night;

Her sprightless flame grown with great snuff, doth turn Sad as her neighb'ring urn:

Her slender inch, that yet unspent remains,

Lights but to further pains,

And in a silent language bids her guest

Prepare his weary limbs to take eternal rest.

Now careful age hath pitch'd her painful plough
Upon the furrow'd brow;

And snowy blasts of discontented care

Have blanch'd the falling hair:

Suspicious envy mix'd with jealous spite

Disturbs his weary night:

He threatens youth with age; and now, alas!
He owns not what he is, but vaunts the man he was.

Grey hairs peruse thy days, and let thy past

Read lectures to thy last:

Those hasty wings that hurried them away
Will give these days no day:

The constant wheels of nature scorn to tire

Until her works expire:

That blast that nipp'd thy youth will ruin thee; That hand that shook the branch will quickly strike

the tree.

To Chastity.

Oh, Chastity!-the flower of the soul,

How is thy perfect fairness turn'd to foul!
How are thy blossoms blasted all to dust,
By sudden light'ning of untamed lust!
How hast thou thus defil'd thy ev'ry feet,
Thy sweetness that was once, how far from sweet!
Where are thy maiden smiles, thy blushing cheek-
Thy lamb-like countenance, so fair, so meek?
Where is that spotless flower, that while-ere
Within thy lily bosom thou did'st wear?
Has wanton Cupid snatched it? hath his dart
Sent courtly tokens to thy simple heart?
Where dost thou bide? the country half disclaims thee;
The city wonders when a body names thee:
Or have the rural woods engrost thee there,
And thus forestall'd our empty markets here?
Sure thou art not; or kept where no man shows thee;
Or chang'd so much scarce man or woman knows thee.

GEORGE HERBERT.

GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1632) was of noble birth, though chiefly known as a pious country clergyman-'holy George Herbert,' who

The lowliest duties on himself did lay.

His father was descended from the earls of Pembroke, and lived in Montgomery Castle, Wales, where the poet was born. His elder brother was the celebrated

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mitted his works to him before publication. The poet was also in favour with King James, who gave him a sinecure office worth £120 per annum, which Queen Elizabeth had formerly given to Sir Philip Sidney. With this,' says Izaak Walton, and his annuity, and the advantages of his college, and

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of his oratorship, he enjoyed his genteel humour for clothes and court-like company, and seldom looked towards Cambridge unless the king were there, but then he never failed.' The death of the king and of two powerful friends, the Duke of Richmond and Marquis of Hamilton, destroyed Herbert's court hopes, and he entered into sacred orders. He was first prebend of Layton Ecclesia (the church of which he rebuilt), and afterwards was made rector of Bemerton, in Wiltshire, where he passed the remainder of his life. After describing the poet's marriage on the third day after his first interview with the lady, old Izaak Walton relates, with characteristic simplicity and minuteness, a matrimonial scene preparatory to their removal to Bemerton:The third day after he was made rector of Bemerton, and had changed his sword and silk clothes into a canonical habit (he had probably never done duty regularly at Layton Ecclesia), he returned so habited with his friend Mr Woodnot to Bainton; and immediately after he had seen and saluted his wife, he said to her, "You are now a minister's wife, and must now so far forget your father's house as not to claim a precedence of any of your parishioners; for you are to know that a priest's wife can challenge no precedence or place but that which she purchases by her obliging humility; and I am sure places so purchased do best become them. And let me tell you, I am so good a herald as to assure you that this is truth." And she was so meek a wife, as to assure him it was no vexing news to her, and that he should see her observe it with a cheerful willingness.' Herbert discharged his clerical duties with saint*The rectory of Bemerton is now held by another poet, the Rev. W. Lisle Bowles.

like zeal and purity, but his strength was not equal to his self-imposed tasks, and he died at the early age of thirty-nine. His principal production is entitled, The Temple, or Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations. It was not printed till the year after his death, but was so well received, that Walton says twenty thousand copies were sold in a few years after the first impression. The lines on Virtue

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

are the best in the collection; but even in them we find, what mars all the poetry of Herbert, ridiculous conceits or coarse unpleasant similes. His taste was very inferior to his genius. The most sacred subject could not repress his love of fantastic imagery, or keep him for half a dozen verses in a serious and natural strain. Herbert was a musician, and sang his own hymns to the lute or viol; and indications of this may be found in his poems, which have sometimes a musical flow and harmonious cadence. It may be safely said, however, that Herbert's poetry alone would not have preserved his name, and that he is indebted for the reputation he enjoys, to his excellent and amiable character, embalmed in the pages of good old Walton, to his prose work, the Country Parson, and to the warm and fervent picty which gave a charm to his life and breathes through all his writings.

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'For if I should,' said he,
'Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in nature, not the God of nature-
So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest-
But keep them, with repining restlessness-
Let him be rich and weary; that, at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.'

Matin Hymn.

I cannot ope mine eyes

But thou art ready there to catch

My mourning soul and sacrifice,

Then we must needs for that day make a match.

My God, what is a heart?

Silver, or gold, or precious stone,

Or star, or rainbow, or a part

Of all these things, or all of them in one?

My God, what is a heart!

That thou should'st it so eye and woo,
Pouring upon it all thy art,

As if that thou hadst nothing else to do

Indeed, man's whole estate

Amounts (and richly) to serve thee;

He did not heaven and earth create,
Yet studies them, not him by whom they be.
Teach me thy love to know;

That this new light which now I see
May both the work and workman show;
Then by a sunbeam I will climb to thee.

Sunday.

O day most calm, most bright, The fruit of this the next world's bud, The indorsement of supreme delight, Writ by a Friend, and with his blood; The couch of time, care's balm and bay: The week were dark, but for thy light; Thy torch doth show the way. The other days and thou Make up one man; whose face thou art, Knocking at heaven with thy brow: The workydays are the back-part; The burden of the week lies there, Making the whole to stoop and bow, Till thy release appear.

Man had straight forward gone
To endless death: but thou dost pull
And turn us round, to look on one,
Whom, if we were not very dull,
We could not choose but look on still;
Since there is no place so alone,

The which he doth not fill.
Sundays the pillars are,

On which heaven's palace arched lies:
The other days fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities.
They are the fruitful beds and borders
In God's rich garden: that is bare,

Which parts their ranks and orders.
The Sundays of man's life,
Threaded together on Time's string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal glorious King.

On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope;
Blessings are plentiful and rife-

More plentiful than hope.

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