SIR THOMAS OVERBURY Was born in 1581, and perished in the Tower of London, 1613, by a fate that is too well known. The compassion of the public for a man of worth, "whose spirit still walked unrevenged amongst them," together with the contrast of his ideal Wife with the Countess of Essex, who was his murderess, attached an interest and popularity to his poem, and made it pass through sixteen editions before the year 1653. His "Characters, or Witty Descriptions of the Properties of sundry Persons," is a work of considerable merit; but unfortunately his prose, as well as his verse, has a dryness and quaintness that seem to oppress the natural movement of his thoughts. As a poet, he has few imposing attractions: his beauties must be fetched by repeated perusal. They are those of solid reflection, predominating over, but not extinguishing, sensibility; and there is danger of the reader neglecting, under the coldness and ruggedness of his manner, the manly but unostentatious moral feeling that is conveyed in his maxims, which are sterling and liberal, if we can only pardon a few obsolete ideas on female education. THEN may I trust her body with her mind, : The certain remedy; but doubt hath none. And be that thought once stirr'd, 'twill never die, Nor will the grief more mild by custom prove, Nor yet amendment can it satisfy; The anguish more or less is as our love; Give me, next good, an understanding wife, By nature wise, not learned by much art; Besides her inborn virtue fortify; They are most firmly good that best know why. A passive understanding to conceive, What it finds malleable (it) makes frail, And doth not add more ballast, but more sail. Books are a part of man's prerogative; In formal ink they thoughts and voices hold, So fair at least let me imagine her ; * Beauty in decent shape and colour lies; Colours the matter are, and shape the soul; The soul which from no single part doth rise, But from the just proportion of the whole ;— And is a mere spiritual harmony Of every part united in the eye. No circumstance doth beauty fortify Like graceful fashion, native comeliness; But let that fashion more to modesty Tend than assurance-Modesty doth set "Tis both the mind's and body's beauty met. All these good parts a perfect woman make ; WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. BORN 1564.-DIED 1616. FROM HIS SONNETS. SONNET 2. WHEN forty winters shall besiege thy brow, To say SONNET 54. On! how much more doth Beauty beauteous seem, The canker'd blooms have full as deep a dye, Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made; When that shall fade verse my distils your truth. SONNET 116. LET me not to the marriage of true minds Or bends with the remover to remove; O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; |