tained in thirty-eight pages, and are only four; viz. 1. Upon my best friend L. K. C. 2. On the Earl of Essex. 3. On Sir Charles Lucas, and Sir George Lisle. 4. Upon the most incomparable King Charles the First; dated "From my sad retirement, March 11, 1648."

I give the second, not only because it is the shortest, but because it has some merit.

"On the Earl of Essex.

"Essex twice made unhappy by a wife,
Yet married worse unto the people's strife:
He, who by two divorces did untie
His bond of wedlock and of loyalty:
Who was by easiness of nature bred

To lead that tumult, which first him misled;
Yet had some glimmering sparks of virtue lent
To see, though late, his error, and repent:
Essex lies here, like an inverted flame,
Hid in the ruins of his house and name;
And as he, frailty's sad example, lies,
Warins the survivors in his exequies.

He shews what wretched bubbles great men are,
Through their ambition grown too popular;
For they, built up from weak opinion, stand
On bases false as water, loose as sand!
Essex in differing successes tried

The fury and the falsehood of each side;
Now with applauses deified, and then
Thrown down with spiteful infamy again;
Tells them, what arts soever them support,
Their life is merely time and fortune's sport;
And that no bladders blown by common breath
Shall bear them up amid the waves of death:

Tells

Tells them, no monstrous birth, with power endued
By that more monstrous beast the multitude;
No state Coloss, though tall as that bestrid
The Rhodian harbour where their navy rid,
Can hold that ill-proportion'd greatness still
Beyond his greater, most resistless will,
Whose dreadful sentence written on the wall
Did sign the temple-robbing Tyrant's* fall:
But spite of their vast privilege, which strives
'T' exceed the size of ten prerogatives;
Spite of their endless parliament, or grants,
(In order to those votes and covenants,
When, without sense of their black perjury,
They swear with Essex they would live and die,)
With their dead General ere long they must
Contracted be into a span of dust."

Dr. Henry King was eldest son of Dr. John King, Bishop of London, who died 1621. He was born at Wornal, in Bucks, in January 1591; educated at Oxford; and after various intermediate preferments made Bishop of Chichester, 1641. After the fall of episcopacy, he resided at the house of his brother-inlaw, Sir Richard Hobart, at Langley, in Bucks. The Restoration replaced him in his bishopric, of which dying possessed on October 1, 1669, he was buried in Chichester Cathedral. †

ART. XI. Nympha Libethris: or the Cotswold Muse, presenting some extempore verses to the imitation of yong Scholars. In four parts. London: Printed for F. A. at Worcester. 1651. 12mo. pp. 96. + Wood's Ath. II. 431.

Belshazar. Dan. V.

VOL. VII.

By

By Wood's invaluable Athenæ, we are informed that this rare little volume was the production of Clement Barksdale, who was born at Winchcombe in Gloucestershire, Nov. 1609, had his grammar learning in the free-school at Abingdon, Berks, was entered a servitor of Merton College, Oxon. in Lent term 1625, but soon translated himself to Gloucester-hall, where he took his degrees in arts, received ordination, and in 1637 supplied the place of chaplain of Lincoln college at the church of All Saints. Being called from thence the same year, he was made master of the freeschool at Hereford, and soon after, vicar of Alballows in that city. When the garrison of Hereford was surprised by the parliamentary forces in 1646, he was rescued out of the danger, and placed at Sudeley, (doubtless by the Bridges family) where he exercised his ministerial function; and afterwards sheltered at Hawling in Cotswold, where he undertook a private school with success; and where he appears to have penned his Nympha Libethris. After the restoration he was settled, by royal gift, in the parsonage of Naunton, near Hawling, and Stow on the Wold, in Gloucestershire. These he retained till the time of his death, which took place in January 1687; having lived to a fair age, says Wood, and leaving behind him the character of an edifying preacher and a good neighbour. His publications were very numerous, though few of them continue to be regarded, unless it be his Memorials of Worthy Persons and Remembrances of Excellent Men, which are chiefly compilations. The copy of his Cotswold Muse, now before me, was procured by a friend from the library of Mr. Brand, at a

Vol. II. col. 812.

high price; and as it is the only one which has met my observation, a particular statement of its contents may be acceptable. Opposite the title are the following lines:

"No Frontispiece my verses have,
But what kind readers' fansyes 'grave.
The shadow of a spreading tree
From Sirius doth the shepheard free;
He listens to a silver spring
Whose waters, as they run, do sing;
A little house, Roell, is near
A palace, when her lord is there;
The gentle lambs are feeding by,
The Muse approaching, with fair eye
Offers her bounteous hand, and sayes-
'Shepheard, here take this sprig of bayes:"
• Embrace me, Virgin, answers he,
I care not for thy bayes, but Thee.'
He was too bold: the Muse too coy:

She frown'd, and threw the sprig away."

On the back of the title are two extracts from the epistles of Pliny, in apology for his volume of verses; besides a preparatory motto, to conciliate the reader's good will. Then follows-"The Consecration of all :" "To my Lady Chandos.*

"Madam, see here your Röell-Muse
Exults for joy, your name to use:

Fair,

Qu. Jane, daughter of John Earl Rivers, and second wife to George, sixth Lord Chandos, whom she outlived, and married again: though Collins, who gives this information, contradicts himself by saying Lord Chandos was thrice married. In the year after Barksdale published his book,

Lord

Fair, noble, good, * all titles due
Are understood, when I name you :
Well knowing every thing is grac'd,
That's under your protection plac'd.
She's innocent; yet flyes t' your wing
T' avoid suspicion. She doth bring
Some men of arms, and other some,
Whose praises do from learning come.
To Ladies she hath honour done:
And, above all, yourself are one.
She hath inserted a few toyes,
To please and profit the school-boyes.
I charge her, not disturb your pray'r,
(Though some time she breaths holy ayr,
And sings the Liturgy in verse;)

Nor unseasonably rehearse:

But wait till at your vacant time

You please to listen to her rime.

When you- - that's good' vouchsafe to say:
That, O that word's the poets' bay!"

After six lines addressed to the same, Latin verses succeed "Preceptori suo Mro C. B. signed Hackettus, others signed Thorn, and A. S. and English compliments signatured Sackville, Stratford, Tounsend, and

Lord Chandos had a disagreement with Col. Henry Compton (grandson to Lord Compton) about a lady he recommended in marriage, whose person and fortune were below few matches in the kingdom: this difference unhappily ended in a duel, when Col. Compton fell by his Lordship's hand : which account both he and his second, Lord Arundel of Wardour, were imprisoned for some time, and at last tried, and both found guilty of manslaughter. This melancholy event and its consequences, are likely to have made a deep impression on the mind of Lord Chandos, and might contribute to his immature decease; notwithstanding he is recorded to have died of the small-pox in February 1654. See Collins's Peerage.

Alas! she did not prove good to the Brydges family! Editor.

T. B.