[SIR JOHN DENHAM, the son of the Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland, was born in Dublin, in 1615, and was educated at Oxford, where he is said to have been more attentive to cards than study: a propensity which prevented his making any progress in the law, when he entered Lincoln's Inn. To please his father, he wrote an essay, proving the pernicious tendency of gaming; nevertheless, he seriously injured his patrimony by this vice. He was a zealous adherent of Charles I. and being discovered in secret correspondence with Cowley, he fled, to save his life, and his estate was sold by the Parliament. At the Restoration he was made a Knight of the Bath, and SurveyorGeneral of the Royal Buildings. He died in 1668, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

"Cooper's Hill" is his best production; his poetry was written chiefly in the earlier portion of his life.]

My eye, descending from the hill, surveys

Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays;

Thames the most loved of all the ocean's sons

THE THAMES AND WINDSOR FOREST.

205

By his old sire, to his embraces runs,

Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,

Like mortal life to meet eternity.

Though with those streams he no remembrance hold,
Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold,
His genuine and less guilty wealth to explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring,

And then destroys it with too fond a stay,

Like mothers which their infants overlay ;

Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,

Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.

No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil,

But Godlike his unwearied bounty flows;

First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,

But free and common as the sea or wind.
When he to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying towers
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours:
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants;

So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.

O, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!

Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull,

Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.

But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes; his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat,
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is placed,
Between the mountain and the stream embraced,
Which shade and shelter from the hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives;
And in the mixture of all these appears

Variety, which all the rest endears.

This scene had some bold Greek or British bard

Beheld of old, what stories had we heard

Of fairies, satyrs, and the nymphs their dames, Their feasts, their revels, and their amorous flames!

"Tis still the same, although their airy shape

All but a quick poetic sight escape.

L'ALLEGRO.

BY JOHN MILTON,

[JOHN MILTON, a younger son of a scrivener who had amassed a considerable fortune by his profession, was born in Bread S.reet, London, on the 9th of December, 1608. At an early age he was sent to St. Paul's School, where he made great progress, and at sixteen he entered Christ's College, Cambridge; after seven years' residence, he took a degree of M.A. (in the year 1632). Milton then retired to his father's house at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, where he wrote L'Allegro," “Il Penseroso,” “Comus,” and other of his shorter poems; afterwards he travelled in Italy for about fifteen months, whence he returned to take a part in the great political struggle which was then convulsing England. For many years, during which he gained his living as a schoolmaster, he strongly advocated the republican cause, and after the death of King Charles he was appointed Latin Secretary to the Council of State. At the Restoration, Milton retired into private life; and it was then, in his old age, when he had become totally blind, that he wrote his immortal poems, "Paradise Lost" and Paradise Regained.” John Milton was married three times: first, in 1643, to Mary Powell, the daughter of a Royalist gentleman; this proved an unfortunate marriage. Six years after her death he was united to Catherine, the daughter of Captain Woodcock, a rigid sectarian, with whom he lived most happily for twelve months, when, to his great grief, she died. It is of her that he speaks in one of his sonnets as his late espoused saint." In 1660 he married Elizabeth Minshull (the daughter of a Cheshire gentleman), who proved an excellent wife, and who soothed his sorrows with exemplary care. John Milton died on Sunday, the 8th of November, 1674, and was buried in the chancel of St. Giles's Church, Cripplegate. In 1737, a monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.]

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy;

Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,