The roaring winds, which shake the cedars tall,
Plough up the seas, and beat the rocks withal.
She loves to walk in the still moonshine night,
And in a thick dark grove she takes delight;
In hollow caves, thatch'd houses, and low cells,
She loves to live, and there alone she dwells.

To this passage we add the picture of Melancholy's dwellings, as drawn

by herself:

I dwell in groves that gilt are with the sun;

Sit on the banks by which clear waters run;
In summer's hot down in a shade I lie;

My music is the buzzing of a fly;

I walk in meadows, where grows fresh green grass;
In fields, where corn is high, I often pass;

Walk up the hills, where round I prospects see,
Some bushy woods, and some all champaigns be;
Returning back, I in fresh pastures go,

To hear how sheep do bleat, and cows do low;
In winter cold, when nipping frosts come on,
Then I do live in a small house alone;
Although 'tis plain, yet cleanly 'tis within,
Like to a soul that's pure, and clear from sin;
And there I dwell in quiet and still peace,
Not fill'd with cares how riches to increase;
I wish nor seek for vain and fruitless pleasures;
No riches are, but what the mind intreasures.
Thus am I solitary, live alone,

Yet better lov'd, the more that I am known;
And though my face ill-favour'd at first sight,
After acquaintance, it will give delight.
Refuse me not, for I shall constant be;
Maintain your credit and your dignity.

KATHERINE PHILIPS, born in 1631, was a worthy contemporary of the Duchess of Newcastle. She was honored with the praise of Cowley and Dryden, and Jeremy Taylor addressed to her a Discourse on Friendship. This amiable lady was the wife of James Philips of the Priory, Cardigan, and died of the small-pox, in the year 1664. Her poetical name of 'Orinda' was very popular with her contemporaries; but her effusions are said to have been published without her consent. The following lines On a Country Life offer a fair specimen of the productions of her delicate muse:—

A COUNTRY LIFE.

How sacred and how innocent

A country-life appears,

How free from tumult, discontent,

From flattery or fears!

This was the first and happiest life,

When man enjoy'd himself,

Till pride exchanged peace for strife,
And happiness for pelf.

"Twas here the poets were inspir'd,

Here taught the multitude;

The brave they here with honour fir'd,

And civiliz'd the rude.

The golden age did entertain

No passion but of love:

The thoughts of ruling and of gain
Did ne'er their fancies move.

Them that do covet only rest,
A cottage will suffice:
It is not brave to be possess'd
Of earth, but to despise.

Opinion is the rate of things,

From hence our peace doth flow;
I have a better fate than kings,
Because I think it so.

When all the stormy world doth roar,
How unconcerned am I!

I can not fear to tumble lower,
Who never could be high.

Secure in these unenvied walls,
I think not on the state,
And pity no man's ease that falls
From his ambition's height.

Silence and innocence are safe;

A heart that's nobly true,
At all these little arts can laugh,
That do the world subdue.

The name of CHARLES COTTON calls up a number of pleasing associations. It is best known from its piscatory and affectionate union with that of good old Izaak Walton, but Cotton was a cheerful, witty, accomplished gentleman, and only wanted prudence to have made him one of the leading characters of his day. He was the son of Sir George Cotton, and was born in Staf fordshire, in 1630. His father, at his death, which occurred in 1658, left him an estate at Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, near the river Dove, so celebrated in the annals of trout-fishing. The property at the time was greatly encumbered, and the poet soon added to its burdens. As a means of procuring relief, therefore, as well as recreation, Cotton translated several works from the French and the Italian, with both of which languages he seems to have been critically familiar. Of these translations, that of the Essays of Montaigne was dedicated to the Marquis of Halifax, and was of such rare excellence as to receive the unqualified approbation of that learned and accomplished nobleman.

In 1670, when forty years of age, Cotton obtained a captain's commission in the army; and soon after made a fortunate marriage with the Countess Dowager of Ardglass, who possessed an annual income of fifteen hundred pounds. The lady's fortune was, however, secured from his mismanagement, and his embarrassments were still unrelieved; but amidst them all, his happy, careless disposition seems to have enabled him to study, to angle, and to afford delight to his friends. His death occurred in 1687, and in the fifty-eighth year of his age.

Besides his numerous translations, Cotton published several burlesques and travesties, the principal of which was Lucian burlesqued; or the Scoffer Scoffed. He wrote, also, some copies of verses full of genuine poetry, and as a poet, he may properly be ranked with Marvell. The following beautiful stanzas were addressed to Izaak Walton as an invitation to him to visit the poet, and angle with him in the Dove. Though Walton was at that time in the eighty-third year of his age, yet the invitation seems to have been accepted:

INVITATION TO IZAAK WALTON.

Whilst in this cold and blustering clime,

Where bleak winds howl, and tempests roar,

We pass away the roughest time

Has been of many years before;

Whilst from the most tempestuous nooks
The chillest blasts our peace invade,
And by great rains our smallest brooks
Are almost navigable made;

Whilst all the ills are so improv'd

Of this dead quarter of the year,

That even you, so much belov'd,

We would not now wish with us here:

In this estate, I say, it is

Some comfort to us to suppose,

That in a better clime than this,

You, our dear friend, have more repose;

And some delight to me the while,
Though nature now docs weep in rain,
To think that I have seen her smile,
And happy may I do again.

If the all-ruling Power please
We live to see another May,
We'll recompense an age of these
Foul days in one fine fishing day.

We then shall have a day or two,
Perhaps a week, wherein to try
What the best master's hand can do
With the most deadly killing fly.

x

A day with not too bright a beam;
A warm, but not a scorching sun;
A southern gale to curl the stream;

And, master, half our work is done.

Then, whilst behind some bush we wait
The scaly people to betray,
We'll prove it just, with treacherous bait,
To make the preying trout our prey;

And think ourselves in such an hour,
Happier than those, though not so high,
Who, like leviathans, devour

Of meaner men the smaller fry.

This, my best friend, at my poor home,
Shall be our pastime and our theme;
But then-should you not deign to come,
You make all this a flattering dream.

JOHN DRYDEN, one of the most voluminous writers of the language, and the most popular poet of the age of Charles the Second, was the son of Erasmus Dryden, of Tichmersh, in Northamptonshire, and was born at Aldwincle, in that county, on the ninth of August, 1631. His early studies were pursued as king's scholar at Westminster school, where his attainments seem to have been rather solid, than brilliant, as he did not leave that school until the nineteenth year of his age, when he was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge. Dryden, both at school and at college, had occasionally indulged his poetic vein, and on one occasion translated "The third satire of Persius,' as an evening exercise; but his first important poetical production did not appear until 1658, and was then drawn forth in the form of heroic stanzas on the death of Oliver Cromwell. The ripeness of style and versification of these stanzas, indicated the future excellence of the author; and in all Waller's poems on the same subject, there is nothing equal to such verses as the following:

His grandeur he deriv'd from heaven alone,

For he was great ere Fortune made him so;
And wars, like mists that rise against the sun,
Made him but greater seem, not greater grow.

Nor was he like those stars which only shine
When to pale mariners they storms portend;
He had his calmer influence, and his mien
Did love and majesty together blend.

Dryden's father was a strict Puritan, and he himself had been educated in that faith; but when monarchy was restored, he went over with the tuneful throng who welcomed Charles the Second to England. He had now done with the Puritans, and was prepared to write poetical addresses to the king and the lord chancellor. The amusements of the drama, which had been suppressed during the commonwealth and the administration of Crom

well, were revived after the Restoration, and Dryden became a candidate for theatrical laurels. In 1662, and the two following years, he produced The Wild Gallant, The Rival Ladies, and The Indian Emperor, the last of which was very popular. Dryden's name was now conspicuous; and in 1665 he married the Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Earl of Berkshire. The marriage, however, added neither to his wealth nor his happiness; and the poet afterward revenged himself by constantly inveighing against matrimony. The probability is that his literary habits deprived his wife of his society to an extent to which ladies are not inclined quietly to submit; and, accordingly, when she petulantly wished to be a book, that she might enjoy more of his company,' he is represented to have ungallantly replied, 'Be an almanac then, my dear, that I may change you once a year.' As a farther expression of his contempt for the female sex, he, in his play of the Spanish Friar, most impolitely states, that, 'woman was made from the dross and refuse of a man.' Indeed, all Dryden's plays, being twenty-five in number, are marked with the indelicacy and gross licentiousness of the age-vices which he fostered rather than attempted to check.

In 1667, Dryden published a long poem, Annus Mirabilis, being an account of the important events of the year 1666. The style and versification seem to have been copied from Davenant; but Dryden's performance fully sustained his previous reputation. About the same time he wrote an Essay on Dramatic Poesy, in which he vindicates the use of rhyme in tragedy. The style of his prose is easy, natural, and graceful; and his thoughts seem to have flown forth without an apparent effort. He next undertook to write for the king's players no less than three dramas a year, for which he was to receive annually three hundred pounds. During his engagement with the king's players, he was made poet-laureate and royal historiographer, with a salary of two hundred pounds. These were golden days for the poet; but they did not last long. His irritable temper and arrogant disposition involved him in controversies and quarrels; and the Earl of Rochester, in order to mortify him, set up a miserable rhymster by the name of Settle, as his opponent. Dryden was also successfully ridiculed by Buckingham, in his 'Rehearsal.'

These instances of opposition drew forth the first of those masterly satires which have immortalized Dryden's genius, and placed his name among the names of the great poets of the language. In 1681, he published the satire of Absalom and Achitophel, written in the style of a Scriptural narrative, the names and situations of personages in the holy text being applied to those contemporaries to whom the author assigned places in his poem. The Duke of Monmouth was Absalom, and the Earl of Shaftesbury, Achitophel; while the Duke of Buckingham was drawn under the character of Zimri. The success of this bold political satire-the most vigorous and elastic, the most finely versified, varied, and beautiful, that the English language can boast was almost unprecedented. Dryden was now placed above all his poetical contemporaries; and he soon after prolonged the feeling excited