Chor. That hope would much rejoice us to partake This evil on the Philistines is fall'n: With thee; say, reverend sire, we thirst to hear. Man I have attempted one by one the lords, To accept of ransom for my son their prisoner. Chor. Doubtless the people shouting to behold Their once great dread, captive, and blind before them, Or at some proof of strength before them shown. [noise! Man. I know your friendly minds and-O what Chor. Noise call you it, or universal groan, From whom could else a general cry be heard? Man. He can, I know, but doubt to think he will, Chor. Of good or bad so great, of bad the sooner; [Enter MESSENGER.] Mess. O whither shall I run, or which way fly Man. The accident was loud, and here before thee Mess. It would burst forth, but I recover breath Man. Tell us the sum, the circumstance defer. Man. Sad, but thou know'st to Israelites not saddest Mess. By Samson. That still lessens The sorrow, and converts it nigh to joy. To free him hence! but death, who sets all free, Man. Of ruin indeed methought I heard the noise: How died he; death to life is crown or shame. Oh! it continues, they have slain my son. Chor. Thy son is rather slaying them: that outcry From slaughter of one foe could not ascend. Man. Some dismal accident it needs must be; What shall we do, stay here or run and see? Chor. Best keep together here, lest, running thither, We unawares run into danger's mouth. All by him fell, thou say'st: by whom fell he? Mess. Inevitable cause, At once both to destroy, and be destroy'd ; The edifice, where all were met to see him, Upon their heads and on his own he pull'd. Man. O lastly over-strong against thyself! A dreadful way thou took'st to thy revenge. Met from all parts to solemnize this feast. Chor. O dearly-bought revenge, yet glorious! More than enough we know; but while things yet The work for which thou wast foretold Are in confusion, give us, if thou canst, Mess. Occasions drew me early to this city; The feast and noon grew high, and sacrifice [wine, At length for intermission's sake they led him I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater, He tugg'd, he shook, till down they came, and drew, To Israel, and now liest victorious Not willingly, but tangled in the fold Of dire necessity, whose law in death conjoin'd And urg'd them on with mad desire Their own destruction to come speedy upon them. Fall'n into wrath divine, As their own ruin on themselves to invite, And with blindness internal struck. 2. Semichor. But he, though blind of sight, Despis'd and thought extinguish'd quite, With inward eyes illuminated, His fiery virtue rous'd From under ashes into sudden flame, Of tame villatic fowl; but as an eagle Depress'd, and overthrown, as seem'd, In the Arabian woods embost, From out her ashy womb now teem'd, And, though her body die, her fame survives Man. Come, come; no time for lamentation now, Nor much more cause; Samson hath quit himself Like Samson, and heroicly hath finish'd A life heroic, on his enemies Fully reveng'd, hath left them years of mourning, Soak'd in his enemies' blood; and from the stream Will send for all my kindred, all my friends, To fetch him hence, and solemnly attend With silent obsequy, and funeral train, The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked chariot stood Unstain'd with hostile blood; The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by. Home to his father's house: there will I build him But peaceful was the night, A monument, and plant it round with shade But unexpectedly returns, And to his faithful champion hath in place Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns, His uncontrollable intent; His servants he, with new acquist Of true experience, from this great event CHRISTMAS HYMN. IT was the winter wild, All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Had doff'd her gaudy trim, With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her To wanton with the Sun, her lusty paramour. Only with speeches fair She wooes the gentle air To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; But he, her fears to cease, She, crown'd with olive-green, came softly sliding His ready harbinger, With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; And, waving wide her myrtle wand, She strikes an universal peace through sea and land. No war, or battle's sound, Was heard the world around: Wherein the Prince of light His reign of peace upon the Earth began: Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, The stars, with deep amaze, Bending one way their precious influence; Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence; Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. And, though the shady gloom Had given day her room, The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed, And hid his head for shame, As his inferior flame The new-enlighten'd world no more should need: He saw a greater Sun appear [bear. Than his bright throne, or burning axletree, could Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold; And speckled Vanity Will sicken soon and die, And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould; And Hell itself will pass away, [mourn. [plaint; The Lars, and Lemures, moan with midnight In urns, and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat. Peor and Baälim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine; Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with taper's holy shine; [mourn. And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz Yea, Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between, Thron'd in celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; And Heaven, as at some festival, And sullen Moloch, fled, Hath left in shadows dread His burning idol all of blackest hue; In vain with cymbals' ring They call the grisly king, In dismal dance about the furnace blue: Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall. Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste. So both himself and us to glorify: Yet first, to those ychain'd in sleep, [the deep; Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud; In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark. With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell, Inspires the pale-ey'd priests from the prophetic cell. So, when the Sun in bed, Curtain'd with cloudy red, The flocking shadows pale Troop to the infernal jail, Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave; And the yellow-skirted Fayes [maze. Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd But see, the Virgin blest Hath laid her babe to rest; Time is, our tedious song should here have ending: Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending EDMUND WALLER. EDMUND WALLER, born at Coleshill, Hertford-1 Waller had a brother-in-law, named Tomkyns shire, in March, 1605, was the son of Robert Wal- who was clerk of the queen's council, and possessler, Esq., a gentleman of an ancient family and good ed great influence in the city among the warm fortune, who married a sister of the celebrated John loyalists. On consulting together, they thought it Hampden. The death of his father during his infancy would be possible to raise a powerful party, which left him heir to an estate of 3500l. a year, at that might oblige the parliament to adopt pacific measperiod an ample fortune. He was educated first at ures, by resisting the payment of the taxes levied Eton, whence he was removed to King's College for the support of the war. About this time Sir in Cambridge. His election to parliament was as Nicholas Crispe formed a design of more dangerous early as between his sixteenth or seventeenth year; import, which was that of exciting the king's and it was not much later that he made his appear- friends in the city to an open resistance of the auance as a poet and it is remarkable that a copy of thority of parliament; and for that purpose he obverses which he addressed to Prince Charles, in his tained a commission of array from his majesty. eighteenth year, exhibits a style and character of This plan appears to have been originally unconversification as perfectly formed as those of his nected with the other; yet the commission was maturest productions. He again served in parlia-made known to Waller and Tomkyns, and the whole ment before he was of age; and he continued his was compounded into a horrid and dreadful plot. services to a later period. Not insensible of the Waller and Tomkyns were apprehended, when the value of wealth, he augmented his paternal fortune pusillanimity of the former disclosed the whole by marriage with a rich city heiress. In the long secret. "He was so confounded with fear," (says intermissions of parliament which occurred after Lord Clarendon,) "that he confessed whatever he 1628, he retired to his mansion of Beaconsfield, had heard, said, thought, or seen, all that he knew where he continued his classical studies, under the of himself, and all that he suspected of others, withdirection of his kinsman Morley, afterwards bishop out concealing any person, of what degree or qualiof Winchester; and he obtained admission to a ty soever, or any discourse which he had ever upon society of able men and polite scholars, of whom any occasion entertained with them." The concluLord Falkland was the connecting medium. sion of this business was, that Tomkyns, and ChaWaller became a widower at the age of twenty- loner, another conspirator, were hanged, and that five: he did not, however, spend much time in Waller was expelled the House, tried, and conmourning, but declared himself the suitor of Lady demned; but after a year's imprisonment, and a fine Dorothea Sydney, eldest daughter of the Earl of of ten thousand pounds, was suffered to go into Leicester, whom he has immortalized under the exile. He chose Rouen for his first place of foreign poetical name of Saccharissa. She is described by exile, where he lived with his wife till his removal him as a majestic and scornful beauty; and he to Paris. In that capital he maintained the appearseems to delight more in her contrast, the gentler ance of a man of fortune, and entertained hospitaAmoret, who is supposed to have been a Lady So- bly, supporting this style of living chiefly by the phia Murray. Neither of these ladies, however, sale of his wife's jewels. At length, after the lapse was won by his poetic strains; and, like another of ten years, being reduced to what he called his man, he consoled himself in a second marriage. rump jewel, he thought it time to apply for perWhen the king's necessities compelled him, in mission to return to his own country. He obtained 1640, once more to apply to the representatives this license, and was also restored to his estate, of the people, Waller, who was returned for Ag- though now diminished to half its former rental. mondesham, decidedly took part with the members Here he fixed his abode, at a house built by himwho thought that the redress of grievances should self, at Beaconsfield; and he renewed his courtly precede a vote for supplies; and he made an ener- strains by adulation to Cromwell, now Protector, getic speech on the occasion. He continued during to whom his mother was related. To this usurper three years to vote in general with the Opposition the noblest tribute of his muse was paid. in the Long Parliament, but did not enter into all When Charles II. was restored to the crown, their measures. In particular, he employed much and past character was lightly regarded, the stains cool argument against the proposal for the abolition of that of Waller were forgotten, and his wit and of Episcopacy; and he spoke with freedom and poetry procured him notice at court, and admission severity against some other plans of the House. to the highest circles. He had also sufficient inIn fact, he was at length become a zealous loyalist terest to obtain a seat in the House of Commons, in his inclinations; and his conduct under the dif- in all the parliaments of that reign. The king's ficulties into which this attachment involved him gracious manners emboldened him to ask for the became a source of his indelible disgrace. A short vacant place of provost of Eton college, which was narrative will suffice for the elucidation of this granted him; but Lord Clarendon, then Lord Chancellor, refused to set the seal to the grant, alleging matter. |