Here's no fantastic mask or dance,
But of our kids that frisk and prance;

Nor wars are seen,
Unless
upon

the

And peace still slumber by these purling fountains;

Which we may every year
Find, when we come a fishing here.

IGNOTO.

or

It may

be doubted whether this be a poem of Sir Henry Wotton's, or not, it is rather in a higher mood” than most of his strains, and has not the usual signature,

the initials of his name.Walton arranges it with “ Poems found among the papers of Sir Henry Wotton,”-some of which certainly were by other hands; at the same time it

may

be remarked, that he himself addressed one of his compositions to his friend Dinely, as the work-authoris incerti.—Another poem, with the same signature of “ Ignoto,” is decidedly in Wotton's style.

That far transcends the vulgar; for each line
Mcthinks breathes Barclay or a Bocaline:
I know you might, none better, inake the vine,
The olive, ivy, mulberry, and pine,
With others, their own dialect expose ;
But you have taught them all rich English prome.
I end, and envy, but must justly say,
Who makes trees speak so well, deserves the bay.

HENRY WOrton.

The whimsical book of that voluminous writer, James Howell, to which these lines are appended, bears the title of “ Dodona's Grore, or the Vocal Forest.” It was popular in its day, and passed through many editions, being a political allegory, in which the great personages of the time are characterised by the several trees of the forest.

PHINEAS FLETCHER.

BORN ABOUT 1584.—Died ABOUT 1650.

6 Grare Father of this Muse thou deem'st ton light

To wear thy name, 'cuuse of thy youthful brain
It seems a sportful child; resembling right

Thy witty childhood, not thy graver strain,
Which now est eems these works of fancy vain ;
Let not thy child, thee living, orphan be,
Who, when thou’rt dead, will give a life to thee.

For thou art Poet born, who know thee, know it,
Thy Brother, Sire, thy cery name's a Poet:
Thy very name will mnke these Poems take,
These very Poems else thy name will make."

WM, BENLOWES.

If these dull times
Should want the present strength to prize thy rhymes,
The time-descended children of the next,
Shall fill thy margin, and admire the text,
Whose well-read lines will teach them now to be
The happy knowers of themselves and thee.”

F. QUARLES.

The former of the above extracts is taken from a copy of commendatory verses prefixed to the “Purple Island," the principal poem of Phineas Fletcher, and inscribed “ to the learned author, son and brother to two judicious poets, himself the third-not second to either ;" the latter from another address • to the ingenious composer, the Spenser of his age,” from his contemporary, the quaint author of the “ Emblems,” the romance of “ Argalus and Parthenia,” &c.—and his own brother,

Giles Fletcher, (of whose taste and judgment we shall hereafter give ample proof, at the conclusion of his “Christ's Victory and Triumph,” hails him as

_“ the KENTISH LAD, that lately taught
His oaten reed the trumpet's silver sound,
Young Thirsilis ; and for his music brought

The willing spheres from Heav'n, to lead around
The dancing nymphs and swains.”.

To this we may add, that he made Spenser his model,-and, Milton was his debtor.

The principal poems of Phineas Fletcher were republished in Dr. Anderson's “complete edition of the works of the Poets of Great Britain, 1793;” and from the biographical and critical preface, the following few particulars of his personal history are chiefly derived; including also a general notice of his family, as explanatory of the compliment paid to him by his partial friend in the first of the foregoing extracts.