I therefore will begin: Soul of the age! Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show Yet must I not give Nature all; thy Art, For a good poet's made, as well as born. Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were To see thee in our waters yet appear, And make those flights upon the banks of Thames, That so did take Eliza and our James ! Or influence chide or cheer the drooping stage, Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night; And despairs day but for thy volume's light. ODE TO HIMSELF. (Written after the failure of his comedy, " The New Inn," which was miserably acted and sharply criticised, Jan. 19, 1629.) COME, leave the loathed stage, And the more loathsome age; Where pride and impudence, in faction knit, Something they call a play. Let their fastidious, vain Run on and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn; Say that thou pourest them wheat, 'Twere simple fury still thyself to waste To offer them a surfeit of pure bread If they love lees, and leave the lusty wine, Leave things so prostitute And take the Alcaic lute; Or thine own Horace, or Anacreon's lyre; Warm thee by Pindar's fire; And though thy nerves be shrank and blood be cold, Throughout, to their defeat, As curious fools, and envious of thy strain, But when they hear thee sing His zeal to God, and his just awe o'er men; Feel such a flesh-quake to possess their powers, In sound of peace or wars, No harp e'er hit the stars, In tuning forth the acts of his sweet reign, EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. UNDERNEATH this sable hearse Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother; FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS. FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, a Jewish historian, born at Jerusalem, A.D. 37; died at Rome about A.D. 100. He was of a noble sacerdotal family. He calls himself simply Josephus; the prenomen Flavius seems to have been assumed in honor of the Flavian gens of Rome. At the age of twenty-six he went to Rome in order to procure the liberation of some of his friends whom the Roman procurator Felix had caused to be arrested. This visit to Rome apparently took place while Paul was a prisoner there; but there is no evidence that Josephus ever heard of the apostle. He quite ignores the existence of the Christians. He afterwards bore a conspicuous part in the contests of his people with the Romans and the imperial government of Rome, rising finally to great favor with the Emperor Vespasian and his two immediate successors. He passed the years of his literary activity at Rome, living in dignified ease upon a royal pension and in a luxurious residence, enjoying also the rights of citizenship. The products of these favoring circumstances are the "History of the War of the Jews against the Romans, and of the Fall of Jerusalem," the "Judaic Antiquities," which begin with the Creation and extend to A.D. 66, and an "Autobiography." As an eye-witness of much that he records, his work merits attention; but it is the subject of much controversy and doubt. THE CREATION, AS NARRATED BY JOSEPHUS. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. But the earth did not come into sight, but was covered with thick darkness, and a wind moved upon its surface. God commanded that there should be light; and when that was made he considered the full mass, and separated the light and the darkness; and the name he gave to the one was Night, and the other he called Day; and he named the beginning of light and the time of rest the evening and the morning; and this was indeed the first day. But Moses said it was one day, the cause of which I |