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Tell Manhood shakes off pity,
Tell Virtue least preferreth ;
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

When thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done blabbing,
Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing;
Yet stab at thee who will,
No stab the Soul can kill.

JOSHUA SYLVESTER.

"THE silver-tongued Sylvester," as he was called in his own day, was a merchant adventurer, and patronized by the Earl of Essex. His works are chiefly moral and religious. He was a virtuous and pious man. died at Middleburg in 1618.

66

Sylvester

STANZAS FROM ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS."

RELIGION, O thou life of life,

How worldlings, that profane thee rife,
Can wrest thee to their appetites!
How princes, who thy power deny,
Pretend thee for their tyranny,
And people for their false delights!

Under thy sacred name, all over,
The vicious all their vices cover,
The insolent their insolence,

The proud their pride, the false their fraud,
The thief his theft, her filth the bawd,
The impudent their impudence.

Ambition under thee aspires,
And avarice under thee desires;
Sloth under thee her ease assumes,
Lux under thee all overflows,
Wrath under thee outrageous grows,
All evil under thee presumes.

Religion, erst so venerable,

What art thou now but made a fable,
A holy mask on Folly's brow,
Where under lies Dissimulation,
Lined with all abomination.
Sacred Religion, where art thou?

Not in the church with Simony,
Not on the bench with Bribery,
Nor in the court with Machiavel,
Nor in the city with deceits,
Nor in the country with debates;
For what hath Heaven to do with Hell?

THOMAS LODGE.

THOMAS LODGE was born about 1556, and descended of a Lincolnshire family. He studied medicine at Avignon, and practised in England. Being a Catholic, he was patronized by that party.

RETIREMENT.

SWEET solitary life, thou true repose,
Wherein the wise contemplate heaven aright;
In thee no dread of war or worldly foes;

In thee no pomp seduceth mortal sight;
In thee no wanton ears, to win with words,
Nor lurking toys, which city-life affords.

At peep of day, when, in her crimson pride,

The morn bespreads with roses all the way, Where Phoebus' coach, with radiant course, must glide,

The hermit bends his humble knees to pray : Blessing that God, whose bounty did bestow Such beauties on the earthly things below.

Whether, with solace tripping on the trees,
He sees the citizens of forest sport;
Or, midst the wither'd oak, beholds the bees
Intend their labour with a kind consort;
Down drop his tears, to think how they agree,
While men alone with hate inflamed be.

Taste he the fruits that spring from Tellus' womb,
Or drink he of the crystal spring that flows,
He thanks his God; and sighs their cursed doom
That fondly wealth in surfeiting bestows:
And, with St Jerome, saith, "The desert is
A paradise of solace, joy, and bliss."

Father of Light! thou Maker of the Heav'n!

From whom my being-well, and being, springs,

Bring to effect this, my desired steaven, (a)

That I may leave the thought of worldly things! Then, in my troubles, will I bless the time My Muse vouchsafed me such a lucky rhyme.

SIMON WASTELL.

SIMON WASTELL, a native of Westmoreland, was born about 1562, studied at Oxford, and became master of the freeschool at Northampton.

OF MAN'S MORTALITY.

LIKE as the damask rose you see,
Or like the blossom on the tree,
Or like the dainty flower of May,
Or like the morning to the day,
Or like the sun, or like the shade,
Or like the gourd which Jonas had,
E'en such is man ;-whose thread is spun,
Drawn out, and cut, and so is done.-
The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,
The flower fades, the morning hasteth,
The sun sets, the shadow flies,
The gourd consumes,-and man he dies!
Like to the grass that's newly sprung,
Or like a tale that's new begun,
Or like the bird that's here to-day,
Or like the pearled dew of May,
Or like an hour, or like a span,
Or like the singing of a swan,

(a) Steaven-appointment.

E'en such is man ;-who lives by breath,
Is here, now there, in life and death.-
The grass withers, the tale is ended,
The bird is flown, the dew's ascended,
The hour is short, the span not long,
The swan's near death,-man's life is done!

GILES FLETCHER.

GILES FLETCHER, the brother of Phineas Fletcher the poet, and the cousin-german of Fletcher the dramatist, was born in 1558, and died at his living of Alderton, in Suffolk, in 1623. His "Temptation and Victory of Christ" is a noble religious poem, and a fine effusion of genius.

MERCY IN HEAVEN PLEADING FOR THE

GUILTY.

BUT Justice had no sooner Mercy seen
Smoothing the wrinkles of her father's brow,
But up she starts, and throws herself between :
As when a vapour from a moory slough,
Meeting with fresh Eöus, that but now
Open'd the world, which all in darkness lay,
Doth heaven's bright face of his rays disarray,
And sads the smiling orient of the springing day.

She was a virgin of austere regard :

Not as the world esteems her, deaf and blind;
But as the eagle, that hath oft compar'd

Her eye with heaven's, so, and more brightly shin'd

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