so barren of invention, as to be obliged tamely to have recourse to their imagery on all occasions; the religion, history, manners, and dress, of our own country, are sufficiently dignified to supply a fertile imagination with combinations infinitely new, and to justify us in forming a style of our own. Propriety in selection is every thing : to produce a strong effect from a few masterly outlines, and to give an individual and exclusive character to the personage, seems to have been the sole aim of the ancients. From the profusion of ornaments with which most modern allegorical figures are overwhelmed, we are as much at a loss to discover for whom they are designed, as we are to unravel a rebus or an anagram. Milton appears to have been a reader of Fletcher. I will conclude these desultory remarks on him, with noticing a few passages that have escaped the commentators of our divine Bard. Milton is invoking Mirth to bring with her,

"When this exquisite assemblage was formed, it is more than probable that the poet had an eye on the following passage of Fletcher:

"Here sportful Laughter dwells, here ever sitting,

Defies all lumpish griefs, and wrinkled care;

"And twenty merry mates mirth causes fitting,

"And smiles, which, Laughter's sons, yet infants are. Purple Island, Cant. iv. St. 13. Edit. 1633.

"Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide.”

Lycid. 157.

In the edition of 1630, Milton had written humming tide, which is perhaps more expressive and poetical. His first epithet he had probably from the following fine image of Fletcher:

"While humming rivers by his cabin creeping,
"Rock soft his slumbering thoughts in quiet ease.

Eclog. 2. "Milton uses syllable, Comus, 208. Fletcher in his miscellanies, page 85, has syllabled."

It will not be unacceptable to the reader to know what portions of the Purple Island were selected by the taste and judgment of Mr. Headley, to form a part of a work composed of such rich materials as his "Beauties of Ancient Poetry." The first extract is the description of the descent of Orpheus into the infernal regions in search of his lost Eurydice, Cant. v. St. 61-67. In a note we have the following remark on that highly poetical episode: "These lines of Fletcher are a paraphrase, or rather translation, from Boethius. The whole description is forcible: some of the circumstances perhaps are heightened too much; but it is the fault of this writer to indulge himself in every aggravation that poetry allows, and to stretch his prerogative of quidlibet audendi" to the utmost."

The next extract, which is honoured with a place in the Beauties, is the description of the Shepherd's Life, Cant. xii. St. 2-6. "These beautiful lines," says Mr. Headley, seem to have suggested the plan of a most exquisite little piece called The Hamlet, by Mr. T. Warton, which contains such a collection of beautiful rural images, as perhaps no other poem of equal length in our language presents us with. The latter part of it more closely reminds us of Fletcher. A shepherd's life is to be found in Spenser's Fairie Queene, B. VI. Cant. ix. St. 20.

The other extract is on the Instability of Human Greatness, Cant. vii. St. 2—7.

The reader will do well to pay particular attention to these spirited passages of the Purple Island, as well as to many others of singular beauty which the confined limits of Mr. Headley's Work and Plan, would not allow him to notice. That able young man was himself anxious that the whole works of our author should be reprinted.

W. J.

DEDICATION.

TO

MY MOST WORTHY AND LEARNED FRIEND,

EDWARD BENLOWES, ESQ.

SIR,

increase

As some optic-glasses, if we look one way, the object, if the other, lessen the quantity; such is an eye that looks through affection; it doubles any good, and extenuates what is amiss. Pardon me, Sir, for speaking plain truth; such is that eye whereby you have viewed these raw Essays * of my very unripe years, and almost childhood. How unseasonable are blossoms in autumn! unless perhaps in this age, where are more flowers than fruit. I am entering upon my winter, and yet these blooms of my first spring, must

* To this poem, when first published, were added a few piscatory eclogues and poetical miscellanies, written by the same author.

now shew themselves to our ripe wits, which will certainly give them no other entertainment, but derision. For myself, I cannot account that worthy of your patronage, which comes forth so short of my desires, thereby meriting no other light than the fire. But since you please to have them see more day, than their credit can well endure, marvel not if they fly under your shadow, to cover them from the piercing eye of this very curious yet more censorious age. In letting them go abroad, I desire only to testify how much I prefer your desires before mine own, and how much I owe to you more than any other. This if they witness for me, it is all the service I require. Sir, I leave them to your tuition, and entreat you to love him, who will contend with you in nothing but to out-love you, and would be known to the world by no other Name, than

Your true Friend,

PHINEAS FLETCHER.

HILGAY, May 1, 1633.

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Dr.ALLIX. Recommendatory Preface to the Latin edition of this Work in 1706.