solicitor and attorney-general, was knighted, and chosen speaker of the Irish House of Commons, in opposition to the Catholic interest. Two works which he published as the fruits of his observation in that kingdom, have attached considerable importance to his name in the legal and political history of Ireland1. On his return to England he sat in parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyne, and had assurances of being appointed chief justice of England, when his death was suddenly occasioned by apoplexy. He married, while in Ireland, Eleanor, a daughter of Lord Audley, by whom he had a daughter, who was married to Ferdinand Lord Hastings, afterwards Earl of Huntingdon. Sir John's widow turned out an enthusiast and a prophetess. A volume of her ravings was published in 1649, for which the revolutionary government sent her to the Tower, and to Bethlehem hospital.

THE VANITY OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.

FROM NOSCE TEIPSUM, OR A POEM ON THE IMMORTALITY OF
THE SOUL.

WHY did my parents send me to the schools,
That I with knowledge might enrich my mind?
Since the desire to know first made men fools,
And did corrupt the root of all mankind.

1 The works are, "A discovery of the causes why Ireland was never subdued till the beginning of his majesty's reign," and "Reports of cases adjudged in the king's courts in Ireland."

What is this knowledge but the sky-stol'n fire, For which the thief1 still chain'd in ice doth sit? And which the poor rude satyr did admire,

And needs would kiss, but burnt his lips with it.

In fine, what is it but the fiery coach

2

Which the youth sought, and sought his death withal,

Or the boy's wings which, when he did approach The sun's hot beams, did melt and let him fall?

And yet, alas! when all our lamps are burn'd,
Our bodies wasted and our spirits spent ;
When we have all the learned volumes turn'd,
Which yield men's wits both strength and ornament,

What can we know, or what can we discern,
When error chokes the windows of the mind?
The divers forms of things how can we learn,
That have been ever from our birth-day blind?

When reason's lamp, that, like the sun in sky,
Throughout man's little world her beams did spread,
Is now become a sparkle, which doth lie
Under the ashes, half extinct and dead.

How can we hope, that through the eye and ear,
This dying sparkle, in this cloudy space,
Can recollect these beams of knowledge clear,
Which were infus'd in the first minds by grace?

1 Prometheus.-2 Phaeton- Icarus.

So might the heir whose father hath in play
Wasted a thousand pounds of ancient rent,
By painful earning of one groat a day
Hope to restore the patrimony spent.

The wits that div'd most deep and soar'd most high, Seeking man's powers, have found his weakness such;

Skill comes so slow, and time so fast doth fly,

We learn so little and forget so much.

For this the wisest of all moral men

Said, "he knew nought but that he did not know." And the great mocking master mock'd not then, When he said truth was buried deep below.

As spiders, touch'd, seek their web's inmost part;
As bees, in storms, back to their hives return;
As blood in danger gathers to the heart;

As men seek towns when foes the country burn:

If aught can teach us aught, affliction's looks
(Making us pry into ourselves so near),
Teach us to know ourselves beyond all books,
Or all the learned schools that ever were.

She within lists my ranging mind hath brought,
That now beyond myself I will not go:
Myself am centre of my circling thought :
Only myself I study, learn, and know.

I know my body's of so frail a kind,
As force without, fevers within can kill;
I know the heavenly nature of my mind,
But 'tis corrupted both in wit and will.

I know my soul hath power to know all things,
Yet is she blind and ignorant in all;

I know I'm one of nature's little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

I know
my life's a pain, and but a span;
I know my sense is mock'd in every thing:
And, to conclude, I know myself a man,
Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.

We seek to know the moving of each sphere,
And the strange cause of th' ebbs and floods of Nile;
But of that clock within our breasts we bear,
The subtle motions we forget the while.

For this few know themselves; for merchants broke
View their estate with discontent and pain;
And as the seas troubl'd, when they do revoke
Their flowing waves into themselves again.

And while the face of outward things we find
Pleasing and fair, agreeable and sweet,
These things transport and carry out the mind,
That with herself the mind can never meet.

Yet if affliction once her wars begin,

And threat the feebler sense with sword and fire,
The mind contracts herself and shrinketh in,
And to herself she gladly doth retire.

THAT THE SOUL IS MORE THAN A PERFECTION OR
REFLEXION OF THE SENSE.

ARE they not senseless, then, that think the soul
Nought but a fine perfection of the sense,
Or of the forms which fancy doth enrol,
A quick resulting and a consequence?

What is it, then, that doth the sense accuse
Both of false judgments and fond appetites?
What makes us do what sense doth most refuse,
Which oft in torment of the sense delights?

Could any pow'rs of sense the Roman move,
To burn his own right hand with courage stout?
Could sense make Marius sit unbound, and prove
The cruel lancing of the knotty gout?

Sense, circumstance; she doth the substance view: Sense sees the bark, but she the life of trees;

Sense hears the sounds, but she the concord true.