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By light and comfort of spiritual grace;
The vision of our Saviour face to face,
In his humanity! to hear him preach
The price of our redemption, and to teach,
Through his inherent righteousness in death,
The safety of our souls and forfeit breath!
What fulness of beatitude is here!

What love with mercy mixed doth appear!
To style us friends, who were by nature foes!
Adopt us heirs by grace, who were of those
Had lost ourselves; and prodigally spent
Our native portions and possessed rent!
Yet have all debts forgiven us; an advance
By imputed right to an inheritance
In his eternal kingdom, where we sit
Equal with angels, and co-heirs of it.

Joseph Hall,

BISHOP OF NORWICH.

Born 1574.
Died 1656.

Author of several satires published under the title of Vergidemiarum

in 1597.

THE POOR GALLANT.

SEEST thou how gaily my young master goes,
Vaunting himself upon his rising toes;
And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side;
And picks his glutted teeth since late noon-tide?
'Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he dined to-day?
In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humphrey.
Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer,
Keeps he for every straggling cavalier;
An open house, haunted with great resort;
Long service mixt with musical disport.
Many fair younker with a feathered crest,
Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest,
To fare so freely with so little cost,

Than stake his twelvepence to a meaner host.
Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say
He touched no meat of all this livelong day.
For sure methought, yet that was but a guess,
His eyes seemed suuk for very hollowness,

But could he have-as I did it mistake

So little in his purse, so much upon his back?
So nothing in his maw? yet seemeth by his belt
That his gaunt gut no too much stuffing felt.
Seest thou how side it hangs beneath his hip ?
Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip.
Yet for all that, how stiffly struts he by,
All trapped in the new found bravery.
The nuns of new-won Calais his bonnet lent,
In lieu of their so kind a conquerment.

What needed he fetch that from farthest Spain,
His grandame could have lent with lesser pain!
Though he perhaps ne'er passed the English shore,
Yet fain would counted be a conqueror.

His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head,
One lock amazon-like dishevelled,

As if he meant to wear a native cord,

If chance his fates should him that bane afford.
All British bare upon the bristled skin,
Close notched is his beard, both lip and chin;
His linen collar labyrinthian set,

Whose thousand double turnings never met:
His sleeves half hid with elbow pinionings,
As if he meant to fly with linen wings.
But when I look, and cast mine eyes below,
What monster meets mine eyes in human show?
So slender waist with such an abbot's loin,
Did never sober nature sure conjoin.
Like'st a strawn scarecrow in the new-sown field,
Reared on some stick, the tender corn to shield,
Or, if that semblance suit not every deal,
Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel.

Beaumont AND Fletcher.

{

Beaumont b. 1585, d. 1615.
Fletcher b. 1576, d. 1625.

FRANCIS BEAUMONT and John Fletcher have been conspicuous for a literary partnership in the composition of dramas to an extent heretofore unknown. The number issued under their joint authorship was above fifty, and embraced a period of ten years. It is said that "Beaumont found the judgment, and Fletcher the fancy," so conspicuous in these dramas. Though both these authors wrote poems published under their respective names, they are now chiefly known from the plays which have blended their genius in indissoluble connection. Beaumont was a descendant of an ancient family in Leicester, and Fletcher was son of the Bishop of London.

FROM PHILASTER.

HUNTING the buck,

I found him sitting by a fountain-side,

Of which he borrowed some to quench his thirst,
And paid the nymph again as much in tears.
A garland lay him by, made by himself,
Of many several flowers, bred in the bay,
Stuck in that mystic order, that the rareness
Delighted me: But ever when he turned
His tender eyes upon them he would weep,
As if he meant to make them grow again.
Seeing such pretty helpless innocence
Dwell in his face, I asked him all his story.
He told me that his parents gentle died,
Leaving him to the mercy of the fields,

Which gave him roots; and of the crystal springs,
Which did not stop their courses; and the sun,
Which still, he thanked him, yielded him his light.
Then took he up his garland, and did show
What every flower, as country people hold,
Did signify; and how all, ordered thus,
Expressed his grief; and to my thoughts did read
The prettiest lecture of his country art

That could be wished; so that methought I could
Have studied it. I gladly entertained him,
Who was as glad to follow.

Philip Massinger.

Born 1584.

Died 1640.

A TALENTED but unfortunate tragic poet, born near Salisbury, and a dependent of the Earl of Pembroke. Little is known of his life, except from the incidental notices of his misfortunes. His plays are still known

in the theatrical world. He died in March 1640.

ARISTOCRATIC TYRANNY.

BRIEFLY thus, then,

Since I must speak for all; your tyranny

Drew us from our obedience. Happy those times
When lords were styled fathers of families,

And not imperious masters! when they numbered

Their servants almost equal with their sons,
Or one degree beneath them! when their labours
Were cherished and rewarded, and a period
Set to their sufferings; when they did not press
Their duties or their wills beyond the power
And strength of their performance! all things ordered
With such decorum as wise lawmakers,
From each well-governed private house derived
The perfect model of a commonwealth.
Humanity then lodged in the hearts of men,
And thankful masters carefully provided
For creatures wanting reason.
The noble horse,
That, in his fiery youth, from his wide nostrils
Neighed courage to his rider, and brake through
Groves of opposed pikes, bearing his lord
Safe to triumphant victory; old or wounded,
Was set at liberty, and freed from service.
The Athenian mules, that from the quarry drew
Marble, hewed for the temples of the gods,
The great work ended, were dismissed, and fed
At the public cost; nay, faithful dogs have found
Their sepulchres; but man, to man more cruel,
Appoints no end to the sufferings of his slave;
Since pride stepped in and riot, and o'erturned
This goodly frame of concord, teaching masters
To glory in the abuse of such as are

Brought under their command; who, grown unuseful,
Are less esteemed than beasts.-This you have practised,
Practised on us with rigour; this hath forced us
To shake our heavy yokes off; and, if redress
Of these just grievances be not granted us,
We'll right ourselves, and by strong hand defend
What we are now possessed of.

William Drummond.

{

Born 1585.

Died 1649.

THIS Scottish Poet was born at his patrimonial seat, Hawthornden, near Edinburgh, 13th December 1585. He received his education in Edinburgh University, his parents expecting he would prosecute the profession of the law; but his father dying in 1610, he thought his paternal estate sufficient for his wants, and he therefore followed out his own tastes by devoting himself to literary pursuits. His poems are replete with beauty and classic elegance, and he ranks high among the reformers of versification.

Ben

Jonson visited him at Hawthornden, and Drummond has left some interesting records of the interview. In his forty-fifth year Drummond married the granddaughter of Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig, and died on 4th December 1649. He was an intense royalist, and his death is supposed to have been shortened by his grief for the execution of Charles I.

A SOLITARY LIFE.

THRICE happy he who by some shady grove,
Far from the clamorous world, doth live his own.
Thou solitary, who is not alone,

But doth converse with that eternal love.

O how more sweet is bird's harmonious moan,
Or the hoarse sobbings of the widowed dove,
Than those smooth whisperings near a prince's throne,
Which good make doubtful, do the evil approve!
O how more sweet is Zephyr's wholesome breath,
And sighs embalmed which new-born flowers unfold,
Than that applause vain honour doth bequeath!
How sweet are streams to poison drank in gold!
The world is full of horror, troubles, slights:
Wood's harmless shades have only true delights.

TO A NIGHTINGALE.

SWEET bird! that sing'st away the early hours
Of winters past, or coming, void of care.
Well pleased with delights which present are,
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers:
To rocks, to springs, to rills from leafy bowers,
Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare,
And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare,
A stain to human sense in sin that low'rs.
What soul can be so sick which by thy songs-
Attired in sweetness-sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,
And lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven?
Sweet artless songster! thou my mind dost raise
To airs of spheres-yes, and to angels' lays.

THE RIVER FORTH FEASTING.
WHAT blustering noise now interrupts my sleeps?
What echoing shouts thus cleave my crystal deeps?
And seem to call me from my watery court?
What melody, what sounds of joy and sport,

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