Chapter XVII: Book II: The Contents (3)

81 'Those beasts are hunted hard that hard can fly,'
Replied aloud the noble Hurgonil;
'But we, not used to flight, know best to die;
And those who know to die, know how to kill.

82 'Victors through number never gained applause;
If they exceed our count in arms and men,
It is not just to think that odds, because
One lover equals any other ten.'

FROM 'GONDIBERT'--CANTO IV.

1 The King, who never time nor power misspent
In subject's bashfulness, whiling great deeds
Like coward councils, who too late consent,
Thus to his secret will aloud proceeds:

2 'If to thy fame, brave youth, I could add wings,
Or make her trumpet louder by my voice,
I would, as an example drawn for kings,
Proclaim the cause why thou art now my choice.

* * * * *

3 'For she is yours, as your adoption free;
And in that gift my remnant life I give;
But 'tis to you, brave youth! who now are she;
And she that heaven where secondly I live.

4 'And richer than that crown, which shall be thine
When life's long progress I have gone with fame,
Take all her love; which scarce forbears to shine,
And own thee, through her virgin curtain, shame.'

5 Thus spake the king; and Rhodalind appeared
Through published love, with so much bashfulness,
As young kings show, when by surprise o'erheard,
Moaning to favourite ears a deep distress.

6 For love is a distress, and would be hid
Like monarchs' griefs, by which they bashful grow;
And in that shame beholders they forbid;
Since those blush most, who most their blushes show.

7 And Gondibert, with dying eyes, did grieve
At her vailed love, a wound he cannot heal,
As great minds mourn, who cannot then relieve
The virtuous, when through shame they want conceal.

8 And now cold Birtha's rosy looks decay;
Who in fear's frost had like her beauty died,
But that attendant hope persuades her stay
A while, to hear her Duke; who thus replied:

9 'Victorious King! abroad your subjects are,
Like legates, safe; at home like altars free!
Even by your fame they conquer, as by war;
And by your laws safe from each other be.

10 'A king you are o'er subjects so, as wise
And noble husbands seem o'er loyal wives;
Who claim not, yet confess their liberties,
And brag to strangers of their happy lives.

11 'To foes a winter storm; whilst your friends bow,
Like summer trees, beneath your bounty's load;
To me, next him whom your great self, with low
And cheerful duty, serves, a giving God.

12 'Since this is you, and Rhodalind, the light
By which her sex fled virtue find, is yours,
Your diamond, which tests of jealous sight,
The stroke, and fire, and Oisel's juice endures;

13 'Since she so precious is, I shall appear
All counterfeit, of art's disguises made;
And never dare approach her lustre near,
Who scarce can hold my value in the shade.

14 'Forgive me that I am not what I seem;
But falsely have dissembled an excess
Of all such virtues as you most esteem;
But now grow good but as I ills confess.

15 'Far in ambition's fever am I gone!
Like raging flame aspiring is my love;
Like flame destructive too, and, like the sun,
Does round the world tow'rds change of objects move.

16 'Nor is this now through virtuous shame confessed;
But Rhodalind does force my conjured fear,
As men whom evil spirits have possessed,
Tell all when saintly votaries appear.

17 'When she will grace the bridal dignity,
It will be soon to all young monarchs known;
Who then by posting through the world will try
Who first can at her feet present his crown.

18 'Then will Verona seem the inn of kings,
And Rhodalind shall at her palace gate
Smile, when great love these royal suitors brings;
Who for that smile would as for empire wait.

19 'Amongst this ruling race she choice may take
For warmth of valour, coolness of the mind,
Eyes that in empire's drowsy calms can wake,
In storms look out, in darkness dangers find;

20 'A prince who more enlarges power than lands,
Whose greatness is not what his map contains;
But thinks that his where he at full commands,
Not where his coin does pass, but power remains.

21 'Who knows that power can never be too high;
When by the good possessed, for 'tis in them
The swelling Nile, from which though people fly,
They prosper most by rising of the stream.

22 'Thus, princes, you should choose; and you will find,
Even he, since men are wolves, must civilise,
As light does tame some beasts of savage kind,
Himself yet more, by dwelling in your eyes.'

23 Such was the Duke's reply; which did produce
Thoughts of a diverse shape through several ears:
His jealous rivals mourn at his excuse;
But Astragon it cures of all his fears,

24 Birtha his praise of Rhodalind bewails;
And now her hope a weak physician seems;
For hope, the common comforter, prevails
Like common medicines, slowly in extremes.

25 The King (secure in offered empire) takes
This forced excuse as troubled bashfulness,
And a disguise which sudden passion makes,
To hide more joy than prudence should express.

26 And Rhodalind, who never loved before,
Nor could suspect his love was given away,
Thought not the treasure of his breast so poor,
But that it might his debts of honour pay.

27 To hasten the rewards of his desert,
The King does to Verona him command;
And, kindness so imposed, not all his art
Can now instruct his duty to withstand.

28 Yet whilst the King does now his time dispose
In seeing wonders, in this palace shown,
He would a parting kindness pay to those
Who of their wounds are yet not perfect grown.

29 And by this fair pretence, whilst on the King
Lord Astragon through all the house attends,
Young Orgo does the Duke to Birtha bring,
Who thus her sorrows to his bosom sends:

30 'Why should my storm your life's calm voyage vex?
Destroying wholly virtue's race in one:
So by the first of my unlucky sex,
All in a single ruin were undone.

31 'Make heavenly Rhodalind your bride! whilst I,
Your once loved maid, excuse you, since I know
That virtuous men forsake so willingly
Long-cherished life, because to heaven they go.

32 'Let me her servant be: a dignity,
Which if your pity in my fall procures,
I still shall value the advancement high,
Not as the crown is hers, but she is yours.'

33 Ere this high sorrow up to dying grew,
The Duke the casket opened, and from thence,
Formed like a heart, a cheerful emerald drew;
Cheerful, as if the lively stone had sense.

34 The thirtieth caract it had doubled twice;
Not taken from the Attic silver mine,
Nor from the brass, though such, of nobler price,
Did on the necks of Parthian ladies shine:

35 Nor yet of those which make the Ethiop proud;
Nor taken from those rocks where Bactrians climb:
But from the Scythian, and without a cloud;
Not sick at fire, nor languishing with time.

36 Then thus he spake: 'This, Birtha, from my male
Progenitors, was to the loyal she
On whose kind heart they did in love prevail,
The nuptial pledge, and this I give to thee:

37 'Seven centuries have passed, since it from bride
To bride did first succeed; and though 'tis known
From ancient lore, that gems much virtue hide,
And that the emerald is the bridal stone:

38 'Though much renowned because it chastens loves,
And will, when worn by the neglected wife,
Show when her absent lord disloyal proves,
By faintness, and a pale decay of life.

39 'Though emeralds serve as spies to jealous brides,
Yet each compared to this does counsel keep;
Like a false stone, the husband's falsehood hides,
Or seems born blind, or feigns a dying sleep.

40 'With this take Orgo, as a better spy,
Who may in all your kinder fears be sent
To watch at court, if I deserve to die
By making this to fade, and you lament.'

41 Had now an artful pencil Birtha drawn,
With grief all dark, then straight with joy all light,
He must have fancied first, in early dawn,
A sudden break of beauty out of night.

42 Or first he must have marked what paleness fear,
Like nipping frost, did to her visage bring;
Then think he sees, in a cold backward year,
A rosy morn begin a sudden spring.

43 Her joys, too vast to be contained in speech,
Thus she a little spake: 'Why stoop you down,
My plighted lord, to lowly Birtha's reach,
Since Rhodalind would lift you to a crown?

44 'Or why do I, when I this plight embrace,
Boldly aspire to take what you have given?
But that your virtue has with angels place,
And 'tis a virtue to aspire to heaven.

45 'And as towards heaven all travel on their knees,
So I towards you, though love aspire, will move:
And were you crowned, what could you better please
Then awed obedience led by bolder love?

46 'If I forget the depth from whence I rise,
Far from your bosom banished be my heart;
Or claim a right by beauty to your eyes;
Or proudly think my chastity desert.

47 'But thus ascending from your humble maid
To be your plighted bride, and then your wife,
Will be a debt that shall be hourly paid,
Till time my duty cancel with my life.

48 'And fruitfully, if heaven e'er make me bring
Your image to the world, you then my pride
No more shall blame than you can tax the spring
For boasting of those flowers she cannot hide.

49 'Orgo I so receive as I am taught
By duty to esteem whate'er you love;
And hope the joy he in this jewel brought
Will luckier than his former triumphs prove.

50 'For though but twice he has approached my sight,
He twice made haste to drown me in my tears:
But now I am above his planet's spite,
And as for sin beg pardon for my fears.'

51 Thus spake she: and with fixed, continued sight
The Duke did all her bashful beauties view;
Then they with kisses sealed their sacred plight,
Like flowers, still sweeter as they thicker grew.

52 Yet must these pleasures feel, though innocent,
The sickness of extremes, and cannot last;
For power, love's shunned impediment, has sent
To tell the Duke his monarch is in haste:

53 And calls him to that triumph which he fears
So as a saint forgiven, whose breast does all
Heaven's joys contain, wisely loved pomp forbears,
Lest tempted nature should from blessings fall.

54 He often takes his leave, with love's delay,
And bids her hope he with the King shall find,
By now appearing forward to obey,
A means to serve him less in Rhodalind.

55 She weeping to her closet window hies,
Where she with tears doth Rhodalind survey;
As dying men, who grieve that they have eyes,
When they through curtains spy the rising day.

DR HENRY KING.

Of this poetical divine we know nothing, except that he was born in 1591, and died in 1669,--that he was chaplain to James I., and Bishop of Chichester,--and that he indited some poetry as pious in design as it is pretty in execution.

SIC VITA.

Like to the falling of a star, Or as the flights of eagles are; Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue, Or silver drops of morning dew; Or like a wind that chafes the flood, Or bubbles which on water stood: Even such is man, whose borrowed light Is straight called in, and paid to-night.

The wind blows out, the bubble dies; The spring entombed in autumn lies; The dew dries up, the star is shot: The flight is past--and man forgot.

SONG.

1 Dry those fair, those crystal eyes,
Which like growing fountains rise
To drown their banks! Grief's sullen brooks
Would better flow in furrowed looks:
Thy lovely face was never meant
To be the shore of discontent.

2 Then clear those waterish stars again,
Which else portend a lasting rain;
Lest the clouds which settle there
Prolong my winter all the year,
And thy example others make
In love with sorrow, for thy sake.

LIFE.

1 What is the existence of man's life
But open war or slumbered strife?
Where sickness to his sense presents
The combat of the elements,
And never feels a perfect peace
Till death's cold hand signs his release.

2 It is a storm--where the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood:
And each loud passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,
Which beats the bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.

3 It is a flower--which buds, and grows,
And withers as the leaves disclose;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep,
Then shrinks into that fatal mould
Where its first being was enrolled.

4 It is a dream--whose seeming truth
Is moralised in age and youth;
Where all the comforts he can share
As wandering as his fancies are,
Till in a mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanish quite away.

5 It is a dial--which points out
The sunset as it moves about;
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtle stages of Time's flight,
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
His body in perpetual shade.

6 It is a weary interlude--
Which doth short joys, long woes, include:
The world the stage, the prologue tears;
The acts vain hopes and varied fears;
The scene shuts up with loss of breath,
And leaves no epilogue but Death!

JOHN CHALKHILL.

This author was of the age of Spenser, and is said to have been an acquaintance and friend of that poet. It was not, however, till 1683 that good old Izaak Walton published 'Thealma and Clearchus,' a pas- toral romance, which, he stated, had been written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq. He says of the author, 'that he was in his time a man generally known, and as well beloved; for he was humble and obliging in his behaviour--a gentleman, a scholar, very innocent and prudent, and indeed his whole life was useful, quiet, and virtuous.' Some have suspected that this production proceeded from the pen of Walton himself. This, however, is rendered extremely unlikely--first, by the fact that Walton, when he printed 'Thealma,' was ninety years of age; and, secondly, by the difference in style and purpose between that poem and Walton's avowed productions. The mind of Walton was quietly ingenious; that of the author of 'Thealma' is adventurous and fantastic. Walton loved 'the green pastures and the still waters' of the Present; the other, the golden groves and ideal wildernesses of the Golden Age in the Past.

'Thealma and Clearchus' may be called an 'Arcadia' in rhyme. It resembles that work of Sir Philip Sidney, not only in subject, but in execution. Its plot is dark and puzzling, its descriptions are rich to luxuriance, its narrative is tedious, and its characters are mere shadows. But although a dream, it is a dream of genius, and brings beautifully before our imagination that early period in the world's history, in which poets and painters have taught us to believe, when the heavens were nearer, the skies clearer, the fat of the earth richer, the foam of the sea brighter, than in our degenerate days;--when shepherds, reposing under broad, umbrageous oaks, saw, or thought they saw, in the groves the shadow of angels, and on the mountain-summits the descending footsteps of God. Chalkhill resembles, of all our modern poets, perhaps Shelley most, in the ideality of his conception, the enthusiasm of his spirit, and the unmitigated gorgeousness of his imagination.

ARCADIA.

Arcadia, was of old, a state, Subject to none but their own laws and fate; Superior there was none, but what old age And hoary hairs had raised; the wise and sage, Whose gravity, when they are rich in years, Begat a civil reverence more than fears In the well-mannered people; at that day, All was in common, every man bare sway O'er his own family; the jars that rose Were soon appeased by such grave men as those: This mine and thine, that we so cavil for, Was then not heard of; he that was most poor Was rich in his content, and lived as free As they whose flocks were greatest; nor did he Envy his great abundance, nor the other Disdain the low condition of his brother, But lent him from his store to mend his state, And with his love he quits him, thanks his fate; And, taught by his example, seeks out such As want his help, that they may do as much. Their laws, e'en from their childhood, rich and poor Had written in their hearts, by conning o'er The legacies of good old men, whose memories Outlive their monuments, the grave advice They left behind in writing;--this was that That made Arcadia then so blest a state; Their wholesome laws had linked them so in one, They lived in peace and sweet communion. Peace brought forth plenty, plenty bred content, And that crowned all their plans with merriment. They had no foe, secure they lived in tents, All was their own they had, they paid no rents; Their sheep found clothing, earth provided food, And labour dressed them as their wills thought good; On unbought delicates their hunger fed, And for their drink the swelling clusters bled; The valleys rang with their delicious strains, And pleasure revelled on those happy plains; Content and labour gave them length of days, And peace served in delight a thousand ways.

THEALMA, A DESERTED SHEPHERDESS.

Scarce had the ploughman yoked his horned team, And locked their traces to the crooked beam, When fair Thealma, with a maiden scorn, That day before her rise, outblushed the morn; Scarce had the sun gilded the mountain-tops, When forth she leads her tender ewes.

* * * * *

Down in a valley, 'twixt two rising hills, From whence the dew in silver drops distils To enrich the lowly plain, a river ran, Hight Cygnus, (as some think, from Leda's swan That there frequented;) gently on it glides, And makes indentures in her crooked sides, And with her silent murmurs rocks asleep Her watery inmates; 'twas not very deep, But clear as that Narcissus looked in, when His self-love made him cease to live with men. Close by the river was a thick-leafed grove, Where swains of old sang stories of their love, But unfrequented now since Colin died-- Colin, that king of shepherds, and the pride Of all Arcadia;--here Thealma used To feed her milky droves; and as they browsed, Under the friendly shadow of a beech She sat her down; grief had tongue-tied her speech, Her words were sighs and tears--dumb eloquence-- Heard only by the sobs, and not the sense. With folded arms she sat, as if she meant To hug those woes which in her breast were pent; Her looks were nailed to earth, that drank Her tears with greediness, and seemed to thank Her for those briny showers, and in lieu Returns her flowery sweetness for her dew.

* * * * *

'O my Clearchus!' said she, and with tears Embalms his name: 'oh, if the ghosts have ears, Or souls departed condescend so low, To sympathise with mortals in their woe, Vouchsafe to lend a gentle ear to me, Whose life is worse than death, since not with thee. What privilege have they that are born great Move than the meanest swain? The proud waves beat With more impetuousness upon high lands, Than on the flat and less-resisting strands: The lofty cedar, and the knotty oak, Are subject more unto the thunder-stroke, Than the low shrubs that no such shocks endure; Even their contempt doth make them live secure. Had I been born the child of some poor swain, Whose thoughts aspire no higher than the plain, I had been happy then; t'have kept these sheep, Had been a princely pleasure; quiet sleep Had drowned my cares, or sweetened them with dreams: Love and content had been my music's themes; Or had Clearchus lived the life I lead, I had been blest!'

PRIESTESS OF DIANA.

Within a little silent grove hard by,
Upon a small ascent, he might espy
A stately chapel, richly gilt without,
Beset with shady sycamores about:
And ever and anon he might well hear
A sound of music steal in at his ear
As the wind gave it being; so sweet an air
Would strike a syren mute.--

* * * * *

A hundred virgins there he might espy Prostrate before a marble deity, Which, by its portraiture, appeared to be The image of Diana; on their knee They tendered their devotions, with sweet airs, Offering the incense of their praise and prayers. Their garments all alike; beneath their paps Buckled together with a silver claps, And 'cross their snowy silken robes, they wore An azure scarf, with stars embroidered o'er. Their hair in curious tresses was knit up, Crowned with a silver crescent on the top. A silver bow their left hand held, their right, For their defence, held a sharp-headed flight Drawn from their broidered quiver, neatly tied In silken cords, and fastened to their side. Under their vestments, something short before, White buskins, laced with ribanding, they wore. It was a catching sight for a young eye, That love had fired before. He might espy One, whom the rest had sphere-like circled round, Whose head was with a golden chaplet crowned. He could not see her face, only his ear Was blessed with the sweet sounds that came from her.

THEALMA IN FULL DRESS.

----Tricked herself in all her best attire, As if she meant this day to invite desire To fall in love with her; her loose hair Hung on her shoulders, sporting with the air; Her brow a coronet of rosebuds crowned, With loving woodbines' sweet embraces bound. Two globe-like pearls were pendant to her ears, And on her breast a costly gem she wears, An adamant, in fashion like a heart, Whereon Love sat, a-plucking out a dart, With this same motto graven round about, On a gold border, 'Sooner in than out.' This gem Clearchus gave her, when, unknown, At tilt his valour won her for his own. Instead of bracelets on her wrists, she wore A pair of golden shackles, chained before Unto a silver ring, enamelled blue, Whereon in golden letters to the view This motto was presented, 'Bound, yet free,' And in a true-love's knot, a T and C Buckled it fast together; her silk gown Of grassy green, in equal plaits hung down Unto the earth; and as she went, the flowers, Which she had broidered on it at spare hours, Were wrought so to the life, they seemed to grow In a green field; and as the wind did blow, Sometimes a lily, then a rose, takes place, And blushing seems to hide it in the grass: And here and there good oats 'mong pearls she strew, That seemed like spinning glow-worms in the dew. Her sleeves were tinsel, wrought with leaves of green In equal distance spangeled between, And shadowed over with a thin lawn cloud, Through which her workmanship more graceful showed.

DWELLING OF THE WITCH ORANDRA.

Down in a gloomy valley, thick with shade, Which two aspiring hanging rocks had made, That shut out day, and barred the glorious sun From prying into the actions there done; Set full of box and cypress, poplar, yew, And hateful elder that in thickets grew, Among whose boughs the screech-owl and night-crow Sadly recount their prophecies of woe, Where leather-winged bats, that hate the light, Fan the thick air, more sooty than the night. The ground o'ergrown with weeds and bushy shrubs, Where milky hedgehogs nurse their prickly cubs: And here and there a mandrake grows, that strikes The hearers dead with their loud fatal shrieks; Under whose spreading leaves the ugly toad, The adder, and the snake, make their abode. Here dwelt Orandra; so the witch was hight, And hither had she toiled him by a sleight: She knew Anaxus was to go to court, And, envying virtue, she made it her sport To hinder him, sending her airy spies Forth with delusion to entrap his eyes, As would have fired a hermit's chill desires Into a flame; his greedy eye admires The more than human beauty of her face, And much ado he had to shun the grace; Conceit had shaped her out so like his love, That he was once about in vain to prove Whether 'twas his Clarinda, yea or no, But he bethought him of his herb, and so The shadow vanished; many a weary step It led the prince, that pace with it still kept, Until it brought him by a hellish power Unto the entrance of Orandra's bower, Where underneath an elder-tree he spied His man Pandevius, pale and hollow-eyed; Inquiring of the cunning witch what fate Betid his master; they were newly sate When his approach disturbed them; up she rose, And toward Anaxus (envious hag) she goes; Pandevius she had charmed into a maze, And struck him mute, all he could do was gaze. He called him by his name, but all in vain, Echo returns 'Pandevius' back again; Which made him wonder, when a sudden fear Shook all his joints: she, cunning hag, drew near, And smelling to his herb, he recollects His wandering spirits, and with anger checks His coward fears; resolved now to outdare The worst of dangers, whatsoe'er they were; He eyed her o'er and o'er, and still his eye Found some addition to deformity. An old decrepit hag she was, grown white With frosty age, and withered with despite And self-consuming hate; in furs yclad, And on her head a thrummy cap she had. Her knotty locks, like to Alecto's snakes,

Hang down about her shoulders, which she shakes Into disorder; on her furrowed brow One might perceive Time had been long at plough. Her eyes, like candle-snuffs, by age sunk quite Into their sockets, yet like cats' eyes bright: And in the darkest night like fire they shined, The ever-open windows of her mind. Her swarthy cheeks, Time, that all things consumes, Had hollowed flat into her toothless gums. Her hairy brows did meet above her nose, That like an eagle's beak so crooked grows, It well-nigh kissed her chin; thick bristled hair Grew on her upper lip, and here and there A rugged wart with grisly hairs behung; Her breasts shrunk up, her nails and fingers long; Her left leant on a staff, in her right hand She always carried her enchanting wand. Splay-footed, beyond nature, every part So patternless deformed, 'twould puzzle art To make her counterfeit; only her tongue, Nature had that most exquisitely strung, Her oily language came so smoothly from her, And her quaint action did so well become her, Her winning rhetoric met with no trips, But chained the dull'st attention to her lips. With greediness he heard, and though he strove To shake her off, the more her words did move. She wooed him to her cell, called him her son, And with fair promises she quickly won Him to her beck; or rather he, to try What she could do, did willingly comply, With her request. * * * Her cell was hewn out of the marble rock By more than human art; she did not knock, The door stood always open, large and wide, Grown o'er with woolly moss on either side, And interwove with ivy's nattering twines, Through which the carbuncle and diamond shines. Not set by Art, but there by Nature sown At the world's birth, so star-like bright they shone. They served instead of tapers to give light To the dark entry, where perpetual Night, Friend to black deeds, and sire of Ignorance, Shuts out all knowledge, lest her eye by chance Might bring to light her follies: in they went, The ground was strewed with flowers, whose sweet scent, Mixed with the choice perfumes from India brought, Intoxicates his brain, and quickly caught His credulous sense; the walls were gilt, and set With precious stones, and all the roof was fret With a gold vine, whose straggling branches spread All o'er the arch; the swelling grapes were red; This Art had made of rubies, clustered so, To the quick'st eye they more than seemed to grow; About the wall lascivious pictures hung, Such as were of loose Ovid sometimes sung. On either side a crew of dwarfish elves Held waxen tapers, taller than themselves: Yet so well shaped unto their little stature, So angel-like in face, so sweet in feature; Their rich attire so differing; yet so well Becoming her that wore it, none could tell Which was the fairest, which the handsomest decked, Or which of them desire would soon'st affect. After a low salute they all 'gan sing, And circle in the stranger in a ring. Orandra to her charms was stepped aside, Leaving her guest half won and wanton-eyed. He had forgot his herb: cunning delight Had so bewitched his ears, and bleared his sight, And captivated all his senses so, That he was not himself; nor did he know What place he was in, or how he came there, But greedily he feeds his eye and ear With what would ruin him;-- * * * * * Next unto his view She represents a banquet, ushered in By such a shape as she was sure would win His appetite to taste; so like she was To his Clarinda, both in shape and face; So voiced, so habited, of the same gait And comely gesture; on her brow in state Sat such a princely majesty, as he Had noted in Clarinda; save that she Had a more wanton eye, that here and there Rolled up and down, not settling any where. Down on the ground she falls his hand to kiss, And with her tears bedews it; cold as ice He felt her lips, that yet inflamed him so, That he was all on fire the truth to know, Whether she was the same she did appear, Or whether some fantastic form it were, Fashioned in his imagination By his still working thoughts, so fixed upon His loved Clarinda, that his fancy strove, Even with her shadow, to express his love.

CATHARINE PHILLIPS.

Very little is known of the life of this lady-poet. She was born in 1631. Her maiden name was Fowler. She married James Phillips, Esq., of the Priory of Cardigan. Her poems, published under the name of "Orinda," were very popular in her lifetime, although it was said they were published without her consent. She translated two of the tragedies of Corneille, and left a volume of letters to Sir Charles Cotterell. These, however, did not appear till after her death. She died of small-pox --then a deadly disease--in 1664. She seems to have been a favourite alike with the wits and the divines of her age. Jeremy Taylor addressed to her his "Measures and Offices of Friendship;" Dryden praised her; and Flatman and Cowley, besides imitating her poems while she was living, paid rhymed tributes to her memory when dead. Her verses are never commonplace, and always sensible, if they hardly attain to the measure and the stature of lofty poetry,

THE INQUIRY.

1 If we no old historian's name
Authentic will admit,
But think all said of friendship's fame
But poetry or wit;
Yet what's revered by minds so pure
Must be a bright idea sure.

2 But as our immortality
By inward sense we find,
Judging that if it could not be,
It would not be designed:
So here how could such copies fall,
If there were no original?

3 But if truth be in ancient song,
Or story we believe;
If the inspired and greater throng
Have scorned to deceive;
There have been hearts whose friendship gave
Them thoughts at once both soft and grave.

4 Among that consecrated crew
Some more seraphic shade
Lend me a favourable clew,
Now mists my eyes invade.
Why, having filled the world with fame,
Left you so little of your flame?

5 Why is't so difficult to see
Two bodies and one mind?
And why are those who else agree
So difficultly kind?
Hath Nature such fantastic art,
That she can vary every heart?

6 Why are the bands of friendship tied
With so remiss a knot,
That by the most it is defied,
And by the most forgot?
Why do we step with so light sense
From friendship to indifference?

7 If friendship sympathy impart,
Why this ill-shuffled game,
That heart can never meet with heart,
Or flame encounter flame?
What does this cruelty create?
Is't the intrigue of love or fate?

8 Had friendship ne'er been known to men,
(The ghost at last confessed)
The world had then a stranger been
To all that heaven possessed.
But could it all be here acquired,
Not heaven itself would be desired.

A FRIEND.

1 Love, nature's plot, this great creation's soul,
The being and the harmony of things,
Doth still preserve and propagate the whole,
From whence man's happiness and safety springs:
The earliest, whitest, blessed'st times did draw
From her alone their universal law.

2 Friendship's an abstract of this noble flame,
'Tis love refined and purged from all its dross,
The next to angels' love, if not the same,
As strong in passion is, though not so gross:
It antedates a glad eternity,
And is an heaven in epitome.

* * * * *

3 Essential honour must be in a friend,
Not such as every breath fans to and fro;
But born within, is its own judge and end,
And dares not sin though sure that none should know.
Where friendship's spoke, honesty's understood;
For none can be a friend that is not good.

* * * * *

4 Thick waters show no images of things;
Friends are each other's mirrors, and should be
Clearer than crystal or the mountain springs,
And free from clouds, design, or flattery.
For vulgar souls no part of friendship share;
Poets and friends are born to what they are.

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE.

This lady, if not more of a woman than Mrs Phillips, was considerably more of a poet. She was born (probably) about 1625. She was the daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, and became a maid-of-honour to Henrietta Maria. Accompanying the Queen to France, she met with the Marquis, afterwards Duke of Newcastle, and married him at Paris in 1645. They removed to Antwerp, and there, in 1653, this lady published a volume, entitled 'Poems and Fancies.' The pair aided each other in their studies, and the result was a number of enormous folios of poems, plays, speeches, and philosophical disquisitions. These volumes were, we are told, great favourites of Coleridge and Charles Lamb, for the sake, we presume, of the wild sparks of insight and genius which break irresistibly through the scholastic smoke and bewildered nonsense. When Charles II. was restored, the Marquis and his wife returned to England, and spent their life in great harmony. She died in 1673, leaving behind her some beautiful fantasias, where the meaning is often finer than the music, such as the 'Pastime and Recreation of Fairies in Fairy-land.' Her poetry, particularly her contrasted pictures of Mirth and Melancholy, present fine accumulations of imagery drawn direct from nature, and shewn now in brightest sunshine, and now in softest moonlight, as the change of her subject and her tone of feeling require.

MELANCHOLY DESCRIBED BY MIRTH.

Her voice is low, and gives a hollow sound; She hates the light, and is in darkness found; Or sits with blinking lamps, or tapers small, Which various shadows make against the wall. She loves nought else but noise which discord makes, As croaking frogs, whose dwelling is in lakes; The raven's hoarse, the mandrake's hollow groan, And shrieking owls which fly i' the night alone; The tolling bell, which for the dead rings out; A mill, where rushing waters run about; The roaring winds, which shake the cedars tall, Plough up the seas, and beat the rocks withal. She loves to walk in the still moonshine night, And in a thick dark grove she takes delight; In hollow caves, thatched houses, and low cells, She loves to live, and there alone she dwells.

MELANCHOLY DESCRIBING HERSELF.

I dwell in groves that gilt are with the sun; Sit on the banks by which clear waters run; In summers hot, down in a shade I lie; My music is the buzzing of a fly; I walk in meadows, where grows fresh green grass; In fields, where corn is high, I often pass; Walk up the hills, where round I prospects see, Some brushy woods, and some all champaigns be; Returning back, I in fresh pastures go, To hear how sheep do bleat, and cows do low; In winter cold, when nipping frosts come on, Then I do live in a small house alone; Although 'tis plain, yet cleanly 'tis within, Like to a soul that's pure, and clear from sin; And there I dwell in quiet and still peace, Not filled with cares how riches to increase; I wish nor seek for vain and fruitless pleasures; No riches are, but what the mind intreasures. Thus am I solitary, live alone, Yet better loved, the more that I am known; And though my face ill-favoured at first sight, After acquaintance, it will give delight. Refuse me not, for I shall constant be; Maintain your credit and your dignity.

THOMAS STANLEY.

Thomas Stanley, like Thomas Brown in later days, was both a philosopher and a poet; but his philosophical reputation at the time eclipsed his poetical. He was the only son of Sir Thomas Stanley of Camberlow Green, in Hertfordshire, and was born in 1620. He received his education at Pembroke College, Oxford; and after travelling for some years abroad, he took up his abode in the Middle Temple. Here he seems to have spent the rest of his life in patient and multifarious studies. He made translations of some merit from Anacreon, Bion, Moschus, and the 'Kisses' of Secundus, as well as from Marino, Boscan, Tristan, and Gongora. He wrote a work of great pretensions as a compilation, entitled 'The History of Philosophy,' containing the lives, opinions, actions, and discourses of philosophers of every sect, of which he published the first volume in 1655, and completed it in a fourth in 1662. It is rather a vast collection of the materials for a history, than a history itself. He is a Cudworth in magnitude and learning, but not in strength and comprehension, and is destitute of precision and clearness of style. Stanley also wrote some poems, which discover powers that might have been better employed in original composition than in translation. His style, rich of itself, is enriched to repletion by conceits, and sometimes by voluptuous sentiments and language. He adds a new flush to the cheek of Anacreon himself; and his grapes are so heavy, that not a staff, but a wain were required to bear them. Stanley died in 1678.

CELIA SINGING.

1 Roses in breathing forth their scent,
Or stars their borrowed ornament;
Nymphs in their watery sphere that move,
Or angels in their orbs above;
The winged chariot of the light,
Or the slow, silent wheels of night;
The shade which from the swifter sun
Doth in a swifter motion run,
Or souls that their eternal rest do keep,
Make far less noise than Celia's breath in sleep.

2 But if the angel which inspires
This subtle flame with active fires,
Should mould this breath to words, and those
Into a harmony dispose,
The music of this heavenly sphere
Would steal each soul (in) at the ear,
And into plants and stones infuse
A life that cherubim would choose,
And with new powers invert the laws of fate,
Kill those that live, and dead things animate.

SPEAKING AND KISSING.

1 The air which thy smooth voice doth break,
Into my soul like lightning flies;
My life retires while thou dost speak,
And thy soft breath its room supplies.

2 Lost in this pleasing ecstasy,
I join my trembling lips to thine,
And back receive that life from thee
Which I so gladly did resign.

3 Forbear, Platonic fools! t'inquire
What numbers do the soul compose;
No harmony can life inspire,
But that which from these accents flows.

LA BELLE CONFIDANTE.

You earthly souls that court a wanton flame
Whose pale, weak influence
Can rise no higher than the humble name
And narrow laws of sense,
Learn, by our friendship, to create
An immaterial fire,
Whose brightness angels may admire,
But cannot emulate.
Sickness may fright the roses from her cheek,
Or make the lilies fade,
But all the subtle ways that death doth seek
Cannot my love invade.

THE LOSS.

1 Yet ere I go,
Disdainful Beauty, thou shalt be
So wretched as to know
What joys thou fling'st away with me.

2 A faith so bright,
As Time or Fortune could not rust;
So firm, that lovers might
Have read thy story in my dust,

3 And crowned thy name
With laurel verdant as thy youth,
Whilst the shrill voice of Fame
Spread wide thy beauty and my truth.

4 This thou hast lost,
For all true lovers, when they find
That my just aims were crossed,
Will speak thee lighter than the wind.

5 And none will lay
Any oblation on thy shrine,
But such as would betray
Thy faith to faiths as false as thine.

6 Yet, if thou choose
On such thy freedom to bestow,
Affection may excuse,
For love from sympathy doth flow.

NOTE ON ANACREON.

Let's not rhyme the hours away; Friends! we must no longer play: Brisk Lyaeus--see!--invites To more ravishing delights. Let's give o'er this fool Apollo, Nor his fiddle longer follow: Fie upon his forked hill, With his fiddlestick and quill; And the Muses, though they're gamesome, They are neither young nor handsome; And their freaks in sober sadness Are a mere poetic madness: Pegasus is but a horse; He that follows him is worse. See, the rain soaks to the skin, Make it rain as well within. Wine, my boy; we'll sing and laugh, All night revel, rant, and quaff; Till the morn, stealing behind us, At the table sleepless find us. When our bones, alas! shall have A cold lodging in the grave; When swift Death shall overtake us, We shall sleep and none can wake us. Drink we then the juice o' the vine Make our breasts Lyaeus' shrine; Bacchus, our debauch beholding, By thy image I am moulding, Whilst my brains I do replenish With this draught of unmixed Rhenish; By thy full-branched ivy twine; By this sparkling glass of wine; By thy Thyrsus so renowned: By the healths with which th' art crowned; By the feasts which thou dost prize; By thy numerous victories; By the howls by Moenads made; By this haut-gout carbonade; By thy colours red and white; By the tavern, thy delight; By the sound thy orgies spread; By the shine of noses red; By thy table free for all; By the jovial carnival; By thy language cabalistic; By thy cymbal, drum, and his stick; By the tunes thy quart-pots strike up; By thy sighs, the broken hiccup; By thy mystic set of ranters; By thy never-tamed panthers; By this sweet, this fresh and free air; By thy goat, as chaste as we are; By thy fulsome Cretan lass; By the old man on the ass; By thy cousins in mixed shapes; By the flower of fairest grapes; By thy bisks famed far and wide; By thy store of neats'-tongues dried; By thy incense, Indian smoke; By the joys thou dost provoke; By this salt Westphalia gammon; By these sausages that inflame one; By thy tall majestic flagons; By mass, tope, and thy flapdragons; By this olive's unctuous savour; By this orange, the wine's flavour; By this cheese o'errun with mites; By thy dearest favourites; To thy frolic order call us, Knights of the deep bowl install us; And to show thyself divine, Never let it want for wine.

ANDREW MARVELL.

This noble-minded patriot and poet, the friend of Milton, the Abdiel of a dark and corrupt age,--'faithful found among the faithless, faithful only he,'--was born in Hull in 1620. He was sent to Cambridge, and is said there to have nearly fallen a victim to the proselytising Jesuits, who enticed him to London. His father, however, a clergyman in Hull, went in search of and brought him back to his university, where speedily, by extensive culture and the vigorous exercise of his powerful faculties, he emancipated himself for ever from the dominion, and the danger of the dominion, of superstition and bigotry. We know little more about the early days of our poet. When only twenty, he lost his father in remarkable circumstances. In 1640, he had embarked on the Humber in company with a youthful pair whom he was to marry at Barrow, in Lincolnshire. The weather was calm; but Marvell, seized with a sudden presentiment of danger, threw his staff ashore, and cried out, 'Ho for heaven!' A storm came on, and the whole company perished. In consequence of this sad event, the gentleman, whose daughter was to have been married, conceiving that the father had sacrificed his life while performing an act of friendship, adopted young Marvell as his son. Owing to this, he received a better education, and was sent abroad to travel. It is said that at Rome he met and formed a friendship with Milton, then engaged on his immortal continental tour. We find Marvell next at Constantinople, as Secretary to the English Embassy at that Court. We then lose sight of him till 1653, when he was engaged by the Protector to superintend the education of a Mr Dutton at Eton. For a year and a half after Cromwell's death, Marvell assisted Milton as Latin Secretary to the Protector. Our readers are all familiar with the print of Cromwell and Milton seated together at the council-table, --the one the express image of active power and rugged grandeur, the other of thoughtful majesty and ethereal grace. Marvell might have been added as a third, and become the emblem of strong English sense and incorruptible integrity. A letter of Milton's was, not long since, discovered, dated February 1652, in which he speaks of Marvell as fitted, by his knowledge of Latin and his experience of teaching, to be his assistant. He was not appointed, however, till 1657. In 1660, he became member for Hull, and was re-elected as long as he lived. He was absent, however, from England for two years, in the beginning of the reign, in Germany and Holland. After- wards he sought leave from his constituents to act as Ambassador's Secretary to Lord Carlisle at the Northern Courts; but from the year 1665 to his death, his attention to his parliamentary duties was unremitting. He constantly corresponded with his constituents; and after the longest sittings, he used to write out for their use a minute account of public proceedings ere he went to bed, or took any refreshment. He was one of the last members who received pay from the town he represented; (2s. a-day was probably the sum;) and his constituents were wont, besides, to send him barrels of ale as tokens of their regard. Marvell spoke little in the House; but his heart and vote were always in the right place. Even Prince Eupert continually consulted him, and was sometimes persuaded by him to support the popular side; and King Charles having met him once in private, was so delighted with his wit and agreeable manners, that he thought him worth trying to bribe. He sent Lord Danby to offer him a mark of his Majesty's consideration. Marvell, who was seated in a dingy room up several flights of stairs, declined the proffer, and, it is said, called his servant to witness that he had dined for three successive days on the same shoulder of mutton, and was not likely, therefore, to care for or need a bribe. When the Treasurer was gone, he had to send to a friend to borrow a guinea. Although, a silent senator, Marvell was a copious and popular writer. He attacked Bishop Parker for his slavish principles, in a piece entitled 'The Rehearsal Transposed,' in which he takes occasion to vindicate and panegyrise his old colleague Milton. His anonymous 'Account of the Growth of Arbitrary Power and Popery in England' excited a sensation, and a reward was offered for the apprehension of the author and printer. Marvell had many of the elements of a first-rate political pamphleteer. He had wit of a most pungent kind, great though coarse fertility of fancy, and a spirit of independence that nothing could subdue or damp. He was the undoubted ancestor of the Defoes, Swifts, Steeles, Juniuses, and Burkes, in whom this kind of authorship reached its perfection, ceased to be fugitive, and assumed classical rank.

Marvell had been repeatedly threatened with assassination, and hence, when he died suddenly on the 16th of August 1678, it was surmised that he had been removed by poison. The Corporation of Hull voted a sum to defray his funeral expenses, and for raising a monument to his memory; but owing to the interference of the Court, through the rector of the parish, this votive tablet was not at the time erected. He was buried in St Giles-in-the-Fields.

'Out of the strong came forth sweetness,' saith the Hebrew record. And so from the sturdy Andrew Marvell have proceeded such soft and lovely strains as 'The Emigrants,' 'The Nymph complaining for the Death of her Fawn,' 'Young Love,' &c. The statue of Memnon became musical at the dawn; and the stern patriot, whom no bribe could buy and no flattery melt, is found sympathising in song with a boatful of banished Englishmen in the remote Bermudas, and inditing 'Thoughts in a Garden,' from which you might suppose that he had spent his life more with melons than with men, and was better acquainted with the motions of a bee-hive than with the contests of Parliament, and the distractions of a most distracted age. It was said (not with thorough truth) of Milton, that he could cut out a Colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones--a task which his assistant may be said to have performed in his stead, in his small but delectable copies of verse.

THE EMIGRANTS.

1 Where the remote Bermudas ride,
In the ocean's bosom unespied,
From a small boat that rowed along,
The listening winds received this song.

2 'What should we do but sing His praise
That led us through the watery maze,
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own!

3 'Where he the huge sea-monsters racks,
That lift the deep upon their backs;
He lands us on a grassy stage,
Safe from the storms and prelates' rage.

4 'He gave us this eternal spring
Which here enamels everything,
And sends the fowls to us in care,
On daily visits through the air.

5 'He hangs in shades the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night:
* * * * *
And in these rocks for us did frame
A temple where to sound his name.

6 'Oh, let our voice his praise exalt
Till it arrive at heaven's vault,
Which then perhaps rebounding may
Echo beyond the Mexique bay.'

7 Thus sung they in the English boat,
A holy and a cheerful note;
And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.

THE NYMPH COMPLAINING FOR THE DEATH OF HER FAWN.

The wanton troopers riding by Have shot my fawn, and it will die. Ungentle men! they cannot thrive Who killed thee. Thou ne'er didst alive Them any harm; alas! nor could Thy death to them do any good. I'm sure I never wished them ill; Nor do I for all this; nor will: But, if my simple prayers may yet Prevail with Heaven to forget Thy murder, I will join my tears, Rather than fail. But, O my fears! It cannot die so. Heaven's King Keeps register of every thing, And nothing may we use in vain: Even beasts must be with justice slain.

* * * * *