THIS is the production of Henry Constable, a sonnet writer of some repute in the æra of Queen Elizabeth, as may be gathered from an article in Mr. Park's Supplement to the Harleian Miscellany, vol. ix. p. 491, where his genuine sonnets are inserted from a MS, copy. He is here introduced in a cursory way, for the purpose of á personal record, and for the sake of inserting a specimen, not reprinted in the above publication.

DECAD. VI.

Son. II.

To live in hell, and heaven to behold,

To welcome life, and die a living death,
To sweat with heate, and yet be freezing cold,
To grasp at starres, and lye the earth beneath;
To tread a maze that never shall have end,

To burne in sighes, and starve in daily teares,
To climb a hill, and never to descend,

Gyants to kill, and quake at childish feares:
To pyne for foode, and watch th' Hesperian tree,
To thirst for drinke, and nectar still to draw,

To live accurst, whom men hold blest to be,
And weepe those wrongs which never creature saw :
If this be love, if love in these be founded,
My hart is love,-for these in it are grounded.

EXCERPTA POETICA.

(TEMP. ELIZ. ET JAC.)

From a MS. in possession of the Rev. H. J. TODD.*

What if a day, a month, or a yeare

Croune thy delights with a thousand wisht contentings

May not the chance of a night, or an howre,

Crosse those delights with as many sad tormentings?

Fortune, honoure, beautie, youth,

Are but blossomes dying;
Wanton pleasure, doting love,
Are but shadowes flying.

All our joyes

Are but toyes,
Idle thoughts deceaving:

None hath power

Halfe an howre,

Of his lives bereaving.

The earth's but a pointe of the world, and a man
Is but a poynte of the earth's compared center:
Shall then a pointe of a pointe be so vayne,

As to delight in a sillie poynt's adventer ?

* This MS. has been noticed by Mr. Todd in his edition of Milton's poetical works, vol. vi. That portion, including Constable's Sonnets, was liberally imparted for the use of a late Supplement to the Harleian Miscellany and the remainder is now with equal liberality imparted by its indulgent possessor.

All's in hazard that we have,

There is nothing 'byding;

Dayes of pleasures are like streames

Through fayre medowes gliding.
Weale or woe,

Tyme doeth goe,

There is no returning:

Secreat fates

Guide oure states,

Both in myrth and mourning.

What shall a man desire in this world,

Since there is nought in this world that's worth desiring?

Let not a man cast his eyes to the earth,

But to the heavens with his thoughts high aspiring.

Thinke that, living, thou must dye,

Be assured thy dayes are tolde:

Though on earth thou seeme to be,

Assure thy selfe thou art but molde.

Now at last Dispayre doth prove→
Love divided, loveth none.

Deare! when I from thee am gone,
Gone are all my joyes at once :

I love thee and thee alone,

In whose love I joyed once.

And although your sight I leave,
Sight wherein my joyes doe lye;
Till that death doth sense bereave,
Never shall affection dye.

Deare! if I do not returne,

Love and I shall dye together:

For my absence never mourne,

Whome you might have joyed ever.

Parte we must, though now I dye;
Dye I doe, to parte with you:
Him dispayre doeth cause to flye,
Whoe hath liv'd and dyed true.

Sad dispayre doeth drive me hence,
This dispayre unkindnesse sends;

If that parting be offence,

It is thou which then offends.

Verses on the Death of R. W.*

Such is the verse compos'd in mournefull teene, Sadlie attyr'd in sorrowe's liverie :

Probably Winter. See stanza third.

So sings poore Philomele, woods ravisht queene,
Progne's mad furie, Itis' tragedie,

Pandion's death, and Tereus' trecherye.

Such songs in Canens' scalding tears were fram'd,
When Tibur's streames were last heard Picus nam'd.

And such be myne, most meet for funerall;
A sable outside fits a mourning heart,
And inward grief doth outward senses call
In sorrow's quire to beare a weeping part.
Tears be my inke, sad ensigne of my smart ;
My words be sighs, the caracters of woe,
Which all mishaped like themselves doe show.

First shall I mourn thy too too suddeyn death,
Deare to my soule as to my selfe, which then,
Which then, alas! smothered thy feeble breath,
When life had newly tane possession,

In spring of years Death winter hastned on;
And enviouse of thy well-deserved prayse
Made Winter's youth an end of Winter's dayes.

Like a fayre apple, which some ruder hand
Ungently plucks, before it ripened be;

Or tender rose, enclos'd in verdant band,
New peeping forth from rugged rinde we see,
To garnish out his fruitfull nurserye,

Till nipt by northerne blast, it hangs the head,
All saplesse, livelesse, foule and withered.

Such be thy lookes, pale Death's usurped right,
Such be the roses that adorn'd thy face,
Such the bright lamps that gave thy bodie light,
Such the all-pleasing, simple, modest grace,
Which had theyr lodging in so sweet a place.