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That Latin was no more difficile,
Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle :
Being rich in both, he never scanted
His bounty unto such as wanted;
But much of either would afford
To many that had not one word.

He was in logic a great critic,
Profoundly skilled in analytic;
He could distinguish, and divide

A hair 'twixt south and south-west side;
On either which he would dispute,
Confute, change hands, and still confute:
He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man's no horse;
He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a lord may be an owl;
A calf an alderman, a goose a justice,
And rooks committee-men and trustees.
He'd run in debt by disputation,

And pay with ratiocination:

All this by syllogism, true

In mood and figure, he would do.

For rhetoric, he could not ope

His mouth, but out there flew a trope;

And when he happened to break off
I' the middle of his speech, or cough,
H' had hard words ready to show why,
And tell what rules he did it by;
Else when with greatest art he spoke,
You'd think he talked like other folk;

For all a rhetorician's rules

Teach nothing but to name his tools.

But, when he pleased to show't, his speech,

In loftiness of sound, was rich;

A Babylonish dialect,

Which learned pedants much affect;

It was a party-colored dress

Of patched and piebald languages;

'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin,

Like fustian heretofore on satin;

SAMUEL BUTLER.

RICHARD LOVELACE.

It had an odd promiscuous tone,

As if h' had talked three parts in one;

Which made some think, when he did gabble,
Th' had heard three laborers of Babel,
Or Cerberus himself pronounce

A leash of languages at once.

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RICHARD LOVELACE.

Richard Lovelace was born in 1618, and was educated at Oxford. He is described as possessing great personal beauty and engaging manners. He was an ardent royalist, and spent the whole of his fortune in his endeavors to aid the king. He suffered imprisonment and poverty during the triumph of the Commons, and, what was worse, the ingratitude and neglect of the court after the Restoration. He died in 1658, in utter want, never having the cause to sing the "mercy, sweetness, majesty" of the heartless debauchee who dishonored the English throne.

TO ALTHEA, FROM PRISON.

WHEN love with unconfinéd wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings

To whisper at my grates ;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fettered with her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round,

With no allaying Thames,

Our careless heads with roses crowned,
Our hearts with loyal flames;

When thirsty grief in wine we steep,

When healths and draughts go free,

Fishes that tipple in the deep

Know no such liberty.

When, linnet-like, confinéd, I
With shriller note shall sing
The mercy, sweetness, majesty,
And glories of my king;

When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,

Th' enlarged winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage:
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

ANDREW MARVELL.

Andrew Marvell was born in a village in Lincolnshire, about the year 1620. He was educated at Cambridge, and afterwards acted as an assistant to Milton, Latin Secretary for the Commonwealth under Cromwell. He was for some years a prominent member of Parliament, and adhered to his republican principles even after the Restoration. He died in 1678. He was a voluminous writer upon political affairs; but although his prose is forgotten, his best poems continue to be read with pleasure by all persons of taste.

THOUGHTS IN A GARDEN.

FAIR Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear?
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men.
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow.
Society is all but rude

To this delicious solitude.

What wondrous life in this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head.
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine.
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach.
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less
Withdraws into its happiness -

The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds and other seas;
Annihilating all that's made

To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plûmes the various light.

Such was the happy Garden-state,
While man there walked without a mate:
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there :
Two paradises are in one,
To live in paradise alone.

How well the skilful gardener drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new!
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run:
And, as it works, the industrious bee,
Computes its time as well as we.

How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned, but with herbs and flowers?

ISAAC BARROW.

Dr. Isaac Barrow, an eminent scholar and divine, was born in London in 1630. He studied at Cambridge, and appears to have pursued successfully nearly all the sciences then known. He was especially eminent in mathematics and optics, and was the predecessor of Newton in the professor's chair. He enjoyed for some years the advantages of travel and study in foreign countries. Later he turned his attention to theology, and enriched the literature of the English church with a series of copious, learned, and powerful works. He died in 1677.

WHAT IS WIT?

FIRST, it may be demanded what the thing is we speak of, or what this facetiousness doth import? To which question I might reply as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man: "Tis that which we all see and know." Any one better apprehends what it is by acquaintance than I can inform him by description. It is indeed a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale: sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound. Sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression; sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude; sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting or cleverly retorting an objection: sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture passeth for it: sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness, giveth it being: sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange; sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose; often it consists in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way—such as reason teacheth and

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