6

Over her hung a canopy of state,

High over all, Panglorie's blazing throne, Not of rich tissue nor of spangled gold,

In her bright turret, all of crystal wrought, But of a substance, though not animate,

Like Phoebus' lamp, in midst of heaven, shone: Yet of a heavenly and spiritual mould,

Whose starry top, with pride infernal fraught, That only eyes of spirits might behold :

Self-arching columns to uphold were taught,
Such light as from main rocks of diamond,

In which her image still reflected was
Shooting their sparks at Phoebus, would rebound, By the smooth crystal, that, most like her glass
And little angels, holding hands, danced all around. In beauty and in frailty did all others pass.

A silver wand the sorceress did sway,
[The Sorceress of Vain Delight.]

And, for a crown of gold, her hair she wore;

Only a garland of rose-buds did play [From the same.]

About her locks, and in her hand she bore

A hollow globe of glass, that long before The garden like a lady fair was cut,

She full of emptiness had bladdered, That lay as if she slumber'd in delight,

And all the world therein depictured :
And to the open skies her eyes did shut:

Whose colours, like the rainbow, ever vanished.
The azure fields of Heaven were 'sembled right
In a large round, set with the flowers of light : Such watery orbicles young boys do blow
The flowers-de-luce, and the round sparks of dew Out from their soapy shells, and much admire
That hung upon their azure leaves, did shew

The swimming world, which tenderly they row
Like twinkling stars, that sparkle in the evening blue. With easy breath till it be raised higher;

But if they chance but roughly once aspire, Upon a hilly bank her head she cast,

The painted bubble instantly doth fall. On which the bower of Vain Delight was built.

Here when she came she 'gan for music call,
White and red roses for her face were plac'd,

And sung this wooing song to welcome him withal :
And for her tresses marigolds were spilt:
Them broadly she display'd, like flaming gilt,

'Love is the blossom where there blows Till in the ocean the glad day was drown's :

Everything that lives or grows : Then up again her yellow locks she wound,

Love doth make the heaveris to move, And with green fillets in their pretty cauls them bound.

And the sun doth burn in love ; What should I here depaint her lily hand,

Like the strong and weak doth yoke,

And makes the ivy climb the oak ;
Her veins of violets, her ermine breast,
Which there in orient colours living stand:

Under whose shadows lions wild
Or how her gown with silken leaves is drest,

Soften'd by love grow tame and mild: Or how her watchman, arm'd with boughy crest,

Love no medicine can appease,

He burns the fishes in the seas;
A wall of prim hid in his bushes bears

Not all the skill his wounds can stench,
Shaking at every wind their leafy spears,
While she supinely sleeps, nor to be waked fears.

Not all the sea his fire can quench;

Love did make the bloody spear Over the hedge depends the graping elm,

Once a leafy coat to wear, Whose greener head, empurpuled in wine,

While in his leaves there shrouded lay Seemed to wonder at his bloody helm,

Sweet birds, for love, that sing and play: And half suspect the bunches of the vine,

And of all love's joyful flame Lest they, perhaps, his wit should undermine ;

I the bud and blossom am. For well he knew such fruit he never bore:

Only bend thy knee to me, But her weak arms embraced him the more,

Thy wooing shall thy winning be. And she with ruby grapes laugh'd at her paramour.

See, see, the flowers that below

Now as fresh as morning blow,
The roof thick clouds did paint, from which three boys, And of all the virgin rose,
Three gaping mermaids with their ew'rs did feed,

That as bright Aurora shows :
Whose breasts let fall the stream, with sleepy noise, How they all unleaved lie
To lions' mouths, from whence it leap'd with speed ; Losing their virginity;
And in the rosy laver seem'd to bleed ;

Like unto a summer shade,
The naked boys unto the water's fall

But now born and now they fade. Their stony nightingales had taught to call,

Everything doth pass away, When Zephyr breath'd into their watery interall. There is danger in delay ;

Come, come, gather then the rose, And all about, embayed in soft sleep,

Gather it, or it you lose. A herd of charmed beasts aground were spread,

All the sands of Tagus' shore Which the fair witch in golden chains did keep,

Into my bosom casts his ore : And them in willing bondage fettered :

All the valleys' swimming corn Once men they liv'd, but now the men were dead,

To my house is yearly borne; And turn'd to beasts ; so fabled Homer old,

Every grape of every vine That Circe with her potion, charm'd in gold,

Is gladly bruis'd to make me wine ; Used manly souls in beastly bodies to immould.

While ten thousand kings as proud

To carry up my train have bow'd, Through this false Eden, to his leman's bower,

And a world of ladies send me (Whom thousand souls devoutly idolise)

In my chambers to attend me; Our first destroyer led our Saviour;

All the stars in heaven that shine, There, in the lower room, in solemn wise,

And ten thousand more are mine : They danc'd a round and pour'd their sacrifice

Only bend thy knee to me,
To plump Lyæus, and among the rest,

Thy wooing shall thy winning be.'
The jolly priest, in ivy garlands drest,
Chanted wild orgials, in honour of the feast.

*

GEORGE WITHER.

Thus sought the dire enchantress in his mind thrown into prison. He published various treatises, Her guileful bait to have embosomed :

satires, and poems, during this period, though he was But he her charms dispersed into wind,

treated with great rigour. He was released, under And her of insolence admonished,

bond for good behaviour, in 1663, and survived And all her optic glasses shattered.

nearly four years afterwards, dying in London on So with her sire to hell she took her flight

the 2d of May 1667. (The starting air flew from the damned sprite), Wither's fame as a poet is derived chiefly from his Where deeply both aggriev'd plunged themselves in early productions, written before he had imbibed the night.

sectarian gloom of the Puritans, or become emBut to their Lord, now musing in his thought, broiled in the struggles of the civil war. A colA heavenly rolley of light angels flew,

lection of his poems was published by himself in And from his father him a banquet brought

1622, with the title, Mistress of Philarete ; his ShepThrough the fine element, for well they knew, herds’ Hunting, being certain Eclogues written After his Lenten fast, he hungry grew :

during the time of the author's imprisonment in the And as he fed, the holy choirs combine

Marshalsea, appeared in 1633. His Collection of To sing a hymn of the celestial Trine ;

Emblems, ancient and modern, Quickened with MeAll thought to pass, and each was past all thought trical Illustrations, made their appearance in 1635. divine.

His satirical and controversial works were numeThe birds' sweet notes, to sonnet out their joys,

rous, but are now forgotten. Some authors of our Attemper'd to the lays angelical ;

own day (Mr Southey in particular) have helped And to the birds the winds attune their noise ;

to popularise Wither, by frequent quotation and And to the winds the waters hoarsely call,

eulogy; but Mr Ellis, in his Specimens of Early Eng. And echo back again revoiced all ;

lish Poets, was the first to point out that playful That the whole valley rung with victory.

fancy, pure taste, and artless delicacy of sentiment, But now our Lord to rest doth homewards fly:

which distinguish the poetry of his early youth.' See how the night comes stealing from the mountains His poem on Christmas affords a lively picture of high.

the manners of the times. His Address to Poetry, the sole yet cheering companion of his prison solitude, is worthy of the theme, and superior to most

of the effusions of that period. The pleasure with GEORGE WITHER (1588_1667) was a voluminous which he recounts the various charms and the author, in the midst of disasters and sufferings that divine skill of his Muse, that had derived nourishwould have damped the spirit of any but the mostment and delight from the meanest objects' of exadventurous and untiring enthusiast. Some of his ternal nature-a daisy, a bush, or a tree; and which, happiest strains were composed in prison: his when these picturesque and beloved scenes of the limbs were incarcerated within stone walls and iron country were denied him, could gladden even the bars, but his fancy was among the hills and plains, vaults and shades of a prison, is one of the richest with shepherds hunting, or loitering with Poesy, by offerings that has yet been made to the pure and rustling boughs and murmuring springs. There is hallowed shrine of poesy. The superiority of ina freshness and natural vivacity in the poetry of tellectual pursuits over the gratifications of sense, Wither, that render his early works a 'perpetual and all the malice of fortune, has never been more feast.' We cannot say that it is a feast where no touchingly or finely illustrated. crude surfeit reigns,' for he is often harsh, obscure, and affected; but he has an endless diversity of style and subjects, and true poetical feeling and ex

[The Companionship of the Muse.) pression. Wither was a native of Hampshire, and received his education at Magdalen College,

[From the Shepherds' Hunting.] Oxford. He first appeared as an author in the year

See'st thou not, in clearest days, 1613, when he published a satire, entitled Abuses

Oft thick fogs cloud heaven's rays; Stript and Whipi. For this he was thrown into the

And the vapours that do breathe Marsbalsea, where he composed his fine poem, The

From the earth's gross womb beneath, Shepherds' Hunting. When the abuses satirised by

Seem they not with their black steama the poet had accumulated and brought on the civil

To pollute the sun's bright beams, war, Wither took the popular side, and sold his

And yet vanish into air, paternal estate to raise a troop of horse for the par

Leaving it, unblemish'd, fair? liament. He rose to the rank of a major, and in

So, my Willy, shall it be 1642 was made governor of Farnham Castle, after.

With Detraction's breath and thee: wards held by Denham. Wither was accused of It shall never rise so high, deserting his appointment, and the castle was ceded

As to stain thy poesy. the same year to Sir William Waller. During the

As that sun doth oft exhale struggles of that period, the poet was made prisoner Vapours from each rotten vale; by the royalists, and stood in danger of capital

Poesy so sometime drains punishment, when Denham interfered for his brother

Gross conceits from muddy brains ; bani, alleging, that as long as Wither lived, he (Den- Mists of envy, fogs of spite, ham) would not be considered the worst poet in 'Twixt men's judgments and her light: England. The joke was a good one, if it saved But so much her power may do, Wither's life; but George was not frightened from That she can dissolve them too. the perilous contentions of the times. He was after- If thy verse do bravely tower, wards one of Cromwell's majors general, and kept As she makes wing she gets power ; watch and ward over the royalists of Surrey. From Yet the higher she doth soar, the sequestrated estates of these gentlemen, Wither She's affronted still the more : obtained a considerable fortune ; but the Restoration Till she to the high'st hath past, came, and he was stript of all his possessions. He Then she rests with fame at last : remonstrated loudly and angrily; his remonstrances Let nought therefore thee affright, kere voted libels, and the unlucky poet was again But make forward in thy flight;

.

rose :

name of Philarete in a pastoral poem; and Milton is WILLIAM BROWNE.

supposed to have copied his plan in Lycidas. There WILLIAM BROWNE (1590-1645) was a pastoral is also a faint similarity in some of the sentiments and descriptive poet, who, like Phineas and Giles and images. Browne has a very fine illustration of a Fletcher, adopted Spenser for his model. He was a native of Tavistock, in Devonshire, and the beautiful

Look, as sweet scenery of his native county seems to have inspired

ose fairly budding forth his early strains. His descriptions are vivid and

Betrays her beauties to th' enamour'd mor, true to nature. Browne was tutor to the Earl of

Until some keen blast from the envious north Carnarvon, and on the death of the latter at the

Kills the sweet bud that was but newly born;

Or else her rarest smells, delighting, battle of Newbury in 1643, he received the patron

Make herself betray age and lived in the family of the Earl of Pembroke. In this situation he realised a competency, and,

Some white and curious hand, inviting

To pluck her thence away. according to Wood, purchased an estate. He died at Ottery-St-Mary (the birth-place of Coleridge) in 1645. Browne's works consist of Britannia's Pastorals, the first part of which was published in 1613,

[A Descriptive Sketch.] the second part in 1616. He wrote, also, a pastoralo what a rapture have I gotten now! poem of inferior merit, entitled, The Shepherd's Pipe. That age of gold, this of the lovely brow, In 1620, a masque by Browne was produced at Have drawn me from my song! I onward run court, called The Inner Temple Masque; but it was (Clean from the end to which I first begun), not printed till a hundred and twenty years after But ye, the heavenly creatures of the West, the author's death, transcribed from a manuscript In whom the virtues and the graces rest, in the Bodleian Library. As all the poems of Pardon ! that I have run astray so long, Browne were produced before he was thirty years of And grow so tedious in so rude a song. age, and the best when he was little more than If you yourselves should come to add one grace twenty, we need not be surprised at their containing Unto a pleasant grove or such like

place, marks of juvenility, and frequent traces of resem- Where, here, the curious cutting of a hedge, blance to previous poets, especially Spenser, whom There in a pond, the trimming of the sedge ; he warmly admired. His pastorals obtained the Here the fine setting of well-shaded trees, approbation of Selden, Drayton, Wither, and Ben The walks there mounting up by small degrees, Jonson. Britannia's Pastorals are written in the The gravel and the green so equal lie, heroic couplet, and contain much beautiful descrip- It, with the rest, draws on your ling’ring eye: tive poetry. Browne had great facility of expression, Here the sweet smells that do perfume the air, and an intimate acquaintance with the phenomena Arising from the infinite repair of inanimate nature, and the characteristic features Of odoriferous buds, and herbs of price, of the English landscape. Why he has failed in (As if it were another paradise), maintaining his ground among his contemporaries, so please the smelling sense, that you are fain must be attributed to the want of vigour and con- Where last you walk to turn and walk again. densation in his works, and the almost total absence There the small birds with their harmonious notes of human interest. His shepherds and shepherdesses Sing to a spring that smileth as she floats : have nearly as little character as the silly sheep' For in her face a many dimples show, they tend ; whilst pure description, that takes the And often skips as it did dancing go : place of sense,' can never permanently interest any Here further down an over-arched alley large number of readers. So completely had some That from a hill goes winding in a valley, of the poems of Browne vanished from the public You spy at end thereof a standing lake, view and recollection, that, had it not been for a Where some ingenious artist strives to mako single copy of them possessed by the Rev. Thomas The water (brought in turning pipes of lead Warton, and which that poetical student and anti- Through birds of earth most lively fashioned) quary lent to be transcribed, it is supposed there To counterfeit and mock the sylvans all would have remained little of those works which in singing well their own set madrigal. their author fondly hoped would

This with no small delight retains your ear,

And makes you think none blest but who live thera Keep his name enrolld past his that shines

Then in another place the fruits that be In gilded marble, or in brazen leaves.

In gallant clusters decking each good tree, Warton cites the following lines of Browne, as con

Invite your hand to crop them from the stem, taining an assemblage of the same images as the And liking one, taste every sort of them : morning picture in the L'Allegro of Milton :

Then to the arbours walk, then to the bowers,

Thence to the walks again, thence to the flowers,
By this had chanticleer, the village cock,

Then to the birds, and to the clear spring thence,
Bidden the goodwife for her maids to knock ; Now pleasing one, and then another sense :
And the swart ploughman for his breakfast stayed, Here one walks oft, and yet anew begin'th,
That he might till those lands were fallow laid ; As if it were some hidden labyrinth.
The hills and valleys here and there resound
With the re-echoes of the deep-mouth'd hound;
Each shepherd's daughter with her cleanly pail

[Evening.)
Was come a-field to milk the morning's meal ;
And ere the sun had climb'd the eastern hills,

As in an evening, when the gentle air
To gild the muttering bourns and pretty rills, Breathes to the sullen night a soft repair,
Before the labouring bee had left the hive,

I oft have sat on Thames sweet bank, to hear
And nimble fishes, which in rivers dive,

My friend with his sweet touch to charm mine ear: Began to leap and catch the drowned fly,

When he hath play'd (as well he can) some strain, I rose from rest, not infelicity.

That likes me, straight I ask the same again,

And he, as gladly granting, strikes it o'er Browne celebrated the death of a friend under the I With some sweet relish was forgot before :