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PHINEAS FLETCHER

Was of a Kentish family, cousin to the celebrated dramatic writer, and son to the learned Dr. Giles Fletcher, whom Wood calls an excellent poet (embassador to Russia, and author of the History of that Commonwealth, a little volume, suppressed on its first publication in 1591, but reprinted in 1643). Phineas, like his father, was educated at Eton, and King's College, Cambridge, where he entered in 1600, and afterwards took the degrees of A. B. and A. M. In 1621 he was presented to the benefice of Hilgay, in Norfolk, which he seems to have held twenty-nine years. He was the author of "Sicelides," a piscatory drama or pastoral, 4to. 1631 (originally intended to have been performed before James I. in 1614), and "The Purple Island, "or the Isle of Man," in twelve cantos of seven-lined stanzas, being an allegorical description of the human body and mind. This poem, which deserves to be better known, was printed at Cambridge, 1633, 4to. " together "with Piscatorie Eclogs and other Poeticall Miscellanies." Mr. Headley, whose remarks on Fletcher well merit the reader's attention, observes that " Milton read and imitated "him, and that he is eminently entitled to a very high "rank among our old English classics."

Fletcher's" Purple Island" may be found in Dr. Anderson's Poets, with a biographical account prefixed.

[LOVE.]

[From the sixth Piscatory Eclogue.]

LOVE'S sooner felt than seen; his substance thin Betwixt those snowy mounts in ambush lies; Oft in the eyes he spreads his subtle gin;

He therefore soonest wins that fastest flies. Fly thence, my dear, fly fast, my Thomalin! Who him encounters once, for ever dies. But if he lurk between the ruddy lips,

Unhappy soul, that thence his nectar sips, While down into his heart the sugar'd poison slips!

Oft in a voice he creeps down through the ear;
Oft from a blushing cheek he lights his fire;
Oft shrouds his golden flame in likest hair;
Oft in a soft smooth skin doth close retire;
Oft in a smile; oft in a silent tear:

And if all fail, yet Virtue's self he'll hire.

Himself's a dart, when nothing else can move : Who then the captive soul can well reprove, When Love and Virtue's self become the darts of Love.

To Mr. Jo. Tomkins.

THOMALIN, my lief, thy music strains to hear More wraps my soul, than when the swelling

winds

On craggy rocks their whistling voices tear:

Or when the sea, if stopt his course he finds, With broken murmurs thinks weak shores to fear, Scorning such sandy cords his proud head binds: More than where rivers in the summer ray,

Through covert glades cutting their shady way Run tumbling down the lawns, and with the pebbles play.

Thy strains to hear, old Chamus from his cell Comes guarded with an hundred Nymphs around; An hundred Nymphs, that in his rivers dwell, About him flock with water-lilies crown'd:

For thee the Muses leave their silver well,

And marvel where thou all their art hast found.

There sitting they admire thy dainty strains,

And, while thy sadder accent sweetly plains, Feel thousand sugar'd joys. creep in their melting veins.

How oft have I, the Muses' bower frequenting, Miss'd them at home, and found them all with

thee,

Whether thou sing'st sad Eupathus lamenting,
Or tunest notes to sacred harmony,

The ravish'd soul with thy sweet songs consenting, Scorning the earth, in heavenly ecstasy,

Transcends the stars, and with the angels' train Those courts surveys; and now, come back again,

Finds yet another heaven in thy delightful strain.

Ah! could'st thou here thy humble mind content
Lowly with me to live in country cell,
And learn suspect the court's proud blandishment,
Here might we safe, here might we sweetly
dwell.

Live Pallas in her towers and marble tent,

But ah! the country bowers please me as well. There with my Thomalin I safe would sing, And frame sweet ditties to thy sweeter string; There would we laugh at spite and Fortune's thundering.

No Flattery, Hate, or Envy lodgeth there;
There no Suspicion wall'd in proved steel,
Yet fearful of the arms herself doth wear;

Pride is not there; no tyrant there we feel.
No clamorous laws shall deaf thy music ear:
They know no change, nor wanton Fortune's
wheel:

Thousand fresh sports grow in those dainty places, Light Fawns and Nymphs dance in the woody spaces,

And little Love himself plays with the naked Graces.

But seeing fate my happy wish refuses,
Let me alone enjoy my low estate,
Of all the gifts that fair Parnassus uses,
Only scorn'd poverty and Fortune's hate
Common I find to me and to the Muses;
But with the Muses welcome poorest fate!
Safe in my humble cottage will I rest;
And lifting up from my untainted breast
A quiet spirit to heaven, securely live and blest.

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