She obeys with speedy will
Her grave parents' wise commands;
And so innocent, that ill

She nor acts, nor understands:

Women's feet run still astray,

If once to ill they know the way.

She sails by that rock the court,
Where oft honour splits her mast;
And retir'dness thinks the port,
Where her fame may anchor cast;
Virtue safely cannot sit,

Where vice is enthron'd for wit.

She holds that day's pleasure best,
Where sin waits not on delight;
Without masque, or ball, or feast,
Sweetly spends a winter's night:

O'er that darkness whence is thrust
Prayer and sleep, oft governs lust.

She her throne makes reason climb,
While wild passions captive lie:
And, each article of time

Her pure thoughts to heaven fly:

All her vows religious be,

And her love she vows to me.

THOMAS RANDOLPH was the son of the steward of Lord Zouch, and was born at Newnham in Northamptonshire, on the fifteenth of June 1605. He prepared for the university at Westminister school, and in 1623, was elected, as King's scholar, to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained until he had taken his master's degree, soon after which he was chosen to a fellowship.

Randolph's genius was so remarkably precocious that he acquired poetic celebrity even before he entered the university; having, when he had scarcely passed the tenth year of his age, written a History of the Incarnation of our Saviour, in verse. Such early evidences of genius being sustained as he advanced into manhood, Ben Jonson, through affectionate admiration, adopted him as one of his sons. But poet-like, Randolph evinced a thorough contempt of wealth, and a corresponding love of pleasure; and by these means he was drawn into excesses which so rapidly shortened his life, that he died in March 1634, not yet having attained the thirtieth year of

his age.

Randolph was the author of five dramatic pieces, besides a volume of miscellaneous poems. Of his dramas, the Muse's Looking-Glass is a greatly superior production to the rest, and was for a long time, extremely popular; but his reputation rests chiefly upon his miscellaneous poems. Of these, the following address to a Lady admiring herself in a Looking-Glass, though somewhat fantastic, is both witty and elegant:

Fair lady, when you see the grace
Of beauty, in your looking-glass;
A stately forehead, smooth and high,
And full of princely majesty;
A sparkling eye no gem so fair,
Whose lustre dims the Cyprian star;
A glorious cheek, divinely sweet,
Wherein both roses kindly meet;
A cherry lip that would entice
Even gods to kiss at any price;
You think no beauty is so rare
That with your shadow might compare;
That your reflection is alone

The thing that men most dote upon.
Madam, alas, your glass doth lie
And you are much deceived; for I
A beauty know of richer grace,
(Sweet, be not angry) 'tis your face.
Hence, then, O learn more mild to be,
And leave to lay your blame on me:
If me your real substance move,
When you so much your shadow love,
Wise nature would not let your eye
Look on her own bright majesty;
Which, had you once but gazed upon,
You could except yourself, love none:
What then you can not love, let me,
That face I can, you can not see.
Now you have what to love, you'll say,
What then is left for me, I pray?
My face, sweet heart, if it please thee;
That which you can, I can not see:
So either love shall gain his due,
Yours, sweet, in me, and mine in you.

WILLIAM DAVENANT was the son of a vintner, and was born at Oxford, where his father kept the 'Crown Tavern,' in 1605. The Crown' being a very popular stopping place, Shakspeare was in the habit of putting up there in his frequent journeyings from London to Stratford, and young Davenant, conceiving the strongest admiration for the great poet, poured forth his youthful feelings in an ode commencing with the following

stanza:

Beware, delighted poets, when you sing,
To welcome nature in the early spring,
Your numerous feet not tread

The banks of Avon, for each flower
(As it ne'er knew a sun or shower)
Hangs there the pensive head.

At this time Davenant was only ten years of age, and the evidence of unusual genius thus early given, induced his friends to enter him into the grammar-school of his native place, whence, after suitable preparation, he

passed to Lincoln College, Oxford. He discovered, however, little taste for collegiate learning, and, therefore, soon left the university and entered into the service as page, first of Frances, Duchess of Richmond, and afterward of Lord Brooke, who being himself a poet, was much delighted with him. In similar employments Davenant passed his life until 1628, when he turned his attention to the drama, and began to write for the stage; and in 1638, on the death of Ben Jonson, he was appointed poet-laureate. He was, soon after this period, drawn into the commotions and intrigues of the civil war, and being, with others, suspected by the parliamentary party of a design to bring their army into the interests of the king, he was apprehended and sent to the Tower. After a few months' imprisonment he obtained his release and retired into France; but he did not long remain abroad; and on his return to England so distinguished himself in the cause of the royalists, that in 1643 he received from the king the honor of knighthood.

On the decline of the king's affairs Davenant returned to France, and soon after engaged to sail for Virginia as a colonial projector; but the vessel in which he set sail was captured off the coast of France by one of the parliametary ships of war, and he was lodged in prison at Cowes, in the Isle of Wight. In 1650, he was removed to the Tower, preparatory to trial by the High Commission Court. His life was now considered in imminent peril; but through the influence of Milton, who was at the time allpowerful with the dominant party, it was spared, and after two years' imprisonment he obtained his liberty. It is said that Davenant did not forget the favor thus received at Milton's hands, but when, after the Restoration, the royalists were again in the ascendant, he interposed in turn his kind offices for Milton's safety, and that it was through his influence chiefly that the great poet was spared. Such instances of reciprocal admiration for genius afford a sweet relief to the general asperities of political contentions. After the Restoration, Davenant again basked in royal favor, and uninterrupted prosperity attended him until his death, which occurred on the seventh of April, 1668, in his sixty-third year.

Sir William Davenant is indebted chiefly for his fame to his heroic poem, Gondibert. This production, though regarded by his friends and admirers as a great and durable monument of genius, is now almost entirely forgotten. The plot is romantic, but defective in interest; and its extreme length, together with the long four-line stanza of alternate rhymes in which it is written, render the whole poem languid and tedious. Critics have been strangely at variance with each other with regard to its merits; and as to general readers the poem is almost entirely unknown, we shall introduce the following passage as a specimen of the work :—

DESCRIPTION OF BIRTHA.

To Astragon, heaven for succession gave

One only pledge, and Birtha was her name,

Whose mother slept where flowers grew on her grave,
And she succeeded her in face and fame.

Her beauty princes durst not hope to use,

Unless like poets, for their morning theme;
And her mind's beauty they would rather choose,
Which did the light on beauty's lanthorn seem.

She ne'er saw courts, yet courts could have undone
With untaught looks, and an unpracticed heart;
Her nets, the most prepar'd could never shun,

For nature spread them in the scorn of art.

She never had in busy cities been,

Ne'er warm'd with hopes, nor ere allay'd with fears; Not seeing punishment, could guess no sin,

And sin not seeing, ne'er had use of tears.

But here her father's precepts gave her skill,
Which with incessant business fill'd the hours;
In spring she gather'd blossoms for the still;
In autumn, berries; and in summer, flowers.
And as kind nature, with calm diligence,

Her own free virtue silently employs,
Whilst she unheard, does ripening growth dispense,
So were her virtues busy without noise.

Whilst her great mistress, Nature, thus she tends,
The busy household waits no less on her;

By secret law, each to her beauty bends,
Though all her lowly mind to that prefer.

Gracious and free she breaks upon them all

With morning looks; and they, when she does rise, Devoutly at her dawn in homage fall

And droop like flowers when evening shuts her eyes.

Beneath a myrtle covert she does spend,

In maid's weak wishes, her whole stock of thought; Fond maids! who love with mind's fine stuff would mend

Which nature purposely of bodies wrought.

She fashions him she loved of angels' kind;
Such as in holy story were employ'd

To the first fathers from the Eternal Mind,
And in short vision only are enjoy'd.

As eagles, then, when nearest heaven they fly,
Of wild impossibles soon weary grow;
Feeling their bodies find no rest so high,

And therefore perch on earthly things below;
So now she yields; him she an angel deem'd
Shall be a man, the name which virgins fear;
Yet the most harmless to a maid he seem'd,

That ever yet that fatal name did bear.

Soon her opinion of his hurtless heart,
Affection turns to faith; and then love's fire

Р

To heaven, though bashfully, she does impart,
And to her mother in the heavenly quire.

'If I do love,' said she, 'that love, O Heaven!
Your own disciple, Nature, bred in me;
Why should I hide the passion you have given,
Or blush to show effects which you decree?

And you, my alter'd mother, grown above

Great Nature, which you read and reverenc'd here,
Chide not such kindness as you once call'd love,
When you as mortal as my father were.'

This said, her soul into her breast retires;

With love's vain diligence of heart she dreams
Herself into possession of desires,

And trusts unanchor'd hopes in fleeting streams.

She thinks of Eden-life; and no rough wind
In that pacific sea shall wrinkles make;
That still her lowliness shall keep him kind,
Her ears keep him asleep, her voice awake.

She thinks, if ever anger in him sway,

(The youthful warrior's most excus'd disease,) Such chance her tears shall calm, as showers allay

The accidental rage of winds and seas.

To this extract from Gondibert we add, from Sir William Davenant's minor poems, the following very beautiful verses:—

SONG.

The lark now leaves his watery nest,
And climbing shakes his dewy wings;
He takes his window from the east,

And to implore your light, he sings,
Awake, awake, the morn will never rise,
Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.

The merchant bows unto the seaman's star,
The ploughman from the sun his season takes;

But still the lover wonders what they are,

Who look for day before his mistress wakes:
Awake, awake, break through your veils of lawn!
Then draw your curtains and begin the dawn.

RICHARD FANSHAWE was descended from an ancient family in Derbyshire, and was born at Ware Park, Hertfordshire, in 1607. He received the rudiments of his education from Thomas Farnaby, the most famous teacher of the age, and from under his care he passed to the university of Cambridge, where he remained until he had completed his studies. From the university Fanshawe went to the Continent, and by the means of intercourse with foreign nations for some years, he became highly accomplished both in mind and manners. His learning and ability so early distinguished