Thus sing away the morn, until the mounting sun,
Through thick exhaled fogs his golden head hath run,
And through the twisted tops of our close covert creeps
To kiss the gentle shade, this while that sweetly sleeps.

THE RIVER TRENT.

But, Muse, return at last, attend the princely Trent,
Who straining on in state, the north's imperious flood,
The third of England call'd, with many a dainty wood,
Being crown'd to Burton comes, to Needwood where she shows
Herself in all her pomp; and as from thence she flows,
She takes into her train rich Dove, and Darwin clear,
Darwin, whose font and fall are both in Derbyshire;
And of those thirty floods, that wait the Trent upon,
Doth stand without compare the very paragon.
Thus wand'ring at her will, as uncontroll'd she ranges,
Her often varying form, as variously and changes;

First Erwash, and then Lyne, sweet Sherwood sends her in;
Then looking wide, as one that newly wak'd had been,
Saluted from the north, with Nottingham's proud height,
So strongly is surpris'd, and taken with the sight,
That she from running wild, but hardly can refrain,
To view in how great state, as she along doth strain,
That brave exalted seat beholdeth her in pride,
As how the large-spread meads upon the other side,
All flourishing in flowers, and rich embroideries dress'd,
In which she sees herself above her neighbours bless'd.
As wrapp'd with the delights, that her this prospect brings
In her peculiar praise, lo thus the river sings:

'What should I care at all, from what my name I take,
That thirty doth import, that thirty rivers make;
My greatness what it is, or thirty abbeys great,
That on my fruitful banks, times formerly did seat;
Or thirty kinds of fish that in my streams do live,

To me this name of Trent, did from that number give?
What reck I let great Thames, since by his fortune he
Is sovereign of us all that here in Britain be;
From Isis and old Fame his pedigree derive;

And for the second place, proud Severn that doth strive,
Fetch her descent from Wales, from that proud mountain sprung,
Plinillimon, whose praise is frequent them among,

As of that princely maid, whose name she boasts to bear,
Bright Sabine, whom she holds as her undoubted heir,
Let these imperious floods draw down their long descent,
From these so famous stocks, and only say of Trent,
That Moreland's barren earth me first to light did bring,
Which though she be but brown, my clear complexion'd spring
Gain'd with the nymphs such grace, that when I first did rise,
The Naiads on my brim danc'd wanton hydagies,

And on her spacious breast (with heaths that doth abound)
Encircled my fair fount with many a lusty round:

And of the British floods, though but the third I be,
Yet Thames and Severn both in this come short of me,

For that I am the mere of England, that divides
The north part from the south, on my so either sides,
That reckoning how these tracts in compass be extent,
Men bound them on the north, or on the south of Trent;
Their banks are barren sands, if but compar'd with mine,
Through my perspicuous breast, the pearly pebbles shine:
I throw my crystal arms along the flow'ry valleys,
Which lying sleek and smooth as any garden alleys,
Do give me leave to play, whilst they do court my stream,
And crown my winding banks with many an anadem;
My silver-scaled scrolls about my streams do sweep
Now in the shallow fords, now in the falling deep:
So that of every kind, the new spawn'd numerous fry
Seem in me as the sands that on my shore do lie.

EDWARD FAIRFAX, the celebrated translator of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, lived at this period before us, though of the history of his life we have very little knowledge. He was the natural son of Sir Thomas Fairfax, but neither the date of his birth, nor that of his death, has been preserved. That he flourished during the age of Elizabeth is entirely evident, for his great literary performance is dedicated to that princess; and it also appears that he was living in 1631; but nothing farther of him is certainly known, only that he spent his life at Fuystone, in the forest of Knaresborough, in the enjoyment of many blessings which rarely fall to the poetical race -competence, ease, rural scenes, and in ample command of the means of study. The poetical beauty and freedom of Fairfax's version of Tasso has been the theme of almost universal praise. Dryden ranked him with Spenser as a master of the English language, and Waller declared that he derived from him the harmony of his numbers. Collins too has finely alluded to his poetical and imaginative genius in the following lines :

Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind

Believed the magic wonders which he sung.

Besides the translation of the Jerusalem Delivered, Fairfax wrote some minor poems, and also a work on Demonology, in the preface to which he remarks that in religion I am neither a fanatic Puritan, nor superstitious Papist; but so settled in conscience, that I have the sure ground of God's word to warrant all I believe, and the commendable ordinances of our English church to approve all I practice: in which course I live a faithful Christian, and an obedient subject, and so teach my family.'

As Fairfax's original poems are comparatively little known, we shall pass them over, and take the following passage from the eighteenth book of the 'Jerusalem,' commencing with the twelfth stanza :

RINALDI AT MOUNT OLIVET AND THE ENCHANTED WOOD.

XII.

It was the time, when 'gainst the breaking day,
Rebellious night yet strove, and still repined,
For in the east appear'd the morning gray,

And yet some lamps in Jove's high palace shined,

When to Mount Olivet he took his way,

And saw, as round about his eyes he twined,

Night's shadows hence, from thence the morning's shine, This bright, that dark; that earthly, this divine.

XIII.

Thus to himself he thought: how many bright

And 'splendent lamps shine in heaven's temple high! Day hath his golden sun, her moon the night,

Her fix'd and wand'ring stars the azure sky;

So framed all by their Creator's might,

That still they live and shine, and ne'er will die,
Till in a moment, with the last day's brand
They burn, and with them burn sea, air, and land.

XIV.

Thus as he mused, to the top he went,

And there kneel'd down with reverence and fear;
His eyes upon heaven's eastern face he bent;
His thoughts above all heavens uplifted were-
The sins and errors which I now repent,
Of my unbridled youth, O Father dear,
Remember not, but let thy mercy fall
And purge my faults and my offenses all.

XV.

Thus prayed he; with purple wings up-flew,
In golden weed, the morning's lusty queen,
Begilding with the radiant beams she threw,
His helm, the harness, and the mountain green:
Upon his breast and forehead gently blew
The air, that balm and nardus breath'd unseen;
And o'er his head, let down from clearest skies,
A cloud of pure and precious dew there flies.

XVI.

The heavenly dew was on his garments spread,
To which compar'd, his clothes pale ashes seem,
And sprinkled so that all that paleness fled,
And thence of purest white bright rays outstream:

So cheered are the flowers, late withered,

With the sweet comfort of the morning beams;

And so return'd to youth, a serpent old

Adorns herself in new and native gold.

XVII.

The lovely whiteness of his changed weed
The prince perceived well and long admired;
Toward the forest march'd he on with speed,

Resolv'd, as such adventures great required:
Thither he came, whence, shrinking back for dread

Of that strange desert's sight, the first retired;

But not to him fearful or loathsome made

That forest was, but sweet with pleasant shade.

XVIII.

Forward he pass'd, and in the grove before,

He heard a sound, that strange, sweet, pleasing was;
There roll'd a crystal brook with gentle roar,

There sigh'd the winds, as through the leaves they pass;
There sang the swan, and singing died, alas!
There lute, harp, cittern, human voice he heard,
And all these sounds one sound right well declared.

XIX.

A dreadful thunder-clap at last he heard,

The aged trees and plants well nigh, that rent,
Yet heard the nymphs and syrens afterward,
Birds, winds, and waters sing with sweet consent;
Whereat amazed, he stay'd and well prepar'd
For his defense, heedful and slow forth-went,
Nor in his way his passage aught withstood,
Except a quiet, still, transparent flood.

XX.

On the green banks, which that fair stream inbound,
Flowers and odours sweetly smil'd and smell'd,

Which reaching out his stretched arms around,

All the large desert in his bosom held,

And through the grove one channel passage found;

This in the wood, that in the forest dwell'd:

Trees clad the streams, streams green those trees aye made,

And so exchang'd their moisture and their shade.

SIR JOHN HARRINGTON, the first translator of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso into English, though a writer of greatly inferior genius to Fairfax, deserves to be noticed in connection with him. He was the son of that John Harrington who was imprisoned in the Tower by Mary, and was born at Kelston, near Bath, in 1561. He prepared for college at Eton Grammar School, and thence removed to the university of Cambridge, where he remained until he had taken his master's degree. Harrington was knighted by James the First, and after having passed a number of years as a successful courtier, he died in 1612, in his fifty-second year.

The translation of the 'Orlando Furioso' was an early performance, having been published before the author was thirty years of age. As a version of the original, the work is literally correct, but as a poetical performance, it is cold and prosaic. Besides the translation of the Orlando Furioso, Harrington published a volume of Epigrams, many of which, such as the following, exhibit much talent for that department of writing :

OF A PRECISE TAILOR.

A tailor, thought a man of upright dealing-
True, but for lying-honest but for stealing,
Did fall one day extremely sick by chance,
And on the sudden was in wondrous trance;
The fiends of hell mustering in fearful manner,
Of sundry colour'd silks displayed a banner
Which he had stolen, and wish'd, as they did tell.
That he might find it all one day in hell,
The man, affrighted with this apparition,
Upon recovery grew a great precisian:
He bought a bible of the best translation,
And in his life he show'd great reformation;

He walked mannerly, he talked meekly,

He heard three lectures and two sermons weekly;
He vow'd to shun all company unruly,

And in his speech he used no oath but truly;

And zealously to keep the Sabbath's rest,
His meat for that day on the eve was drest;
And lest the custom which he had to steal,
Might cause him sometimes to forget his zeal,
He gives his journeyman a special charge,
That if the stuff, allowance being large
He found his fingers were to filch inclined,
Bid him to have the banner in his mind.
This done (I scant can tell the rest for laughter)

A captain of a ship came three days after,

And brought three yards of velvet and three quarters,
To make Venetians down below the garters.
He, that precisely knew what was enough,
Soon slipt aside three quarters of the stuff;
His man, espying it, said in derision,
Master, remember how you saw the vision!
Peace, knave! quoth he, I did not see one rag
Of such a color'd silk in all the flag.

SIR HENRY WOTTON, the miscellaneous poet who follows Fairfax and Harrington, was born at Bocton Hall, in Kent, on the thirtieth of March, 1568. His early education was conducted by private tutors at home, after which he was sent to Winchester school, whence he passed, in 1584, to New College, Oxford. He did not, however, long remain there, but soon entered Queen's College, where he became well versed in logic and rhetoric; and being also distinguished for various other learning, and for his wit, he was selected to write a tragedy for the private use of his college. The name of the tragedy was Tancredo, and Walton, Sir Henry's biographer, remarks that it was interwoven with sentences, and for the method and exact personating those humors, passions, and dispositions, which he proposed to represent, so performed, that the gravest of the society declared, he had in a slight employment, given an early and solid testimony of his future abilities.'

Wotton having, in the twentieth year of his age, taken his master's degree, left the university, and after travelling a number of years on the continent, returned to England, and attached himself to the service of the Earl of Essex, the chief favorite of Queen Elizabeth. Having afterward gained the friendship of king James, by communicating the secret of a conspiracy formed against him, while yet only king of Scotland, he was employed by that monarch, when he ascended the English throne, as ambassador to Venice. A versatile and lively disposition qualified Sir Henry, in an eminent degree, for this situation, of the duties of which we have his own idea on the wellknown punning expression, in which he defines an ambassador to be an honest gentleman, sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.' Late in life Wotton took orders to qualify himself to be provost of Eton, and in