attained without the advantage of a robust constitution: for in 1662, we find him obtaining from the Vice-Chancellor a dispensation to eat flesh during the season of Lent, alleging, like Erasmus, that fish did not agree with him.

During the Parliamentary wars he resided at his native Hadleigh, and here he beguiled a year of leisure with the composition of a poem longer than the "Fairy Queen." In April 1647, he began, and in the following March he finished, "Psyche, or Love's Mystery: displaying the Intercourse betwixt Christ and the Soul." The first edition appeared in the same year, 1648; and the second, enlarged by four additional cantos, and published in 1702, extends to 370 folio pages of double columns, or nearly 40,000 lines. The nine cantos devoted to the life of our Lord are the most interesting portion; but if any one has read the whole poem, it cannot have been the attraction of the story or the charm of the style which allured him to proceed: for few works of genius convey such a sense of prolixity, or try so severely the patience of a fastidious reader. But any devotee, who can pardon the intermingling of scriptural fact with heroic fable, and the frequent recurrence of wild hyperboles and provoking conceits amidst genuine pathos and sublimity, will be rewarded for his diligence. Its value was known to that most judicious of pilferers, Pope, who found in it "a great many flowers worth gathering," and said that "a man who has the art of stealing wisely will find his account in reading it."

As characteristic of the age, as well as of our bard, we may mention one or two of those exaggerations which they mistook for poetry. For instance, describing the Advent, and the effect which the angels' song produced on the "jolly birds" and "merry wolves," which joined the lambs and lions in “a friendly galliard,” he adds—

"The stones look'd up, and seem'd to wish for feet;

The trees were angry that they stood so fast."

DR JOSEPH BEAUMONT.

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In the same way, when the wise men presented their offering at the manger of Bethlehem—

“The pious incense smelled the sweeter child,

And chang'd its usual path, with Him to meet:

It soar'd not up, but to the door inclin'd,

To heav'n the shortest passage so to find."

His fine account of the Transfiguration ends in the departure of Moses and Elias. The prophet is made to leap into his chariot of fire, whilst, in the absence of such accommodation, "Moses, spreading out his ready veil,

Homeward to Abraham's blessed port set sail;"

And a highly-wrought description of the storm on the Lake of Galilee, is spoiled by the disciples exclaiming

"How is His promise wash'd away! since we,
Whom for men-fishers He designed had,

To fishes now a booty must be made!"

But Beaumont's greatest fault is diffuseness. Every bit of gold he beats into foil, and on his brighter and more beautiful thoughts he dwells, till all but himself are weary. So inveterate is this tendency to make the most of everything, that he constantly spreads out in prosaic platitudes, or spins into long catalogues, the allusion or the name, which a more skilful master of the lyre would have been fain to skip over lightly. Thus, a banquet becomes a bill of fare

"The smelt, the perch, the ruff, the roach, the dare,
The carp, pike, tench, lump, gurnet, herring, bream,
The mullet, trout, dorse, cod, eel, whiting, mole,
Plaice, salmon, lamprey, sturgeon, sole,
The turbot, cuttle, flounder, mackerel,

Yea, lobsters, oysters, and all kinds of fishes,
Which lust's soft fuel treasure in their shell,

Had left their troubled deeps to swim in dishes."

And the other courses are described with equal minuteness. As if to eclipse the second book of Homer, he occasionally

gives a tremendous catalogue. For instance, five stanzas are devoted to heretics, of which the following is one :— "Tertullianists, Arabics, Symmachists,

Homousiasts, Elxites, Origenians,
Valesians, Agrippinians, Catharists,
Hydroparastates, Patripassians,

Apostolics, Angelics, Chiliasts,
Samosatenian Paulianists."

But the very rankness of the weeds indicates the fertility of the soil; and in Beaumont our imagination is frequently dazzled where our taste or our judgment is grievously offended; nor can the reader fail to carry away from his work an impression of ardent personal piety, as well as extraordinary mental opulence. 66 Psyche" resembles an inter-tropical forest, where everything is too vast and too profuse, and where creatures, as grotesque as the monkey, are intermingled with the brightest of pinions and the fairest of flowers.

The Feeding of the Multitude.

The day, now grown decrepit (for the sun
Bow'd to the west), made His disciples pray
Their Lord to give the crowd dismission,
That in the desert's bordering burroughs they
Might get their suppers. No, said bounteous He-
They are my friends, and they shall sup with me.

Before these numerous mouths what will you set?
Cried they. Alas! two hundred pence in bread
Will not the sorry pittance of a bite

To every one afford; and furnished

How shall this mighty banquet be with dishes,
Since here's but five poor loaves and two small fishes?

As yet, they knew not that their Lord was He

Who able made the petty spring to feed,

And fill the river's vast capacity;

He who the single taper taught to breed

DR JOSEPH BEAUMONT,

That fertile flame, which lights a thousand more
Without diminishing its native store.

He, by whose power Elijah could command

The final handful of the wasted meal

To grow upon the widow's hand,

From whom no scarceness could her bounty steal,
And by a springing harvest more than turn
The pined barrel to a plenteous barn.

But now they learn'd it: Go, said He, and make
My guests by fifty on a row sit down.

Which done, in His creating hands He took
The fish and bread, and lifting to His own

Fair heav'n His eyes, said grace; when, lo, His sweet
And mighty blessings swelled in the meat.

For, as He brake the bread, each fragment He
Made greater than the whole; no crumb did fall
But rose into a loaf as readily

As when you cut a line, whose products all
Are lines as well as it, though you for ever
The new emergent particles dissever.

Then His disciples' service he commands
To be officious to this growing feast,

And distribute into the people's hands
The teeming bread and fish: strait every guest

Fell to, admiring how that simple meat

Made them forget all honey to be sweet.

Satiety at length, not nauseous,
But soberly accomplish'd, put a close
To this strange banquet: when thy generous
Yet thrifty Lord, enjoins them not to lose
His bounty's surplusage, nor scorn the meat
Because He gave them more than they could cat.

Straightway the fragments all collected were,
Which fifty hundred feasted men had left:
When, lo, the total was exceeded far

By those remaining parts: the springing gift

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Pursued its multiplication still,

And with the relics stuff'd twelve baskets full.

Know Psyche, that thy wise Redeemer by
This wonder, to a greater op'd the way;
The long-designed and precious mystery
Of His dear body, which He meant to lay
On every Christian altar, there to be
The endless feast of Catholic piety.

A feast which shall increase upon its guests,
And keep entire when millions filled are:
A feast of miracles, a feast of feasts,
Not to a desert tied, but everywhere
Dispers'd abroad, yet everywhere complete,
That all the world may freely come and eat.

Moses and Elías on the Mount of Transfiguration.

As His disciples wonder'd at the sight
Which peeping through their fingers they beheld,
They spied two strangers, whom with courteous light
The surplusage of Jesus' beams did gild.

They wistfully looked on them, musing who

The men might be, and what they came to do.

The first wore horned beams (though something dim
In this more radiant presence) on his face:
Full was his beard; his countenance 'twixt grim
And pleasant, breathing meek but stately grace;
His robes were large and princely; in his hand
He held a mystic and imperious wand.

A golden plate both deck'd and arm'd his breast
In which the two great words enamell'd were;
A grave, a goodly man he was, and drest
In such attire, that they no longer are
In doubt about him, but conclude that he,
Moses the legislator must needs be.