Speak, whimp'ring younglings; and make known
The reason why

Ye droop, and weep.

Is it for want of sleep;
Or childish lullabie?
Or, that ye have not seen as yet
The violet?

Or brought a kisse

From that sweetheart to this?
No, no; this sorrow, shown
By your teares shed,

Wo'd have this lecture read,

"That things of greatest, so of meanest worth, Conceiv'd with grief are, and with teares brought forth."

SONG.

GATHER ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heav'n, the sun,
The higher he's a getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And neerer he's to setting.

The age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, goe marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

C C

FRANCIS QUARLES was born in 1592, at Stewards, near Romford, in Essex. His father was Clerk of the Green Cloth, and Purveyor of the Navy to Queen Elizabeth. He received his education at Christ's College, Cambridge, and was entered at Lincoln's Inn-having, according to his widow, "studied the laws of England mainly with a desire to compose suits and differences between his friends and neighbours." He was afterwards appointed cup-bearer to the Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James the First; whose service he quitted to become Secretary to the most learned Archbishop Usher. In 1639, he was retained as Chronologer to the City of London, with an annual fee of one hundred nobles. The duties of this office, which has been long abolished, consisted, chiefly, in providing, at stated periods, pageants for the Lord Mayor. During the civil wars between the King and the Parliament, Quarles suffered much in mind and body. The publication of a piece called "the Royal Convert," so annoyed the dominant party, that they took occasion to "hurt him as much as they could in his estates." Winstanley asserts that his most serious affliction was the plundering him of his books and some rare manuscripts he was preparing for the press. He died on the 8th of September, 1644, and was buried in the church of St. Vedast, Foster Lane.

His character was that of a faithful and loving husband-"conscionably and orderly in his duties to God and man." "His person and mind," say his biographers, "were both lovely "-and the learned antiquary Aubrey emphatically describes him as very good man."

As a poet he has been somewhat hardly dealt with; having been judged more by the evidence of his conceits, absurdities and false taste, than by his striking and original images, his noble and manly thoughts, and the exceeding fertility of his language. It is not surprising that posterity has failed to reverse the unjust judgment passed upon him by his contemporaries. He is described by one of them as "an old puritanical poet, the sometime darling of our plebeian judgments"-by another as "in wonderful veneration among the vulgar;" even when he received praise, it was faint praise; his master Archbishop Usher styles him "a man of some fame for his sacred poetry"-and the best compliment that Lloyd could afford him was "that he taught poetry to be witty without profaneness, wantonness, or being satyrical—– that is, without the poet's abusing God himself or his neighbour." His principal poetical works are "Job Militant," "Sion's Elegies," the "History of Queen Esther," "Argalus and Parthenia," that which he calls his "Morning Muse," "The Feast for Worms, or the History of Jonah;" and the "Divine Emblems"-the last being the only production of Quarles that is now at all known or read. This has passed through several editions:-the latest, perhaps, is that which a presumptuous Editor describes as "properly modernized," which means, according to a better reading, utterly spoiled. Quarles was indebted for the idea of his Emblems to Herman Hugo. Of the poems we shall give a specimen-the prints we should not be so well disposed to copy. They are for the most part absurd in the extreme. Thus, the picture which accompanies the motto, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" represents a man standing within a skeleton. They are not all however of this class; for example, one consists of a helmet turned into a beehive, surrounded by its useful labourers-the motto, "Ex bello pax."-The faults of Quarles are large and numerous. He would have escaped this censure if he had himself followed the advice he gave to others :-"Clothe not thy language either with obscurity or affectation." No writer is either more affected or more obscure. It is only by raking that we can gather the gold; yet it is such as will reward the seeker who has courage to undertake the search. His sagacity and good sense are unquestionable, and occasionally there is a rich outbreak of fancy: while at times he startles us by compressing, as it were, a volume into a single line. But he is often bombastic, and not seldom flat and prosaic-evils that are not to be found in his prose writings. The sacredness of his object doubtless pushed him on to communicate his observations and reflections through the medium of verse he sought "to mix the waters of Jordan and Helicon in the same cup"-to gather his laurels upon Mount Olivet-and the attempt was singularly unsuccessful.

PEOPLE, that travel through thy wasted land,
Gaze on thy ruines, and amazed stand,
They shake their spleenful heads, disdain, deride
The sudden downfal of so fair a pride,

They clap their joyful hands, and fill their tongues
With hisses, ballads, and with lyrick songs:
Her torments give their empty lips new matter,
And with their scornful fingers point they at her:
Is this (say they) that place, whose wonted fame
Made troubled earth to tremble at her name ?
Is this that state? Are these those goodly stations?
Is this that mistress, and that queen of nations?

FROM DIVINE EMBLEMS.

O! WHITHER shall I fly? what path untrod
Shall I seek out to 'scape the flaming rod
Of my offended, of my angry God?

Where shall I sojourn? what kind sea will hide
My head from thunder? where shall I abide,
Until his flames be quench'd or laid aside?
What if my feet should take their hasty flight,
And seek protection in the shades of night?
Alas! no shades can blind the God of light.
What if my soul should take the wings of day
And find some desert? if she springs away,
The wings of Vengeance clip as fast as they.
What if some solid rock should entertain
My frighted soul? can solid rocks restrain
The stroke of Justice and not cleave in twain?

Nor sea, nor shade, nor shield, nor rock, nor cave,
Nor silent deserts, nor the sullen grave,
Where flame-ey'd Fury means to smite, can save.
The seas will part, graves open, rocks will split;
The shield will cleave; the frighted shadows flit:
Where Justice aims, her fiery darts must hit.

No, no, if stern-brow'd vengeance means to thunder,
There is no place above, beneath, or under,
So close, but will unlock, or rive in sunder.

'Tis vain to flee, 'tis neither here nor there
Can 'scape that hand, until that hand forbear;
Ah me! where is he not, that's everywhere?

'Tis vain to flee, till gentle mercy show
Her better eye; the further off we go,
The swing of Justice deals the mightier blow.

Th' ingenuous child, corrected, doth not fly
His angry
mother's hand; but clings more nigh,
And quenches with his tears her flaming eye.

Shadows are faithless, and the rocks are false
No trust in brass, no trust in marble walls;
Poor cots are ev'n as safe as princes' halls.

Great God! there is no safety here below;

Thou art my fortress, thou that seem'st my foe,

'Tis thou, that strik'st the stroke, must guard the blow.

Thou art my God! by thee I fall or stand;
Thy grace has giv'n me courage to withstand
All tortures but my conscience, and thy hand.

I know thy justice is thyself; I know,
Just God, thy very self is mercy too;
If not to thee, where, whither shall I go?

Then work thy will; if passion bid me flee,
My reason shall obey; my wings shall be
Stretch'd out no further than from thee to thee.

My glass is half unspent! forbear t'arrest
My thriftless day too soon: my poor request
Is that my glass may run but out the rest.

My time-devouring minutes will be done
Without thy help; see! see how swift they run ;
Cut not my thread before my
thread be spun.

The gain's not great I purchase by this stay;
What loss sustain'st thou by so small delay,
To whom ten thousand years are but a day?

My following eye can hardly make a shift
To count my winged hours; they fly so swift,
They scarce deserve the bounteous name of gift.
The secret wheels of hurrying time do give
So short a warning, and so fast they drive,
That I am dead before I seem to live.

And what's a life? a weary pilgrimage,
Whose glory in one day doth fill the stage
With childhood, manhood, and decrepid age.
And what's a life? the flourishing array
Of the proud summer-meadow, which to-day
Wears her green plush, and is to-morrow hay.