A dreadful thunder-clap at last he heard,

And brought three yards of velvet and three quarters,
The aged trees and plants well nigh, that rent, To make Venetians down below the garters.
Yet heard the nymphs and syrens afterward,

He, that precisely knew what was enough,
Birds, winds, and waters sing with sweet consent ; Soon slipt aside three quarters of the stuff ;
Whereat amazed, he stay'd and well prepar'd His man, espying it, said in derision,
For his defence, heedful and slow forth-went, Master, remember how you saw the vision !
Nor in his way his passage ought withstood,

Peace, knave ! quoth he, I did not see one rag
Except a quiet, still, transparent flood :

Of such a colour'd silk in all the flag. On the green banks, which that fair stream inbound,

SIR HENRY WOTTON. Flowers and odours sweetly smild and sinellid, Which reaching out his stretched arms around, SIR HENRY WOTTON, less famed as a poet than as All the large desert in his bosom held,

a political character in the reigns of Elizabeth and And through the grove one channel passage found ; James I., was born at Bocton Hall, the seat of his This in the wood, that in the forest dwelld :

ancestors, in Kent, in 1568. After receiving his Trees clad the streams, streams green those trees aye education at Winchester and Oxford, and travelling made,

for some years on the continent, he attached himself And so exchang'd their moisture and their shade.

SIR JOHN HARRINGTON.

The first translator of Ariosto into English was SIR John HARRINGTON, a courtier of the reign of Elizabeth, and also god-son of the queen. He was the son of John Harrington, Esq., the poet already noticed. Sir John wrote a collection of epigrams, and a Brief View of the Church, in which he reprobates the marriage of bishops. He is supposed to have died about the year 1612. The translation from Ariosto is poor and prosaic, but some of his epigrams are pointed.

Of Treason.
Treason doth never prosper ; what's the reason ?
For if it prosper none dare call it treason.

Of Fortune.
Fortune, men say, doth give too much to many,
But yet she never gave enough to any.

Against Writers that carp at other Men's Books.
The readers and the hearers like my books,
But yet some writers cannot them digest ;
But what care I ? for when I make a feast
I would my guests should praise it, not the cooks.

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 display'd 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, atfrighted 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,

Sir Henry Wotton.
to the service of the Earl of Essex, the favourite of
Elizabeth, but had the sagacity to foresee the fate of
that nobleman, and to elude its consequences by
withdrawing in time from the kingdom. Having
afterwards 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 mind qualified Sir Henry in an
eminent degree for this situation, of the duties of
which we have his own idea in the well-known pun.
ning expression, in which he defines an ambassador
to be an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for
the good of his country.' He ultimately took orders,
to qualify himself to be provost of Eton, in which
situation he died in 1639, in the seventy-second
year of his age. His writings were published in
1651, under the title of Reliquia Wottoniana ; and a
memoir of his very curious life has been published
by Izaak Walton.

To his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemiah
You meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light !

You common people of the skies !

What are you, when the sun shall rise !
You curious chanters of the wood,

That warble forth dame Nature's lays,
Thinking your voices understood

By your weak accents ! what's your praise
When Philomel her voice shall raise !

.

You violets that first appear,

Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. I know not,' By your pure purple mantles known,

says the modest poet, in his first dedication, 'how Like the proud virgins of the year,

I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to As if the spring were all your own!

your loruship, nor how the world will censure me What are you, when the rose is blown? for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a So, when my mistress shall be seen

burthen ; only, if your honour seem but pleased, I In form and beauty of her mind;

account myself highly praised, and vow to take ad. By virtue first, then choice, a Queen!

vantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you Tell me, if she were not design'd

with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my Th'eclipse and glory of her kind !

invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so

noble a godfather, and never after ear (till] 80 A Farewell to the Vanities of the World.

barren a land.' The allusion to idle hours' seems Farewell

, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles ; to point to the author's profession of an actor, in Farewell, ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles ! which capacity he had probably attracted the attenFame's but a hollow echo; gold pure clay ;

tion of the Earl of Southampton; but it is not so Honour the darling but of one short day;

easy to understand how the Venus and Adonis was Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask'd skin;

the first heir of his invention,' unless we believe State but a golden prison to live in,

that it had been written in early life, or that his And torture free-born minds; embroider'd trains dramatic labours had then been confined to the

Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins ; adaptation of old plays, not the writing of new ones, And blood allied to greatness, is alone

for the stage. There is a tradition, that the Earl of Inherited, not purchased, nor our own :

Southampton on one occasion presented Shakspeare Fame, honour, beauty, state, train, blood, and birth, with L.1000, to complete a purchase which he Are but the fading blossoms of the earth.

wished to make. The gift was munificent, but the

sum has probably been exaggerated. The Venus Welcome, pure thoughts, welcome, ye silent groves, and Adonis is a glowing and essentially dramatic These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves : version of the well-known mythological story, full Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing

of fine descriptive passages, but objectionable on the My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring: score of licentiousness. Warton has shown that it A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass, gave offence, at the time of its publication, on acIn which I will adore sweet Virtue's face.

count of the excessive warmth of its colouring. The Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares,

Rape of Lucrece is less animated, and is perhaps an No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears : inferior poem, though, from the boldness of its figu. Then here I'll sigh, and sigh my hot love's folly, rative expressions, and its tone of dignified pathos And learn t'affect an holy melancholy;

and reflection, it is more like the hasty sketch of a And if Contentment be a stranger then,

great poet. I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven again.

The sonnets of Shakspeare were first printed in y The Character of a Happy Life.

1609, by Thomas Thorpe, a bookseller and publisher

of the day, who prefixed to the volume the following How happy is he born and taught,

enigmatical dedication :--To the only begetter of That serveth not another's will;

these ensuing sonnets, Mr W. H., all happiness and Whose armour is his honest thought,

that eternity promised by our ever-living poet, And simple truth his utmost skill !

wisheth the well-wishing adventurer in setting Whose passions not his masters are,

forth, T. T. The sonnets are 154 in number. They Whose soul is still prepared for death,

are, with the exception of twenty-eight, addressed Untied unto the worldly care

to some male object, whom the poet addresses in a of public fame, or private breath ;

style of affection, love, and idolatry, remarkable, even Who envies none that chance doth raise,

in the reign of Elizabeth, for its extravagant and Or vice ; who never understood

enthusiastic character. Though printed continuHow deepest wounds are given by praise ;

ously, it is obvious that the sonnets were written at Nor rules of state, but rules of good :

different times, with long intervals between the Who hath his life from rumours freed,

dates of composition ; and we know that, previous to Whose conscience is his strong retreat ;

1598, Shakspeare had tried this species of composiWhose state can neither flatterers feed,

tion, for Meres in that year alludes to his 'sugared Nor ruin make oppressors great ;

sonnets among his private friends.' We almost wish,

with Mr Hallam, that Shakspeare had not written Who God doth late and early pray,

these sonnets, beautiful as many of them are in More of his grace than gifts to lend;

language and imagery. They represent him in a And entertains the harmless day

character foreign to that in which we love to regard With a religious book or friend;

him, as modest, virtuous, self-confiding, and indeThis man is freed from servile bands

pendent. His excessive and elaborate praise of Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;

youthful beauty in a man seems derogatory to his Lord of himself, though not of lands;

genius, and savours of adulation; and when we find And having nothing, yet hath all.

him excuse this friend for robbing him of his mis

tressa married female---and subjecting his noble SHAKSPEARE.

spirit to all the pangs of jealousy, of guilty love, and

blind misplaced attachment, it is painful and diffiSHAKSPEARE, as a writer of miscellaneous poetry, cult to believe that all this weakness and folly can claims now to be noticed, and, with the exception of be associated with the name of Shakspeare, and still the Faery Queen, there are no poems of the reign more, that he should record it in verse which he beof Elizabeth equal to those productions to which lieved would descend to future agesthe great dramatist affixed his name. In 1593, Not marble, not the gilded monuments when the poet was in his twenty-ninth year, ap- Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme. peared his Venus and Adonis, and in the following Some of the sonnets may be written in a feigned year his Rape of Lucrece, both dedicated to Henry character, and merely dramatic in expression; but

in others, the poet alludes to his profession of an For through his mane and tail the high wind sings, actor, and all bear the impress of strong passion and Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather's wings. deep sincerity. A feeling of premature age seems to have crept on Shakspeare

[Venus's Prophecy after the Death of Adonis.] That time of year thou may'st in me behold

Since thou art dead, lo ! here I prophesy,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang

Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend ;
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, It shall be waited on with jealousy,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end,
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,

Ne'er settled equally, but high or low :
As after sun-set fadeth in the west,

That all love's pleasure shall not match his woe. Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud, In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,

Bud and be blasted in a breathing while, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'd As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile. Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

The strongest body shall it make most weak, This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak. To love that well which thou must leave ere long. It shall be sparing, and too full of riot, He laments his errors with deep and penitential Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures ; sorrow, summoning up things past to the sessions The staring rutian shall it keep in quiet, of sweet silent thought, and exhibiting the depths It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,

Pluck down the rick, enrich the poor with tradures; of a spirit "solitary in the very vastuess of its sym- Make the young old, the old become a child. pathies.' The .W. H.' alluded to by Thorpe, the publisher, has been recently conjectured to be It shall suspect, where is no cause of fear ; William Herbert, afterwards Earl of Pembroke, who | It shall not fear, where it should most mistrust; (as appears from the dedication of the first folio of It shall be merciful, and too severe, 1623) was one of Shakspeare's patrons. This con- And most deceiving when it seems most just : jecture has received the assent of Mr Hallam and Perverse it shall be, when it seems most toward, others; and the author of an ingenious work on the Put fear to valour, courage to the coward. sonnets, Mr C. Armitage Brown, has supported It shall be cause of war, and dire events, it with much plausibility. Herbert was in his And set dissension 'twixt the son and sire : eighteenth year, when Meres first notices the son- Subject and servile to all discontents, nets in 1598; he was learned, of literary taste, and As dry combustious matter is to fire. gallant character, but of licentious life. The son- Sith in his prime, death doth my love destroy, nets convey the idea, that the person to whom they They that love best, their love shall not enjoy. were addressed was of high rank, as well as personal beauty and accomplishments. We know of only one objection to this theory—the improbability that the

[Selections from Shakspeare's Sonnets.] publisher would address William Herbert, then Earl When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, of Pembroke, and a Knight of the Garter, as 'Mr I all alone beweep my outcast state, W. H.' Herbert succeeded his father in the earl. And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, dom in 1601, while the sonnets, as published by And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Thorpe, bear the date, as already stated, of 1609. Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

The composition of these mysterious productions Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, evinces Shakspeare's great facility in versification Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, of a difficult order, and they display more intense With what I most enjoy contented least ; feeling and passion than either of his classical Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, poems. They have the conceits and quaint turns of Haply I think on thee--and then my state expression, then common, particularly in the sonnet; (Like to the lark at break of day arising but they rise to far higher flights of genuine poetry From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate ; than will be found in any other poet of the day, and For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings, they contain inany traces of his philosophical and That then I scorn to change my state with kings. reflective spirit.

Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there, [The Horse of Adonis.]

And made myself a motley to the view,

Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Look, when a painter would surpass the life,

Made old offences of affections new. In limning out a well-proportion'd steed,

Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth His art with Nature's workmanship at strife,

Askance and strangely; but, by all above, As if the dead the living should exceed :

These blenches gave my heart another youth, So did this horse excel a common one

And worst essays prov'd thee my best of love. In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone.

Now all is done, save what shall have no end : Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, Mine appetite I never more will grind Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide, On newer proof, to try an older friend, High crest, short ears, strait legs, and passing strong, A God in love, to whom I am confined. Thin miane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide: Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, Look what a horse should have, he did not lack, E'en to thy pure and most most loving breast. Save a proud rider on so proud a back.

O for my sake do thou with fortune chide, Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares ; The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, Anon he starts at stirring of a feather.

That did not better for my life provide, To bid the wind a basel he now prepares,

Than public means, which public manners breeds. And whe'r he run, or fly, they know not whether. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, 1 To bid the wind a base: i.e. to challenge the wind to con

And almost thence my nature is subdued tend with him in speed : base---prison-base, or prison-bars, was

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. A rustic game, consisting chiefly in running,

Pity me then, and wish I were renew'd ;

Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink

Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, Potions of eysell,I 'gainst my strong infection; Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose ; No bitterness that I will bitter think,

They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Nor double penance to correct correction.

Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,

Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away, E'en that your pity is enough to cure me.

As with your shadow 1 with these did play. When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;

I love not less, though less the show appear:
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming

The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere.
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste :
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

Our love was new, and then but in the spring,

When I was wont to greet it with my lays ; For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
And weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe,

And stops his pipe in growth of riper days :
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight.
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

Not that the summer is less pleasant now
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

But that wild music burdens every bough, Which I new pay as if not paid before.

And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

Therefore, like her, 1 sonetimes hold my tongue,

Because I would not dull you with my song. All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, Admit impediments. Love is not love By that sweet ornament which truth doth give ! Which alters when it alteration finds, The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

Or bends with the remover to remove : For that sweet odour which doth in it live.

O no ! it is an ever-fixed mark, The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken ; As the perfumed tincture of the roses,

It is the star to every wandering bark, Hang on such thorns, and play as wantouly

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. When summer's breath their masked buds discloses ; Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks But, for their virtue only is their show,

Within his bending sickle's compass come ; They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade ;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not 80 ;

But bears it out e'en to the edge of doon Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made ; If this be error, and upon me proved, And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved. When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth.

[Selections from Shakspeare's Songs.] No longer mourn for me when I am dead,

[From · As you like it.') Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell'

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Give warning to the world, that I am fled

Thou art not so unkind,
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell!

As man’s ingratitude !
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it: for I love you so,

Thy tooth is not so keen,

Because thou art not seen,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.

Although thy breath be rude.
O if (I say) you look upon this verse,

Heigh, ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly,

Most friendship is feignir most loving mere folly.
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;

Then heigh, ho, the holly!

This life is most jolly.
But let your love even with my life decay:
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

That dost not bite so nigh

As benefits forgot! Then hate me when thou wilt ; if ever, now ;

Though thou the waters warp, Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,

Thy sting is not so sharp Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,

As friend remember'd not.
And do not drop in for an after-loss ;

Heigh, ho! &c. &c.
Ah ! do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe ;

(At the end of • Love's Labour Lost.'] Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,

When iciclęs bang by the wall, To linger out a purposed overthrow.

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,

And Tom bears logs into the hall, When other petty griefs have done their spite,

And milk comes frozen home in pail; But in the onset come ; so shall I taste

When blood is nipt, and ways be foul, At first the very worst of Fortune's might;

Then nightly sings the staring owl, And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,

Tu-hoo! Compared with loss of thee, will not seem 80.

Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
From you have I been absent in the spring,

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,

And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
That heary Satum laugh'd and leap'd with him.

And birds sit brooding in the snow, Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell

And Marion's nose looks red and raw;

When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,

Then nightly sings the staring owl,

Tu-whoo !
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew :

Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note,
Vinegar.
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot

107

wola

The judgment and fancy are reconciled, and the [In • Much Ado about Nothing.')

imagery of the poem seems to start more vividly Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more ; from the surrounding shades of abstraction.' The Men were deceivers ever ;

versification of the poem (long quatrains, was One foot in sea, and one on shore,

afterwards copied by Davenant and Dryden. Mr
To one thing constant never :

Southey has remarked that “Sir John Davies and
Then sigh not so,

Sir William Davenant, avoiding equally the opposite
But let them go,

faults of too artificial and too careless a style, wrote
And be you blithe and bonny;

in numbers which, for precision, and clearness, and Converting all your sounds of woe

felicity, and strength, have never been surpassed.'
Into, Hey nonny, ponny.

The compact structure of Davies's verse is indeed
Sing no more ditties, sing no more

remarkable for his times. In another production,
Of dumps so dull and heavy;

entitled Orchestra, or a Poem of Dancing, in a Dia. The fraud of inen was ever so,

logue between Penelope and One of her Wooers, he is Since summer first was leavy.

much more fanciful. He there represents Penelope Then sigh not so, &c.

as declining to dance with Antinous, and the latter

as proceeding to lecture her upon the antiquity of [In Cymbeline.']

that elegant exercise, the merits of which he deFear no more the heat o' th' sun,

scribes in verses partaking, as has been justly reNor the furious winter's rages;

marked, of the flexibility and grace of the subject. Thou thy worldly task hast done,

The following is one of the most imaginative pas-
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages :

sages :-
Golden lads and girls all must,
l
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

[The Dancing of the Air.) Fear no more the frown o'th' great,

And now behold your tender nurse, the air,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat,

And common neighbour, that aye runs around,
To thee the reed is as the oak.

How many pictures and impressions fair
The sceptre, learning, physic, must

Within her empty regions are there found, All follow this, and come to dust.

Which to your senses dancing do propound;

For what are breath, speech, echoes, music, winds,
Fear no more the lightning-flash,

But dancings of the air in sundry kinds !
Nor th' all-dreaded thunder stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash,

For when you breathe, the air in order moves,
Thou hast finished joy and moan.

Now in, now out, in time and measure true;
All lovers young, all lovers must

And when you speak, so well she dancing loves,

That doubling oft, and oft redoubling new,
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

With thousand forms she doth herself endue :
No exorciser harm thee!

For all the words that from your lips repair,
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!

Are nought but tricks and turnings of the air.
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!

Hence is her prattling daughter, Echo, born,
Quiet consummation have,

That dances to all voices she can hear :
And renowned be thy grave!

There is no sound so harsh that she doth scorn,

Nor any time wherein she will forbear (FromAs you Like it.]

The airy pavement with her feet to wear : Under the green-wood tree

And yet her hearing sense is nothing quick, Who loves to lie with me,

For after time she endeth ev'ry' trick. And tune his merry note

And thou, sweet Music, dancing's only life, Unto the sweet bird's throat,

The ear's sole happiness, the air's best speech,
Come hither, come hither, come hither ;

Loadstone of fellowship, charming rod of strife,
Here shall he see

The soft mind's paradise, the sick mind's leech,
No enemy,

With thine own tongue thou trees and stones can
But winter and rough weather.

teach, Who doth ambition shun,

That when the air doth dance her finest measure, And loves to live i' the sun;

Then art thou born, the gods' and men's sweet Seeking the food he eats,

pleasure. And pleas’d with what he gets, Come hither, come hither, come hither;

Lastly, where keep the Winds their revelry,

Their violent turnings, and wild whirling hays,
Here shall he see

But in the air's translucent gallery!
No enemy,

Where she herself is turn'd a hundred ways,
But winter and rough weather.

While with those maskers wantonly she plays:

Yet in this misrule, they such rule embrace,

As two at once encumber not the place.
SIR JOHN DAVIES (1570-1626), an English baro afterwards, the poet alludes to the tidal influence of
rister, at one time Speaker of the Irish House of the moon, and the passage is highly poetical in ex.
Commons, was the author of a long philosophical

pression :
poem, On the Soul of Man and the Immortality thereof,
supposed to have been written in 1598, and one of For lo, the sea that fleets about the land,
the earliest poems of that kind in our language. And like a girdle clips her solid waist,
Davies is a profound thinker and close reasoner: Music and measure both doth understand :
in the happier parts of his poem,' says Campbell, For his great crystal eye is always cast
we come to logical truths so well illustrated by in- Up to the moon, and on her fixed fast:
genious similes, that we know not whether to call And as she danceth in her pallid spheres
the thoughts more poetically or philosophically just. So danceth he about the centre here.

SIR JOHN DAVIES.