EDWARD BENLOWES.

E'en He, the cursed Jews and Pilate slew,
Is He alone, of whom all this is true.

Our sins of spite were part of those that day,

Whose cruel whips and thorns did make Him smart,
Our lusts were those that tired Him in the way,

Our want of love was that which pierced His heart;
And still, when we forget, or slight His pain,

We crucify and torture Him again.

The Lord's Prayer.

Our Father, which in heaven art,
We sanctify Thy name:

Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done,

In heaven and earth the same:

Give us this day our daily bread:

And us forgive Thou so,

As we on them that us offend

Forgiveness do bestow :

Into temptation lead us not,

But us from evil free:

For Thine the kingdom, power, and praise,

Is, and shall ever be.*

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EDWARD BENLOWES.

Edward Benlowes was born of an old and opulent family, at Brent Hall, Essex, in 1602. After passing through the curriculum at St John's College, Cambridge, he took a lengthened tour on the continent, and came home with a mind expanded

*The above is remarkable for its compactness. It contains only two words more than the prose of the authorised version. The same is the case with a metrical version composed by the late Dr Judson, in prison at Ava, and published in the tenth chapter of his Life.

and enriched beyond most of his contemporaries. His tastes were literary, and his dispositions generous; and he became the patron, not only of men of merit, like Quarles, but of indigent parasites and adventurers, who at last exhausted his resources, and involved him in responsibilities which even his ample heritage could not meet. The consequence was that, in his old age, he found himself the inmate of a debtor's prison; and the remaining eight years of his life he spent in Oxford, in the extreme of poverty. There he died, Dec. 18, 1676.

Shortly after the appearance of Beaumont's "Psyche," Benlowe published (1652) a poem on a similar subject—“ Theophila, or Love's Sacrifice." Like a late author, who combined the agreeable vocations of bard and banker, Mr Benlowe spared no expense in introducing his work to the public; but it came forth embellished with engravings, some of them by Hollar, remarkably elaborate and beautiful, in a style of sumptuous typography, and prefaced by a long array of encomiums on the author. Perfect copies are now excessively rare, and it is partly as a matter of curiosity, that we quote a specimen from an author who, although so much extolled in his time, has been over-looked in almost every subsequent survey of our Christian literature. At the same time, if we do not greatly mistake, such stanzas as the following, indicate a considerable share of poetic taste and feeling :

Rural Retirement.

From public roads to private joy's our flight;
To view God's love we leave man's sight,
Rich in the purchase of a friend who gilds delight.

That sea-dividing Prince, whose sceptred rod
Wrought freedom to the Church of God,
Made in the Mount of Horeb forty days' abode.

EDWARD BENLOWES.

In wilderness the Baptist shin'd more clear;

In life's night starry souls appear:

They who themselves eclipse are to heaven's court more dear.

The low-built fortune harbours peace, when as

Ambitious high-roofed Babels pass

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Through storms: content with thankfulness each blessing has.

So fragrant violets, blushing strawberries,

Close-shrouded lurk from lofty eyes,

The emblem of sweet bliss, which low and hidden lies.

Though in rough shells our bodies kernell'd are,
Our roof is neat, and sweet our fare;
Banish'd are noisome vapours to the pent-up air.

No subtle poison in our cup we fear-
Goblets of gold such horrors bear;

No palace-furies haunt, O rich content! thy cheer.

When early Phosphor lights from eastern bed

The grey-ey'd morn, with blushes red;

When opal colours prank the orient tulip's head:

Then walk we forth, where twinkling spangles shew,

Entinselling like stars the dew;

Where buds like pearls, and where we leaves like em'ralds view.

Birds by grovets in feather'd garments sing

New ditties to the non-ag'd spring:

Oh! how those traceless minstrels cheer up everything!

While teeming earth flower'd satin wears, emboss'd
With trees, with bushes shagg'd, with most
Clear riv'lets edged, by rocky winds each gently toss'd,

The branching standards of the chirping grove,
With rustling boughs, and streams that move

In murm'ring rage, seem Nature's concert tun'd by love.

Ourselves, here steal we from ourselves, by qualms
Of pleasure rais'd from new-coin'd psalms,

When skies are blue, earth green, and meadows flow with balms.

We there, on grassy tufted tapestries,

In guiltless shades, by full-hair'd trees,

Leaning unpillow'd heads view Nature's ants and bees:

Justly admiring more those agile ants,

Than castle-bearing elephants;

Where industry epitomiz'd no vigour wants.

More than at tusks of boars we wonder at

This moth's strange teeth. Legs of this gnat

Pass large-limb'd griffins. Then on bees we musing sate:

How colonies, realms' hope, they breed, proclaim

Their king, how nectar courts they frame,

How they, in waxen cells, record their princes' fame.

Thinking-which some deem idleness-to me

It seems life's heaven on earth to be; By observation God is seen in all we see.

Our books are heav'n above us, air and sea

Around, earth under; faith's our stay,

And grace our guide, the Word our light, and Christ our way.

Friend, view that rock, and think from rock's green wound How thirst-expelling streams did bound;

View streams, and think how Jordan did become dry ground.

View seas, and think how waves, like walls of glass,

Stood fix'd, while Hebrew troops did pass;

But clos'd the Pharian host in one confused mass.

These flow'rs we see to-day, like beauty brave,

At ev'n will be shut up, and have

Next week their death, then buried soon in stalks, their grave.

Beauty's a flower, fame puff, high state a gaze,

Pleasure a dance, and gold a blaze;

Greatness a load. These soon are lost in time's short maze.

Thoughts, dwell on this. Let's be our own death's head.

The glorious martyr lives though dead,

Sweet rose, in his own fadeless leaves enveloped.

DR JOSEPH BEAUMONT.

Time in eternity's immense book is

But as a short parenthesis;

Man's life a point, God's day is never-setting bliss.

Such mental buds we from each object take,

And for Christ's spouse of them we make

Spiritual wreaths; nor do we her own words forsake:

"Arise, O north, and thou, O south wind blow;
Let scent of flow'rs and spices flow,

That the Beloved may into His garden go:"

Whose beauty flow'rs, whose height made lofty trees,
Whose permanence made time, and these
Pay tribute by returns to Him, as springs to seas.

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DR JOSEPH BEAUMONT.

Dr Joseph Beaumont* was an alumnus of Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow, and continued to prosecute his favourite studies until he was twenty-eight. By that time the Parliamentary war had broken out, and Beaumont, being a Royalist, was deprived of his fellowship, and was obliged to leave the University. His early patron, Bishop Wren of Ely, still befriended him, and in 1650 he married the Bishop's step-daughter. The Restoration obtained for him an immediate appointment as one of his Majesty's chaplains, besides the restitution of his former livings; and in 1663 he was promoted to the mastership of Peterhouse. To this, in 1670, was added the professorship of divinity. The duties of his several offices he appears to have discharged with spirit and efficiency, and he was seized with his last illness on November 5, 1699—the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot-after the exertion of preaching in his turn before the University in the eightyfourth year of his age. This good old age he seems to have *Born at Hadleigh, Suffolk, March 13, 1615; died at Cambridge, Nov. 23, 1699.