A man whose tuned humours be A seat of rarest harmony?

Wouldst see blithe looks, fresh cheeks, beguile
Age! Wouldst see December smile?
Wouldst see nests of new roses grow
In a bed of reverend snow?
Warm thoughts, free spirits flattering
Winter's self into a spring?

In sum, wouldst see a man that can
Live to be old, and still a man?
Whose latest and most leaden hours

Fall with soft wings, stuck with soft flowers;
And when life's sweet fable ends,
Soul and body part like friends;
No quarrels, murmurs, no delay;
A kiss, a sigh, and so away?

This rare one, reader, wouldst thou see?
Hark, hither and thyself be he.

Hymn to the Name of Jesus.

I sing the Name which none can say,
But touch'd with an interior ray;
The name of our new peace; our good;
Our bliss, and supernatural blood;
The name of all our lives and loves :
Hearken and help, ye holy doves!
The high-born brood of day; you bright
Candidates of blissful light,

The heirs elect of love; whose names belong
Unto the everlasting life of song;

All ye wise souls, who in the wealthy breast Of this unbounded Name build your warm nest. Awake, my glory! soul (if such thou be, And that fair word at all refer to thee), Awake and sing,

And be all wing!

Great Nature for the key of her huge chest
Of heav'ns, the self-involving set of spheres,
Which dull mortality more feels than hears;
Then rouse the nest

Of nimble art, and traverse round
The airy shop of soul-appeasing sound:
And beat a summons in the same
All-sovereign name,

To warn each several kind

And shape of sweetness-be they such

As sigh with supple wind

Or answer artful touch

That they convene and come away

The attending world, to wait thy rise,
First turn'd to eyes;

And then, not knowing what to do,
Turn'd them to tears, and spent them too.
Come, royal name! and pay the expense
Of all this precious patience:
Oh, come away

And kill the death of this delay.
Oh see, so many worlds of barren years
Melted and measur'd out in seas of tears!
Oh, see the weary lids of wakeful hope
(Love's eastern windows) all wide ope
With curtains drawn,

To catch the daybreak of thy dawn!
Oh, dawn at last, long-look'd for day!
Take thine own wings and come away.
Lo, where aloft it comes ! It comes, among
The conduct of adoring spirits, that throng
Like diligent bees, and swarm about it.
Oh, they are wise,

Body of blessings! spirit of souls extracted!
Oh, dissipate thy spicy powers,

Cloud of condensed sweets! and break upon us
In balmy showers!

Oh, fill our senses, and take from us
All force of so profane a fallacy,

To think aught sweet but that which smells of thee,
Fair flow'ry name! in none but thee,
And thy nectareal fragrancy,

Hourly there meets

An universal synod of all sweets;
By whom it is defined thus-
That no perfume

For ever shall presume

To pass for odoriferous,

But such alone whose sacred pedigree

Can prove itself some kin, sweet name! to thee. Sweet name! in thy each syllable

A thousand blest Arabias dwell;

A thousand hills of frankincense;
Mountains of myrrh and beds of spices,
And ten thousand paradises,

The soul that tastes thee takes from thence.
How many unknown worlds there are

Of comforts, which thou hast in keeping!
How many thousand mercies there
In pity's soft lap lie a-sleeping!
Happy he who has the art

To awake them,

And to take them

Home, and lodge them in his heart.

Oh, that it were as it was wont to be,

When thy old friends, on fire all full of thee,

day

Come, lovely name! life of our hope!

Lo, we hold our hearts wide ope!

Unlock thy cabinet of day,

Dearest sweet, and come away.

Lo, how the thirsty lands

Gasp for thy golden show'rs, with long-stretch'd hands! Lo, how the labouring earth,

That hopes to be All heaven by thee, Leaps at thy birth!

To persecutions; and against the face

Of death and fiercest dangers, durst with brave
And sober pace march on to meet a grave.

On their bold breasts about the world they bore thee,
And to the teeth of hell stood up to teach thee;

In centre of their inmost souls they wore thee, Where racks and torments striv'd in vain to reach thee.

Little, alas! thought they

Who tore the fair breasts of thy friends,

Their fury but made way

For thee, and serv'd them in thy glorious ends.

What did their weapons, but with wider pores Enlarge thy flaming-breasted lovers,

More freely to transpire

That impatient fire

The heart that hides thee hardly covers ?
What did their weapons, but set wide the doors
For thee! fair purple doors, of love's devising;
The ruby windows which enrich'd the east
Of thy so oft-repeated rising.

Each wound of theirs was thy new morning,
And re-enthron'd thee in thy rosy nest,

With blush of thine own blood thy day adorning :
It was the wit of love o'erflow'd the bounds

Of wrath, and made the way through all these wounds. Welcome, dear, all-adored name!

For sure there is no knee

That knows not thee;

Or if there be such sons of shame,
Alas! what will they do,

When stubborn rocks shall bow,

And hills hang down their heav'n-saluting heads
To seek for humble beds

Of dust, where, in the bashful shades of night,
Next to their own low nothing they may lie,

And couch before the dazzling light of thy dread
Majesty.

They that by love's mild dictate now

Will not adore thee,

Shall then, with just confusion, bow
And break before thee.

SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE.

SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE, knight, brother of Thomas Lord Fanshawe, was born in 1607. He joined the royalists, and was secretary at war to Prince Rupert. After the Restoration, he was appointed ambassador to Spain and Portugal, in which character he died at Madrid in 1666. Fanshawe translated the Lusiad of Camoens, and the Pastor Fido of Guarini. With the latter production, published in 1648, he gave to the world some miscellaneous poems, from which the following are selected :

A Rose.

Thou blushing rose, within whose virgin leaves
The wanton wind to sport himself presumes,
Whilst from their rifled wardrobe he receives
For his wings purple, for his breath perfumes!
Blown in the morning, thou shalt fade ere noon :
What boots a life which in such haste forsakes thee?
Thou'rt wondrous frolic being to die so soon:
And passing proud a little colour makes thee.
If thee thy brittle beauty so deceives,

Know, then, the thing that swells thee is thy bane;
For the same beauty doth in bloody leaves
The sentence of thy early death contain.

Some clown's coarse lungs will poison thy sweet flower,
If by the careless plough thou shalt be torn :
And many Herods lie in wait each hour
To murder thee as soon as thou art born;
Nay, force thy bud to blow; their tyrant breath
Anticipating life, to hasten death.

A Rich Fool.

Thee, senseless stock, because thou'rt richly gilt,
The blinded people without cause admire,
And superstition impiously hath built
Altars to that which should have been the fire.
Where shall my tongue consent to worship thee,
Since all's not gold that glisters and is fair;
Carving but makes an image of a tree:
But gods of images are made by prayer.

Sabean incense in a fragrant cloud
Illustriously suspended o'er thy crown
Like a king's canopy, makes thee allow'd
For more than man. But let them take thee down,
And thy true value be once understood,
Thy dull idolaters will find thou'rt wood.

SONG.-The Saint's Encouragement.
[Written in 1643.]

Fight on, brave soldiers, for the cause;
Fear not the cavaliers ;

Their threat'nings are as senseless, as
Our jealousies and fears.

'Tis you must perfect this great work,
And all malignants slay,

You must bring back the king again
The clean contrary way.
"Tis for Religion that you fight,
And for the kingdom's good,

By robbing churches, plundering men,
And shedding guiltless blood.

Down with the orthodoxal train,
All loyal subjects slay;

When these are gone, we shall be blest,
The clean contrary way.

When Charles we've bankrupt made like us,

Of crown and power bereft him,

And all his loyal subjects slain,
And none but rebels left him.
When we've beggar'd all the land,
And sent our trunks away,

We'll make him then a glorious prince,
The clean contrary way.
'Tis to preserve his majesty,

That we against him fight,
Nor are we ever beaten back,
Because our cause is right:
If any make a scruple on't,
Our declarations say,

Who fight for us, fight for the king
The clean contrary way.

At Keynton, Branford, Plymouth, York,
And divers places more,

What victories we saints obtain'd,
The like ne'er seen before!

How often we Prince Rupert kill'd,
And bravely won the day;
The wicked cavaliers did run

The clean contrary way.
The true religion we maintain,
The kingdom's peace and plenty;
The privilege of parliament

Not known to one of twenty;
The ancient fundamental laws;
And teach men to obey

Their lawful sovereign; and all these
The clean contrary way.
We subjects' liberties preserve,

By prisonments and plunder,
And do enrich ourselves and state
By keeping the wicked under.
We must preserve mechanics now,
To lecturise and pray;
By them the Gospel is advanced
The clean contrary way.
And though the king be much misled
By that malignant crew;
He'll find us honest, and at last
Give all of us our due.
For we do wisely plot, and plot,
Rebellion to destroy,

He sees we stand for peace and truth,
The clean contrary way.

The public faith shall save our souls,
And good out-works together;
And ships shall save our lives, that stay
Only for wind and weather.

But when our faith and works fall down,
And all our hopes decay,

Our acts will bear us up to heaven,
The clean contrary way.

SONG.-The Royalist.

[Written in 1646.]

Come, pass about the bowl to me;

A health to our distressed king!
Though we're in hold, let cups go free,
Birds in a cage do freely sing.
The ground does tipple healths apace,

When storms do fall, and shall not we?
A sorrow dares not show its face,

When we are ships and sack 's the sea. Pox on this grief, hang wealth, let's sing, Shall kill ourselves for fear of death? We'll live by the air which songs doth bring, Our sighing does but waste our breath: Then let us not be discontent,

Nor drink a glass the less of wine; In vain they'll think their plagues are spent, When once they see we don't repine.

We do not suffer here alone,

Though we are beggar'd, so's the king; "Tis sin t' have wealth, when he has none; Tush! poverty's a royal thing! When we are larded well with drink,

Our heads shall turn as round as theirs, Our feet shall rise, our bodies sink

Clean down the wind, like cavaliers. Fill this unnatural quart with sack, Nature all vacuums doth decline, Ourselves will be a zodiac,

And every month shall be a sign. Methinks the travels of the glass

Are circular like Plato's year, Where everything is as it was;

Let's tipple round; and so 'tis here.

LADY ELIZABETH CAREW.

LADY ELIZABETH CAREW is believed to be the author of the tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry, 1613. Though wanting in dramatic interest and spirit, there is a vein of fine sentiment and feeling in this forgotten drama. The following chorus, in Act the Fourth, possesses a generous and noble simplicity :

[Revenge of Injuries.]

The fairest action of our human life

Is scorning to revenge an injury;
For who forgives without a further strife,
His adversary's heart to him doth tie.
And 'tis a firmer conquest truly said,
To win the heart, than overthrow the head.
If we a worthy enemy do find,

To yield to worth it must be nobly done;
But if of baser metal be his mind,

In base revenge there is no honour won.
Who would a worthy courage overthrow,
And who would wrestle with a worthless foe !

We say our hearts are great, and cannot yield;
Because they cannot yield, it proves them poor:
Great hearts are task'd beyond their power, but seld
The weakest lion will the loudest roar.
Truth's school for certain doth this same allow,
High-heartedness doth sometimes teach to bow.

A noble heart doth teach a virtuous scorn. To scorn to owe a duty overlong; To scorn to be for benefits forborne ; To scorn to lie, to scorn to do a wrong. To scorn to bear an injury in mind; To scorn a free-born heart slave-like to bind.

But if for wrongs we needs revenge must have, Then be our vengeance of the noblest kind; Do we his body from our fury save,

And let our hate prevail against our mind? What can 'gainst him a greater vengeance be, Than make his foe more worthy far than he

Had Mariam scorn'd to leave a due unpaid, She would to Herod then have paid her love, And not have been by sullen passion sway'd. To fix her thoughts all injury above Is virtuous pride. Had Mariam thus been proud, Long famous life to her had been allow'd.

SCOTTISH POETS.

ALEXANDER SCOT.

While Sidney, Spenser, Marlow, and other poets, were illustrating the reign of Elizabeth, the muses were not wholly neglected in Scotland. There was, however, so little intercourse between the two nations, that the works of the English bards seem to have been comparatively unknown in the north, and to have had no Scottish imitators. The country was then in a rude and barbarous state, tyrannised over by the nobles, and torn by feuds and dissensions. In England, the Reformation had proceeded from the throne, and was accomplished with little violence or disorder. In Scotland, it uprooted the whole form of society, and was marked by fierce contentions and lawless turbulence. The absorbing influence of this ecclesiastical struggle was unfavourable to the cultivation of poetry. It shed a gloomy spirit over the nation, and almost proscribed the study of romantic literature. The drama, which in England was the nurse of so many fine thoughts, so much stirring passion, and beautiful imagery, was shunned as a leprosy, fatal to religion and morality. The very songs in Scotland partook of this religious chathat ALEXANDER SCOT, in his New Year Gift to the racter; and so widely was the polemical spirit diffused, Queen, in 1562, says—

That limmer lads and little lasses, lo,

Will argue baith with bishop, priest, and friar. Scot wrote several short satires, and some miscellaneous poems, the prevailing amatory character of which has caused him to be called the Scottish Anacreon, though there are many points wanting to complete his resemblance to the Teian bard. As specimens of his talents, the two following pieces are presented :

Rondel of Love.

Lo what it is to luve, Learn ye that list to pruve, By me, I say, that no ways may, The grund of greif remuve. But still decay, both nicht and day; Lo what it is to luve !

Luve is ane fervent fire, Kendillit without desire, Short plesour, lang displesour; Repentance is the hire;

Ane pure tressour, without messour; Luve is ane fervent fire.

Lethington Castle.

daughter acted as amanuensis to the aged poet. His familiar style reminds us of that of Lyndsay.

Satire on the Town Ladies.

Some wifis of the borowstoun
Sae wonder vain are, and wantoun,
In warld they wait not what to weir:
On claithis they ware2 mony a croun;
And all for newfangleness of geir.3

And of fine silk their furrit clokis,
With hingan sleeves, like geil pokis;
Nae preaching will gar them forbeir
To weir all thing that sin provokis;
And all for newfangleness of geir.

Their wilicoats maun weel be hewit,
Broudred richt braid, with pasments sewit.

I trow wha wald the matter speir,
That their gudemen had cause to rue it,
That evir their wifis wore sic geir.

Their woven hose of silk are shawin,
Barrit aboon with taisels drawin;
With gartens of ane new maneir,
To gar their courtliness be knawin;
And all for newfangleness of geir.
Sometime they will beir up their gown,
To shaw their wilicoat hingan down;
And sometime baith they will upbeir,
To shaw their hose of black or brown;
And all for newfangleness of geir.

Their collars, carcats, and hause beidis !4
With velvet hat heigh on their heidis,
Cordit with gold like ane younkeir.
Braidit about with golden threidis ;
And all for newfangleness of geir.

Their shoon of velvet, and their muilis !
In kirk they are not content of stuilis,
The sermon when they sit to heir,
But carries cusheons like vain fulis;
And all for newfangleness of geir.

And some will spend mair, I hear say,
In spice and drugis in ane day,
Nor wald their mothers in ane yeir.
Whilk will gar mony pack decay,
When they sae vainly waste their geir.