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Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor:
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys

The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil1 citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to éxecutors2 pale
The lazy yawning drone.

Henry V., Act I. Scene II.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

THESE names, united in their lives by friendship and confederate genrus, have always been considered together; for they wrote together, their works were published together, nor is it possible now to assign to each his specific share of their joint labors. Some of the productions of each, however, are distinctively known.

Francis Beaumont was born in Leicestershire, in 1586. He studied at Oxford, and thence passed to the Inner Temple; but the law had few charms for him, and, in conjunction with his friend Fletcher, he devoted his short life to the drama, and died in 1616, in the thirtieth year of his age.

John Fletcher was the son of Dr. Richard Fletcher, bishop of London, and was born in that city in 1576. He was educated at Cambridge: little, how ever, is known of his life. He survived his coadjutor nine years, dying of the plague in 1625.

The plays of Beaumont and Fletcher consist of tragedies, comedies, and mixed pieces. That they have many and great merits is undoubtedly true; but there are two things which will ever be a bar to their being generally read: one is, that they have not that truthfulness to nature which alone can permanently please; and the other is, that they are filled with so much that is repulsive to a delicate and virtuous mind. Still, as has been justly remarked, a proper selection from the works of these dramatists would make a volume of refined sentiment, and of lofty and sweet poetry, combined with good sense, humor, and pathos. In lyrics they have not been surpassed, not even by Shakspeare or Milton; and to these, therefore, we shall confine our extracts.3

ADDRESS TO MELANCHOLY.

Hence, all you vain delights;
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly;
There's nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see't,

1 Sober, grave.

2 Executioners.

8 Read-Hazlitt's "Age of Elizabeth," and Lamb's "Specimens of Dramatic Poets."

But only melancholy;

Oh, sweetest melancholy,

Welcome folded arms and fixed eyes,
A sight that piercing mortifies;

A look that's fasten'd to the ground,
A tongue chain'd up without a sound;
Fountain heads, and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves:
Moonlight walks, where all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls;
A midnight bell, a passing groan,

These are the sounds we feed upon:

Then stretch our bones in a still, gloomy valley; Nothing so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.

BEAUMONT.

THE LIFE OF MAN.

Like to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
E'en such is man, whose borrow'd light
Is straight call'd in and paid to-night:
The wind blows out, the bubble dies:
The spring entomb'd in autumn lies;
The dew's dried up, the star is shot,
The flight is past, and man forgot.

MORNING.

See, the day begins to break,

And the light shoots like a streak
Of subtile fire; the wind blows cold,
While the morning doth unfold;
Now the birds begin to rouse,
And the squirrel from the boughs
Leaps, to get him nuts and fruit;
The early lark, that erst was mute
Carols to the rising day

Many a note and many a lay.

BEAUMONT.

FLETCHER.

EXHORTATION TO EARLY RISING.

Shepherds, rise, and shake off sleep!
See, the blushing morn doth peep
Through the windows, while the sun
To the mountain tops is run,
Gilding all the vales below
With his rising flames, which grow
Greater by his climbing still.

Up, ye lazy grooms, and fill

Bag and bottle for the field!
Clasp your cloaks fast, lest they yield
To the bitter north-east wind.

Call the maidens up, and find
Who lies longest, that she may
Go without a friend all day;
Then reward your dogs, and pray
Pan to keep you from decay:
So unfold, and then away!

FLETCHER.

THE SHEPHERD'S EVENING.

Shepherds all, and maidens fair,
Fold your flocks up, for the air
'Gins to thicken, and the sun
Already his great course hath run.
See the dew-drops how they kiss
Every little flower that is;
Hanging on their velvet heads,
Like a rope of crystal beads.
See the heavy clouds low falling,
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead night from under ground,
At whose rising mists unsound,
Damps, and vapors fly apace,
Hovering o'er the wanton face
Of these pastures, where they come
Striking dead both bud and bloom;
Therefore, from such danger, lock
Every one his loved flock;

And let your dogs lie loose without,
Lest the wolf come as a scout
From the mountain, and, ere day,
Bear a lamb or kid away;
Or the crafty thievish fox
Break upon your simple flocks.
To secure yourselves from these
Be not too secure in ease ;
Let one eye his watches keep,
While the other eye doth sleep;
Eo you shall good shepherds prove,

And for ever hold the love

Of our great God. Sweetest slumbers,
And soft silence, fall in numbers

On your eyelids! So, farewell!
Thus I end my evening's knell.

FLETCHER.

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SIR WALTER RALEIGH, one of the most remarkable men England has produced, was born in the parish of Budley in Devonshire, in 1552. About the year 1568 he entered Oxford, where he continued but a short time, for in the following year he was in France, where Hooker says "he spent good part of his youth in wars and martial exercises." He escaped the massacre of St. Bartholomew, (August, 1572,) by taking refuge with Sir Philip Sidney in the house of the English ambassador. In 1579 he accompanied his half brother, Sir Henry Gilbert, in a voyage to Newfoundland: the expedition proved unfortunate, but it doubtless had an influence in leading him to engage in subsequent expeditions which have made his name famous. He soon ingratiated himself with the queen, who, in 1584, granted him a patent to discover "such remote heathen and barbarous lands, not actually possessed by any Christian prince, as to him might seem good." Two ships were soon after fitted ont by Raleigh, which arrived on the coast of Carolina in July. They were commanded by Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow, who took possession of the country in the name of the Virgin Queen, and called it Virginia. In 1585 he projected a second voyage, and seven vessels were sent out, which arrived at Roanoke, an island in Albemarle Sound. But the colonists failed in their object, and in July 27, 1586, returned to England, carrying with them, for the first time, that nauseous weed, tobacco, instead of diamonds and gold. In 1594 he matured the plan of his first voyage to Guiana-a voyage memorable in his history, as it was eventually the cause of his destruction. This expedition he attended in person, and returned to England in the summer of 1595, when he published a work, entitled "Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana."

But his fortune fell with the death of the queen. "A prince from the north, with the meanness of soul which has no parallel, and a narrow subtilty of intellect which is worse than folly, ascended the British throne, and changed the face and character of the court and the nation. King James frowned upon Raleigh, and within three months entertained a charge against him for high treason," of conspiring to dethrone the king, of exciting sedition, and of endeavoring to establish popery by the aid of foreign powers. After a trial, perhaps the most disgraceful in the annals of English jurisprudence, he was condemned to lose his head. He was reprieved, however, by the king, but his estates were taken from him, and he was sent to the Tower for twelve years--a period the best employed of any in his life, as he there composed the great work on which his literary fame chiefly rests-"The History of the World." In the year 1615 he was liberated by the king, who wanted him to plan and conduct an expedition to Guiana, and in 1617 he sailed with twelve vessels. But the expedition failed, and Sir Walter's death was determined on. Finding no present grounds against him, his enemies proceeded on the old sentence, and he was beheaded on the 29th of October, 1618, dying with the same dauntless resolution he had displayed through his life. "Who is there," exclaims Sir Egerton Brydges, "that will not read with a heart first expanding with admiration, and afterwards wrung with resentment and sor

1 Read-a memoir of Raleigh in that most fascinating of books, Sir Egerton Brydges's "Imaginative Biography;" also, the biography preceding the edition of his poems, by the same author, who has done so much for English literature.

row, the story of Raleigh, though a thousand times told? If there were no other blots on James's reign, Raleigh's death alone would render it intolerable to every generous and reflecting mind."

Sir Walter Raleigh is no less distinguished as a literary character than as an experienced navigator and a valorous knight. For extent of knowledge and variety of talent, he was undoubtedly the first man of his age. The work on which his fame chiefly rests is his "History of the World," which begins with the Creation, and ends with the downfall of the Macedonian Empire, 168 B. C.1 Of this work Hume remarks, "it is the best model of that ancient style, which some writers would affect to revive at present;" and Professor Tytler, the Scotch historian, commends it as "rigorous, purely English, and possessing an antique richness of ornament, similar to what pleases us when we see some ancient priory or stately manor-house, and compare it with our more modern mansions. It is laborious without being heavy, learned without being dry. Its narrative is clear and spirited, and the matter collected from the most authentic sources." The following is the concluding portion of this great work, a passage which, in the opinion of Warburton, has never been equalled, except by Milton :

THE FALL OF MIGHTY EMPIRES-THE FOLLY OF AMBITION-

THE POWER OF DEATH.

By this which we have already set down is seen the beginning and end of the first three monarchies of the world, whereof the founders and erectors thought that they could never have ended. That of Rome, which made the fourth, was also at this time almost at the highest. We have left it flourishing in the middle of the field, having rooted up or cut down all that kept it from the eyes and admiration of the world; but after some continuance it shall begin to lose the beauty it had; the storms of ambition shall beat her great boughs and branches one against another, her leaves shall fall off, her limbs wither, and a rabble of barbarous nations enter the field and cut her down.

Now these great kings and conquering nations have been the subject of those ancient histories which have been preserved, and yet remain among us; and withal of so many tragical poets, as, in the persons of powerful princes and other mighty men, have complained against infidelity, time, destiny, and most of all against the variable success of worldly things, and instability of fortune. To these undertakings the greatest lords of the world have been stirred up, rather by the desire of fame, which plougheth up the air, and soweth in the wind, than by the affection of bearing rule, which draweth after it so much vexation and so many cares. And certainly, as fame hath often been dangerous to the living, so it is to the dead of no use at all, because separate from knowledge. Which were it otherwise, and the extreme ill bargain of buying this lasting discourse understood by them which are dissolved,

1 Battle of Pydna.

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