It is but wind, and blows but where it list,

And vanisheth like mist.

Poor honor earth can give! What generous mind
Would be so base to bind

Her heaven-bred soul, a slave to serve a blast of wind?
She's empty: hark! she sounds: 'tis but a ball
For fools to play withal;

The painted film but of a stronger bubble,
That's lined with silken trouble.

It is a world whose work and recreation
Is vanity and vexation;

A hag, repair'd with vice-complexion'd paint,
A quest-house of complaint.

It is a saint, a fiend; worse fiend when most a saint.
She's empty: hark! she sounds: 'tis vain and void.
What's here to be enjoy'd

But grief and sickness, and large bills of sorrow,
Drawn now and cross'd to-morrow?

Or, what are men but puffs of dying breath,
Revived with living death?

Fond youth, O build thy hopes on surer grounds
Than what dull flesh propounds:

Trust not this hollow world; she's empty: hark! she sounds

MERCY TEMPERING JUSTICE.

Had not the milder hand of Mercy broke
The furious violence of that fatal stroke
Offended Justice struck, we had been quite
Lost in the shadows of eternal night.
Thy mercy, Lord, is like the morning sun,
Whose beams undo what sable night hath done;
Or like a stream, the current of whose course,
Restrain'd awhile, runs with a swifter force.
Oh! let me glow beneath those sacred beams,
And after, bathe me in those silver streams;
To Thee alone my sorrows shall appeal:

Hath earth a wound too hard for heaven to heal?

Though in his day Quarles was mostly known as a poet, he was also the author of a few prose works, the principal of which is the "Enchiridion,1 containing Institutions divine, contemplative, practical, moral, ethical, economical, political." Of this, Headley remarks, "had this little piece been written at Athens or Rome, its author would have been classed with the wise men of his country." The following are some specimens of it:

If thou be ambitious of honor, and yet fearful of the canker of honor, envy, so behave thyself, that opinion may be satisfied in this, that thou seekest merit, and not fame; and that thou attributest thy preferment rather to Providence than thy own virtue. Honor is a due debt to the deserver; and who ever envied the

1 Compounded of ɛv (en), “in," and xao (cheir), "the hand :"--something held "in the hand," a “mannal.' Read-an article on this treatise in the Retrospective Review, ix. 358.

payment of a debt? A just advancement is a providential act; and who ever envied the act of Providence?

If evil men speak good, or good men evil, of thy conversation, examine all thy actions, and suspect thyself. But if evil men speak evil of thee, hold it as thy honor; and, by way of thankfulness, love them; but upon condition that they continue to hate thee.

To tremble at the sight of thy sin, makes thy faith the less apt to tremble: the devils believe and tremble, because they tremble at what they believe; their belief brings trembling: thy trembling brings belief.

If thou desire to be truly valiant, fear to do any injury: he that fears not to do evil, is always afraid to suffer evil; he that never fears, is desperate; and he that fears always, is a coward. He is the true valiant man, that dares nothing but what he may, and fears nothing but what he ought.

If thou stand guilty of oppression, or wrongfully possest of another's right, see thou make restitution before thou givest an alms: if otherwise, what art thou but a thief, and makest God thy receiver?

When thou prayest for spiritual graces, let thy prayer be absolute; when for temporal blessings, add a clause of God's pleasure: in both, with faith and humiliation: so shalt thou, undoubtedly, receive what thou desirest, or more, or better. Never prayer rightly made, was made unheard; or heard, ungranted.

Not to give to the poor, is to take from him. Not to feed the hungry, if thou hast it, is to the utmost of thy power to kill him. That, therefore, thou mayst avoid both sacrilege and murder, be charitable.

Hath any wronged thee? Be bravely revenged: slight it, and the work's begun; forgive it, and 'tis finished: he is below himself that is not above an injury.

Gaze not on beauty too much, lest it blast thee; nor too long, lest it blind thee; nor too near, lest it burn thee: if thou like it, it deceives thee; if thou love it, it disturbs thee; if thou lust after it, it destroys thee if virtue accompany it, it is the heart's paradise; if vice associate it, it is the soul's purgatory: it is the wise man's bonfire, and the fool's furnace.

Use law and physic only for necessity; they that use then otherwise, abuse themselves into weak bodies and light purses: they are good remedies, bad businesses, and worse recreations.

If what thou hast received from God thou sharest to the poor, thou hast gained a blessing by the hand; if what thou hast taken from the poor, thou givest to God, thou hast purchased a curse into the bargain. He that puts to pious uses what he hath got

by impious usury, robs the spittle1 to make an hospital; and the cry of the one will out-plead the prayers of the other.

Give not thy tongue too great a liberty, lest it take thee prisoner. A word unspoken is, like the sword in the scabbard, thine; if vented, thy sword is in another's hand. If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue.

Wisdom without innocency is knavery; innocency without wisdom is foolery: be, therefore, as wise as serpents, and innocent as doves. The subtilty of the serpent instructs the innocency of the dove; the innocency of the dove corrects the subtilty of the serpent. What God hath joined together, let no man separate.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 1585-1649.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND, of Hawthornden, the first Scottish poet that wrote well in English, was born in 1585. "To the scholar and the wit he added every elegant attainment. After forming his taste at the University of Edinburgh, he enlarged his views by travelling and by a cultivation of the modern languages. At first he appears to have studied the law, but soon left it for more congenial pursuits. The character of his poetry is various, consisting of sonnets, epigrams, epitaphs, religious and other poems. His sonnets are the most beautiful, and some of them of the highest excellence. His greatest charm is, unaffected feeling, and unaffected language." His feelings were so intense on the side of the royalists, that the execution of Charles is said to have hastened his death, which took place at the close of the same year, December, 1649. The following are specimens of his sonnets3:

112

THE PRAISE OF A SOLITARY LIFE.

Thrice happy he, who by some shady grove,
Far from the clamorous world, doth live his own;
Though solitary, who is not alone,

But doth converse with that eternal Love.

O how more sweet is bird's harmonious moan,

Or the hoarse sobbings of the widow'd dove,

Than those smooth whisperings near a prince's throne,
Which good make doubtful, do the evil approve!

O! how more sweet is zephyr's wholesome breath,
And sighs embalm'd, which new-born flowers unfold,
Than that applause vain honor doth bequeath!
How sweet are streams to poison drank in gold!
The world is full of horrors, troubles, slights:
Woods' harmless shades have only true delights.

1 This term was originally applied to a lazar-house, or receptacle for persons affected with leprosy, but afterwards to an hospital of any kind.

2 See Retrospective Review, ix. 358.

Drummond's sonnets, I think, come as near as almost any others to the perfection of this kind of writing, which should embody a sentiment, and every shade of a sentiment, as it varies with time and place and humor, with the extra ugance or lightness of a momentary impression."-Hazlitt.

ON SLEEP.

Sleep, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest,
Prince, whose approach peace to all mortals brings,
Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,
Sole comforter of minds with grief oppress'd;
Lo, by thy charming rod, all breathing things
Lie slumbering, with forgetfulness possess'd,
And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings
Thou spar'st, alas! who cannot be thy guest.

Since I am thine, O come, but with that face
To inward light, which thou art wont to show,
With feigned solace ease a true-felt woe;

Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace,

Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath;

I long to kiss the image of my death.

The lady to whom he was engaged to be married was suddenly snatched away by death, and the sonnets which dwell on his own afflictions are as full of true feeling as poetic merit.

ON SPRING.

Sweet Spring, thou turn'st1 with all thy goodly train,
Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flowers;
The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain,
The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their showers.
Thou turn'st, sweet youth-but, ah! my pleasant hours,
And happy days, with thee come not again;
The sad memorials only of my pain

Do with thee turn, which turn my sweets in sours.
Thou art the same which still thou wast before,
Delicious, wanton, amiable, fair

But she whose breath embalm'd thy wholesome air
Is gone; nor gold nor gems her can restore.
Neglected Virtue, seasons go and come,
When thine forgot lie closed in a tomb.

What doth it serve to see sun's burning face?
And skies enamell'd with both Indies' gold?
Or moon at night in jetty chariot roll'd,

And all the glory of that starry place?

What doth it serve earth's beauty to behold,

The mountain's pride, the meadow's flowery grace;
The stately comeliness of forests old,

The sport of floods which would themselves embrace!
What doth it serve to hear the sylvans' songs,

The wanton merle, the nightingale's sad strains,
Which in dark shades seem to deplore my wrongs?
For what doth serve all that this world contains,
Sith she, for whom those once to me were dear,
No part of them can have now with me here?

TO HIS LUTE.

My lute, be as thou wast, when thou didst grow
With thy green mother in some shady grove.

1 "Turn'st" is here used for "returnest."

When immelodious winds but made thee move,
And birds on thee their ramage did bestow.

Sith that dear voice which did thy sounds approve,
Which used in such harmonious strains to flow,

Is reft from earth to tune those spheres above,
What art thou but a harbinger of woe?

Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more,
But orphan wailings to the fainting ear;

Each stop a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear;
Be therefore silent as in woods before:

Or if that any hand to touch thee deign,
Like widow'd turtle still her loss complain.

TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

Sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours,
Of winters past or coming void of care,

Well pleased with delights which present are,

Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers
To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers
Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare,
And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare,
A stain to human sense in sin that lowers.
What soul can be so sick, which by thy songs

(Attired in sweetness) sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,
And lift a reverent eye and thought to heaven?
Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost raise
To airs of spheres, yes, and to angel's lays.

RICHARD CRASHAW. Died 1650.1

RICHARD CRASHAW, a religious poet, an accomplished scholar, and a power ful and popular preacher, was born in London, but the date of his birth is unknown. His father was an author, and a preacher of the Temple church, London. He took his degree at Cambridge, where he published his sacred poems of "Steps to the Temple." In the year 1644 he was ejected from his living on refusing to subscribe to the Covenant, and soon afterwards he professed his faith in the Roman Church. Through the influence of his friend Cowley, the poet, he was introduced to the exiled Queen Henrietta, who obtained for him a small office at Rome, where he died about the year 1650. The poems of Crashaw are not much known, but they "display delicate fancy, great tenderness, and singular beauty of diction." "He has," says Headley, "originality in many parts, and as a translator is entitled to the highest praise. To his attainments, which were numerous and elegant, all nis biographers have borne witness." The lines on a prayer-book, Coleridge considers one of the best poems in our language.

1 Poet and Saint! to thee alone are given

The two most sacred names of earth and heaven.-COWLEY. 2 Pope, in his "Eloisa to Abelard, has borrowed largely from this poet.