picture of most absolute loveliness and dove-like simplicity. Never was that denghtful passion portrayed with a more chaste and exquisite pencil." CHARACTER AND LOVE OF BIRTHA. To Astragon, heaven for succession gave One only pledge, and Birtha was her name; She ne'er saw courts, yet courts could have undone She never had in busy cities been, Ne'er warm'd with hopes, nor e'er allay'd with fears; And sin not seeing, ne'er had use of tears. But here her father's precepts gave her skill, Her own free virtue silently employs, Whilst her great mistress, Nature, thus she tends, The just historians Birtha thus express, And tell how, by her sire's example taught, Black melancholy mists, that fed despair Through wounds' long rage, with sprinkled vervain clear'd; And with rich fumes his sullen senses cheer'd. He that had served great Love with reverend heart, In these old wounds worse wounds from him endures; For Love makes Birtha shift with Death his dart, And she kills faster than her father cures. Her heedless innocence as little knew The wounds she gave, as those from Love she took 1 "The longer we dwell upon this noble but unfinished monument of the genius of Sir William Davenant, the more does our admiration of it increase, and we regret that the unjust attacks which were made against it at the time, (or whatever else was the cause,) prevented its completion. It night then, notwithstanding the prophetical oblivion to which Bishop Hurd has, with some acrimony, condemned it, have been entitled to a patent of nobility, and had its name inscribed upon the roll of epic aristocracy."—Ret. Rev. ii 324. And Love lifts high each secret shaft he drew; But finds him now a bold unquiet guest; Makes him conceal this reveller with shame; She, full of inward questions, walks alone, Nor the guide sober that him thither brought. With open ears, and ever-waking eyes, And flying feet, Love's fire she from the sight Of all her maids does carry, as from spies; Jealous, that what burns her, might give them light. Beneath a myrtle covert now does spend In maids' weak wishes, her whole stock of thought; Fond maids! who love with mind's fine stuff would mend Which Nature purposely of bodies wrought. She fashions him she loved of angels kind, To the first fathers from th' Eternal Mind, As eagles then, when nearest heaven they fly, And therefore perch on earthly things below: So now she yields; him she an angel deem'd Soon her opinion of his hurtless heart, Affection turns to faith; and then love's fire If I do love, (said she,) that love, O Heaven! And you, my alter'd mother, (grown above Great nature, which you read and reverenced here,) This said, her soul into her breast retires; And trusts unanchor'd hope in fleeting streams: No more than Time himself is overta’en. She thinks of Eden-life; and no rough wind She thinks, if ever anger in him sway, (The youthful warrior's most excused disease,) Such chance her tears shall calm, as showers allay The accidental rage of winds and seas. Thus to herself in day-dreams Birtha talks: The duke, (whose wounds of war are healthful grown,) To cure Love's wounds, seeks Birtha where she walks: Whose wandering soul seeks him to cure her own. Yet when her solitude he did invade, Shame (which in maids is unexperienced fear) Taught her to wish night's help to make more shade, And she had fled him now, but that he came Of his minor pieces, we have room but for the following beautiful SONG. The lark now leaves his watery nest, And, climbing, shakes his dewy wings; He takes this window for the east; And to implore your light, he sings,— The merchant bows unto the seaman's star, Who look for day before his mistress wakes. MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. Died 1673. THIS lady was the daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, and was born about the end of the reign of James the First. She early manifested a fondness for literary pursuits, and the greatest care was bestowed upon her education. Having been appointed one of the maids of honor to Henrietta Maria, the queen of Charles the First, she attended her when she fled to France, during the civil commotions; and having met with the Marquis of Newcastle at Paris, she there became his wife in 1645. Her lord, soon after their marriage, went to Antwerp to reside, and found her a most faithful and affectionate companion of his long and honorable exile. At the Restoration they returned to England. "The labors of no modern authoress can be compared, as to quantity, with those of our indefatigable duchess, who has filled nearly twelve volumes, folio, with plays, poems, orations, philosophical discourses, &c. Her writings show that she possessed a mind of considerable power and activity, with much imagination, but not one particle of judgment or taste."! MIRTH AND MELANCHOLY. As I was musing by myself alone, My thoughts brought several things to work upon: One Melancholy, t'other Mirth exprest; Here Melancholy stood in black array, And Mirth was all in colors fresh and gay. Mirth. Mirth laughing came, and running to me, flung I'll sing you songs, and please you every day, Invent new sports to pass the time away; I'll keep your heart, and guard it from that thief, Dull Melancholy, Care, or sadder Grief, And make your eyes with Mirth to overflow With springing blood your cheeks soon fat shall grow; And all your spirits, like to birds in flight. Mirth shall digest your meat, and make you strong, Shall give you health, and your short days prolong; Refuse me not, but take me to your wife; For I shall make you happy all your life. But Melancholy, she will make you lean, Your cheeks shall hollow grow, your jaws be seen; 1 Pev. Alexander Dyce's "Specimens of British Poetesses." Read, also, a very excellent notice of her in Sir Egerton Brydges's "Imaginative Biography," in which he remarks, "that considerable as is the alloy of absurd passages in many of her grace's compositions, there are few of them in which there are not proofs of an active, thinking, original mind. Her imagination was quick, copious, and sometimes even beautiful, yet her taste appears to have been not only uncultivated, but, perhaps, originally defective. She'll make you start at every noise you hear, Then Melancholy, with sad and sober face, Mirth good for nothing is, like weeds doth grow, Or such plants as cause madness, reason's foe. Her face with laughter crumples on a heap, Which makes great wrinkles, and ploughs furrows deep; Her eyes do water, and her skin turns red, Her mouth doth gape, teeth bare, like one that's dead; Offers herself, and comes before a call; |