A nymph no tongue, no heart, no eye, might praise, might wish, might see, For life, for love, for form, more good, more worth, more fair than she; Yea, such a one as such was none, save only she was such ; Of Argentile, to say the most, were to be silent much. I knew the lady very well, but worthless of such praise, The neatress said, and muse I do a shepherd thus. should blaze The coat of beauty; credit me, thy latter speech bewrays Thy clownish shape a colour'd show ; but where Her loved I, wretch that I am, a recreant to be, I loved her that hated love, but now I die for thee. At Kirkland is my father's court, and Curan is my name, In Edel's court sometime in pomp, till love controll'd the same; But now-what now? dear heart, how now, what aileth thou to weep ?— The damsel wept, and he was woe, and both did silence keep. I grant, quoth she, it was too much, that you did love so much, But whom your former could not move, your second love doth touch; Thy twice-beloved Argentile submitteth her to thee, And, for thy double love, presents herself a single fee ; In passion, not in person, changed; and I, my lord, am she;— Thus sweetly surfeiting in joy, and silent for a SIR JOHN HARRINGTON. [Born, 1561? Died, 1612?] A SPECIMEN of the poetry of Sir John Harrington's father has been already given in this volume, which is so polished and refined, as almost to warrant a suspicion that the editor of the Nuge Antiquæ got it from a more modern quarter. The elder Harrington was imprisoned in the Tower, under Queen Mary, for holding a correspondence with Elizabeth; on whose accession his fidelity was rewarded by her favour. His son, the translator of Ariosto, was knighted on the field by the Earl of Essex, not much to the satisfaction of Elizabeth, who was sparing of such honours, and chose to confer them herself. He was created a knight of the Bath in the reign of James, and distinguished himself, to the violent offence of the high church party, by his zeal against the marriage of bishops. FROM SIR JOHN HARRINGTON'S EPIGRAMS. OF A PRECISE TAILOR. A TAILOR, thought a man of upright dealing- He walked mannerly, he talked meekly, Was born in 1581, and perished in the Tower of London, 1613, by a fate that is too well known. The compassion of the public for a man of worth, "whose spirit still walked unrevenged amongst them," together with the contrast of his ideal Wife with the Countess of Essex, who was his murderess, attached an interest and popularity to his poem, and made it pass through sixteen editions before the year 1653. His Characters, or Witty Descriptions of the Properties of sundry Persons, is a work of considerable merit; but unfortunately his prose, as well as his verse, has * FROM SIR THOMAS OVERBURY'S POEM, THEN may I trust her body with her mind, And be that thought once stirr'd, 'twill never Give me, next good, an understanding wife, They are most firmly good that best know why, A passive understanding to conceive, Books are a part of man's prerogative; So fair at least let me imagine her ; That thought to me is truth. Opinion Cannot in matters of opinion err; WHEN forty winters shall besiege thy brow, SONNET LIV. OH! how much more doth Beauty beauteous seem, Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly, SONNET CXVI. LET me not to the marriage of true minds That looks on tempests and is never shaken; I never writ, nor no man ever loved. SONNET CXLV. THOSE lips, that Love's own hand did make, Was used in giving gentle doom; SIR WALTER RALEIGH. [Born, 1552. Died, 1618.] It is difficult exactly to estimate the poetical character of this great man, as many of the pieces that are ascribed to him have not been authenticated. Among these is the "Soul's Farewell," which possesses a fire of imagination that we would willingly ascribe to him; but his claim to it, as has been already mentioned, is exceedingly doubtful. The tradition of his having written it on the night before his execution, is highly interesting to the fancy, but, like many fine stories, it has the little defect of being untrue, as the poem was in existence more than twenty years before his death. It has accordingly been placed in this collection, with several other pieces to which his name has been conjecturally affixed, among the anonymous poetry of that period. Sir Walter was born at Hayes Farm, in Devonshire, and studied at Oxford. Leaving the university at seventeen, he fought for six years under the Protestant banners in France, and afterwards served a campaign in the Netherlands. He next distinguished himself in Ireland during the rebellion of 1580, under the lord deputy Lord Grey de Wilton, with whom his personal disputes eventually promoted his fortunes; for being heard in his own cause on returning to England, he won the favour of Elizabeth, who knighted him, and raised him to such honours as alarmed the jealousy of her favourite Lei cester. In the mean time, as early as 1579, he had commenced his adventures with a view to colonize America-surveyed the territory now called Virginia, in 1584, and fitted out successive fleets in support of the infant colony. In the destruction of the Spanish armada, as well as in the expedition to Portugal in behalf of Don Antonio, he had his full share of action and glory; and though recalled, in 1592, from the appointment of general of the expedition against Panama, he must have made a princely fortune by the success of his fleet, which sailed upon that occasion, and returned with the richest prize that had ever been brought to England. The queen was about this period so indignant with him for an amour which he had with one of her maids of honour, that, though he married the lady (she was the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton), her majesty committed him, with his fair partner, to the Tower. The queen forgave him, however, at last, and rewarded his services with a grant of the manor of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, where he built a magnificent seat. Raleigh's mind was not one that was destined to travel in the wheel-ruts of common prejudice. It was rumoured that he had carried the freedom of his philosophical speculation to an heretical height on many subjects; and his acceptance of the church lands of Sherborne, already mentioned, probably supplied additional motives to the clergy to swell the outcry against his principles. He was accused (by the jesuits) of atheism—a charge which his own writings sufficiently refute. Whatever were his opinions, the public saved him the trouble of explaining them; and the queen, taking it for granted that they must be bad, gave him an open, and, no doubt, edifying reprimand. To console himself under these circumstances, he projected the conquest of Guiana, sailed thither in 1595, and having captured the city of San Joseph, returned and published an account of his voyage. In the following year he acted gallantly under the Earl of Essex at Cadiz, as well as in what was called the "Island Voyage *" On the latter occasion he failed of complete success only through the jealousy of the favourite. His letter to Cecil, in which he exhorted that statesman to the destruction of Essex, forms but too sad and notorious a blot in our hero's memory; yet even that offence will not reconcile us to behold the successor of Elizabeth robbing Raleigh of his estate to bestow it on the minion Carr; and on the grounds of a plot in which his participation was never proved, condemning to fifteen years of imprisonment the man who had enlarged the empire of his country, and the boundaries of * A voyage that was aimed principally at the Spanish Plate fleets. human knowledge. James could estimate the wise, but shrunk from cordiality with the brave. He released Raleigh, from avaricious hopes about the mine of Guiana; and when disappointed in that object, sacrificed him to motives still baser than avarice. On the 29th of October, 1618, Raleigh perished on a scaffold, in Old Palaceyard, by a sentence originally iniquitous, and which his commission to Guiana had virtually revoked. 1 F THE SILENT LOVER. PASSIONS are liken'd best to floods and streams, Wrong not, sweet mistress of my heart, With thinking that he feels no smart Since if my plaints were not t' approve It comes not from defect of love, For not knowing that I sue to serve A saint of such perfection As all desire, but none deserve I rather chuse to want relief Silence in love betrays more woe Then wrong not, dearest to my heart, He smarteth most who hides his smart, Unborn was false Suspect ; Hey down a down, did Dian sing, &c. At length men used charms, Thus women welcomed woe, Hey down a down, did Dian sing, A VISION UPON THE FAIRY QUEEN.' METHOUGHT I saw the grave where Laura lay, At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept; A NYMPH'S DISDAIN OF LOVE. HEY down a down, did Dian sing, And so think I, with a down down derry. When women knew no woe, [This poem is attributed to Lord Pembroke,--but it has been ascribed with great probability to Sir Robert Ayton in a MS. and contemporary volume of Ayton's poems once in Mr. Heber's hands.] THE SHEPHERD'S DESCRIPTION OF LOVE. Ascribed to Sir W. Raleigh in England's Helicon.' Melib. SHEPHERD, what's love? I pray thee tell. Faust. It is that fountain and that well Where pleasure and repentance dwell; It is December match'd with May, |