3.

To swell their pride, to quench their ire,
Did venerable Laws expire

And sterner forms arise;

Faith in their presence veil'd her head,
Patience and Charity were dead,

And Hope.. beyond the skies.

But away, away with politics: let not this citystench infect our fresh country-air.

BROOKE.

To happiness then, and unhappiness, since we can discourse upon it without emotion. Our unhappiness appears to be more often sought by us, and pursued more steddily than our happiness. What courtier on the one side, what man of genius on the other, has not complained of unworthiness preferred to worth? Who prefers it? his friend? no. his self? no surely. Why then grieve at folly or injustice in those who have no concern in him, and in whom he has no concern? We are indignant at the sufferings of those who bear bravely and undeservedly; but a single cry from them breaks the charm that bound them to us.

SIDNEY.

The English character stands high above complaining. I have heard the French soldier scream at receiving a wound; I never heard ours: shall the uneducated be worthy of setting an example

to the lettered? If we see, as we have seen, young persons of some promise, but in comparison to us as the colt is to the courser, raised to trust and eminence by any powerful advocate, is it not enough to feel ourselves the stronger men, without exposing our limbs to the passenger, and begging him in proof to handle our muscles? Only one subject of sorrow, none of complaint, in respect to court, is just and reasonable; namely, to be rejected or overlooked when our exertions or experience might benefit our country. Forbidden to unite our glory with hers, let us cherish it at home the more fondly for its disappointment, and give her reason to say afterwards, she could have wished the union.

The lord Brooke introduced here is less generally known than the illustrious personage with whom he converses, and upon whose friendship he had the virtue and good sense to found his chief distinction. On his monument in St. Mary's at Warwick, written by himself, we read that he was the servant of Queen Elizabeth, the counsellor of King James and the friend of Sir Philip Sidney. His style is rather stiff, but his sentiments are sound and manly, his reflections deep. The same family produced another eminent man, slain in the civil wars by a shot from Lichfield minster.

This conversation was longer. As the speakers were passionately fond of poetry, more was introduced: among the sections

cancelled was the following, in which perhaps the verses may, to some readers, not be unacceptable.

BROOKE.

To happiness then and unhappiness, since we can discourse upon it without emotion: but first I would rather hear a few more verses; for a small draught increases the thirst of the very thirsty.

SIDNEY.

To write as the ancients have written, without borrowing a thought or expression from them, is the most difficult and the most excellent thing we can atchieve in poetry. I attempt no composition which I believe will occupy more than an hour or two, so that I can hardly claim any rank among the poets, but having once collected from curiosity all the invocations to sleep, ancient and modern, I fancied it possible to compose one differently; which, if you consider the simplicity of the subject and the number of those who have treated it, may appear no easy matter.

Sleep! who contractest the waste realms of night,

None like the wretched can extoll thy powers:

We think of thee when thou art far away,

We hold thee dearer than the light of day,

And most when Love forsakes us wish thee ours...
O hither bend thy flight!

Silent and welcome as the blessed shade

Alcestis, to the dark Thessalian hall,
When Hercules and Death and Hell obeyed
Her husband's desolate despondent call.
What fiend would persecute thee, gentle Sleep,
Or beckon thee away from man's distress?
Needless it were to warn thee of the stings
That pierce my pillow, now those waxen wings
Which bore me to the sun of happiness,

Have dropt into the deep.

BROOKE.

If I cannot compliment you, as I lately complimented a poet

on the same subject, by saying " May all the gods and goddesses be as propitious to your invocation," let me at least congratulate you that all here is fiction.

SIDNEY.

How many, who have abandoned for public life the studies of philosophy and poetry, may be compared to brooks and rivers, which in the beginning of their course have assuaged our thirst, and have invited us to tranquillity by their bright resemblance of it, and which afterwards partake the nature of that vast body into which they run, its dreariness, its bitterness, its foam, its storms, its everlasting noise and commotion! I have known several such, and when I have innocently smiled at them, their countenances seemed to say, "I wish I could despise you: but alas! I am a runaway slave, and from the best of mistresses to the worst of masters; I serve at a tavern where every hour is dinner-time, and pick a bone upon a silver dish." And what is acquired by the more fortunate amongst them? they may put on a robe and use a designation which I have no right to: my cook and footman may do the same: one has a white apron, the other has red hose; I should be quite as much laughed at if I assumed them. A sense of inferior ability is painful: that I feel most at home: I could not do nearly so well what my domestics do; what the others do I could do better. My blushes are not at the superiority I have given myself, but at the comparison I must go through to give it.