ON

THE EARL OF DORSET'S DEATH,

LET

no profane ignoble foot tread here,
This hallowed piece of earth, Dorset lies there :
A small poor relic of a noble spirit,
Free as the air, and ample as his merit:
A soul refin’d, no proud forgetting lord,
But mindful of mean names, and of his word:
Who lov'd men for his honour, not his ends,
And had the noblest

way of getting friends
By loving first, and yet who knew the court,
But understood it better by report
Than practice: he nothing took from thence
But the king's favour for his recompence.
Who for religion, or his country's good,
Neither his honour valued, nor his blood.
Rich in the world's opinion, and men's praise,
And full in all we could desire, but days:
He that is warn’d of this, and shall forbear
To vent a sigh for him, or shed a tear,
May he live long scorn'd, and unpitied fall,
And want a mourner at his funeral.

Poems, by Dr. Corbet, Bp. of Norwich,

p. 51, Edit. 1647.

ON THE

DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY.

Fond wight

, who dream'st of greatness, glory, state,
And worlds of pleasures, honours to devise *,
Awake, learn how that here thou art not great,
Nor glorious; by this monument turn wise.

One it enshrineth sprung of ancient stem,
And (if that blood nobility can make)
From which some kings have not disdain'd to take
Their proud descent, a rare and matchless gem.

A beauty here it holds, alas, too fast!
Than which no blooming rose was more refin’d,
Nor morning's blush more radiant ever shin'd,
Ah! too too like to morn and rose at last.

It holds her who in Wit's ascendant far
Did years and sex transcend, to whom the heaven
More virtue than to all this age
For Virtue meteor turn’d, when she a star.

had given,

Fair Mirth, sweet Conversation, Modesty,
And what those kings of numbers did conceive

honours to 'devise.] The Edinb. edit. reads more properly,“ honours dost devise.”

The exclamation in the last line of this piece is particularly in Drummond's best magnér.

of this grave.

By Muses nine, and Graces more than three,
Lie clos'd within the

compass
Thus Death all earthly glories doth confound,
Lo! how much worth a little dust doth bound.

Drummond's Poems, p. 198,

Edit. 1656, 8vo.

AN

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF PHILARETE,

MR. THOMAS MANWOOD, THE AUTHOR'S FRIEND, AND

SON OF SIR PETER MANWOOD, KNT.*

UNDER

NDER an aged oak was Willy laid,
Willy, the lad who whilome made the rocks
To ring with joy whilst on his pipe he play'd,
And from their masters wooed the neighb’ring flocks;

But now, o'ercome with dolors deep

That nigh his heart-strings rent,
Ne car'd be for his silly sheep,

Ne car'd for merriment.
But chang'd his wonted walks

For uncouth paths unknown,
Where none but trees might hear his plaints,

And echo rue his moan.

* Sylvester inscribes a Hymn “ to the worthy friend of worthiness, Sir Peter Manwood, Knight of the Honourable Order of the Bath." The father probably of Browne's friend. P.561, fol. edit.

Autumn it was, when droop'd the sweetest flowers,
And rivers (swoln with pride) o'erlook'd the banks,
Poor grew the day of summer's golden hours,
And void of sap stood Ida's cedar-ranks,

The pleasant meadows sadly lay

In chill and cooling sweats,
By rising fountains, or as they

Feard winter's wasteful threats.,
Against the broad-spread oak

Each wind in fury bears;
Yet fell their leaves not half so fast

As did the shepherd's tears *. * Against the broad-spread oak

Each wind in fury bears;
Yet fell their leaves not half so fast

As did the shepherd's tears.] In mere unimpassioned description, similes which are derived from foreign and remote objects are frequently used with success ; for at the same time that they afford the writer an opportunity of showing his knowledge, they enrich and add a variety to poetry, that it might not have attained by any other means. Yet in pathetic situations, when they immediately arise from the subject itself, or some collateral branch of it, they convey the most direct and unequivocal illustration, with a conciseness and expression truly admirable. But how frequent is the practice, even with our best writers, in situations the most pathetic, and in narratives the most urgent and interesting, coolly to take leave of their subject, for the sake of introducing a comparison of perhaps ten or twelve lines ! The consequence is, that our former sympathy is thoroughly destroyed, and after toiling through the lines in question, we are left to recal our attention, associate our distracted ideas, and recover the lost tone of our feelings at our leisure, which is by this time, most probably, totally out of our power. In such cases, a simile taken from the ground of the piece (if I may be allowed the expression), by confining our attention wholly to the subject, and by giving us what we want, with-* out obliging us to wander in quest of it, would, in three words, almost have completely answered the end of the poet. I will subjoin an instance or two of this comprehensive kind of illustration. Mallet thus describes the father of Edwin :

The father too, a sordid man,

Who love nor pity knew,
Was all unfeeling as the clod

From whence his riches grew. Edw. and Emma.

As was his seat so was his gentle heart,
Meek and dejected, but his thoughts as high
As those aye-wand'ring lights, who both impart
Their beams on us, and heaven still beautify.

Sad was his look (O heavy fate!

That swain should be so sad,
Whose merry notes the forlorn mate

With greatest pleasure clad)
Broke was his tuneful pipe

That charm'd the crystal floods*:
And thus his grief took airy wings,

And flew about the woods..

Day, thou art too officious in thy place,
And Night too sparing of a wished stay;
Ye wand'ring lamps; O be ye fix'd a space!
Some other hemisphere grace with your ray.

Great Phoebus! Daphne is not here,

Nor Hyacinthus fair;
Phoebe! Endymion and thy dear

Hath long since cleft the air.

Above all others, perhaps Collins affords one of the most beautiful specimens, in lines that few have read without emotion. Zara exclaims :

• Farewell the youth whom sighs could not detain,
Whom Zara’s breaking heart implor'd in vain!
Yet as thou go'st may ev'ry blast arise
Weak and unfelt as these rejected sighs !
Safe o'er the wild, no perils may’st thou see,
No griefs endure, nor weep, false youth, like me.'

Eclogue II. * Broke was his tuneful pipe

That charm’d the crystal floods.] Thus Milton, in the finest vein of poetry:

Thyrsis ! whose artful strains have oft delay'd
The huddling brook to hear his madrigal.

Comus, 494: