If aught do touch the utmost thread of it,
She feels it instantly on every side.1

The Immortality of the Soul.

Wedlock, indeed, hath oft compared been

To public feasts, where meet a public rout,
Where they that are without would fain go in,
And they that are within would fain go out.2
Contention betwixt a Wife, etc.

Ye gentlemen of England.
That live at home at ease,

Ah! little do you think upon

The dangers of the seas.

When the stormy winds do blow.3

1 Our souls sit close and silently within,
And their own webs from their own entrails spin;
And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such
That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.

Song. Ibid.

DRYDEN Mariage à la Mode, act ii. sc. 1.

The spider's touch - how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.

POPE: Epistle i. line 217.

2 'Tis just like a summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out. WEBSTER: The White Devil, act i. sc. 2.

Le mariage est comme une forteresse assiégée; ceux qui sont dehors veulent y entrer, et ceux qui sont dedans veulent en sortir (Marriage is like a beleaguered fortress those who are outside want to get in, and those inside want to get out). — QUITARD: Études sur les Proverbes Français, p. 102.

It happens as with cages: within despair of getting out. chap. v.

the birds without despair to get in, and those MONTAIGNE: Upon some Verses of Virgil,

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in? EMERSON Representative Men: Montaigne.

3 When the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.

CAMPBELL: Ye Mariners of England.

DR. JOHN DONNE. 1573-1631.

He was the Word, that spake it:
He took the bread and brake it;
And what that Word did make it,
I do believe and take it.1

Divine Poems. On the Sacrament

We understood

Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought
That one might almost say her body thought.

Funeral Elegies. On the Death of Mistress Drury.

1 Attributed by many writers to the Princess Elizabeth. It is not in the original edition of Donne, but first appears in the edition of 1654, p. 352.

2 See Fortescue, page 7.

3 See Bacon, page 166.

4 O rare Ben Jonson ! - SIR JOHN YOUNG: Epitaph.

5 Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat.

WITHER: Poem on Christmas.

6 Get place and wealth,
If not, by any means get wealth and place.

- if possible, with grace;

POPE: Horace, book i. epistle i. line 103.

Have paid scot and lot there any time this eighteen Every Man in his Humour.

years.

It must be done like lightning.

There shall be no love lost.1

Act iii. Sc. 3.
Act iv. Sc. v.

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

That old bald cheater, Time.

Ibid.

The Poetaster. Acti. Sc. 1.

Sejanus. Act v. Sc. 1.

The world knows only two, that's Rome and I.

Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold,
And almost every vice, - almighty gold."

Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland.

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I'll not look for wine.1

Soul of the age,

The Forest.

To Celia.

The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room.2

Marlowe's mighty line.

Small Latin, and less Greek.

To the Memory of Shakespeare.

Ibid.

Ibid.

He was not of an age, but for all time.

Ibid.

For a good poet's made as well as born.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke.s

Εἰ δὲ βούλει, τοῖς χείλεσι

1 Ἐμοὶ δὲ μόνοις πρότινε τοῖς ὄμμασιν. προσφέρουσα, πλήρου φιλημάτων τὸ ἔκπωμα, καὶ οὕτως δίδου

(Drink to me with your eyes alone. .

And if you will, take the cup

to your lips and fill it with kisses, and give it so to me).

PHILOSTRATUS: Letter xxiv.

2 Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room

For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.

BASSE: On Shakespeare. This epitaph is generally ascribed to Ben Jonson. It appears in the editions of his Works; but in a manuscript collection of Browne's poems preserved amongst the Lansdowne MS. No. 777, in the British Museum, it is ascribed to Browne, and awarded to him by Sir Egerton Brydges in his edition of Browne's poems.

Let those that merely talk and never think,
That live in the wild anarchy of drink.1

Underwoods. An Epistle, answering to One that asked to
be sealed of the Tribe of Ben.

Still may syllabes jar with time,
Still may reason war with rhyme,
Resting never!

Ibid. Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme.

In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.

Ibid. To the immortal Memory of Sir Lucius Cary
and Sir Henry Morison. III.

What gentle ghost, besprent with April dew,
Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?

2

Elegy on the Lady Jane Pawlet

JOHN WEBSTER.

--1638.

I know death hath ten thousand several doors

- the

For men to take their exit.3 Duchess of Malfi. Act iv. Sc. 2 'Tis just like a summer bird-cage in a garden, birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out.1

The White Devil. Act i. Sc. 2

Condemn you me for that the duke did love me?
So may you blame some fair and crystal river
For that some melancholic, distracted man
Hath drown'd himself in 't.

1 They never taste who always drink;
They always talk who never think.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

PRIOR: Upon a passage in the Scaligerana

2 What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?

POPE: To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady

3 Death hath so many doors to let out life. - BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER

The Customs of the Country, act ii. sc. 2.

4 See Davies, page 176.