Let thousands more go flatter vice, and win,
By being organs to great sin;

Get place and honour, and be glad to keep
The secrets that shall break their sleep :
And, so they ride in purple, eat in plate,
Though poison, think it a great fate.

But thou, my Wroth, if I can truth apply,
Shalt neither that nor this envy:

Thy peace is made; and, when man's state is well,

'Tis better, if he there can dwell.

God wisheth none should wrack on a strange shelf;
To him man's dearer than t' himself.

And howsoever, we may think things sweet,
He always gives what he knows meet;
Which who can use is happy: such be thou.
Thy morning's and thy evening's vow
Be thanks to him, and earnest prayer, to find
A body sound, with sounder mind;
To do thy country service, thyself right;
That neither want do thee affright,

Nor death; but when thy latest sand is spent,
Thou mayst think life a thing but lent."

Of all the poetical Epistles of this period, however, that of Daniel to the Countess of Cumberland, for weight of thought and depth of feeling, bears the palm. The reader will not peruse this effusion with less interest or pleasure, from knowing that it is a favourite with Mr. Wordsworth:

"He that of such a height hath built his mind,
And rear'd the dwelling of his thoughts so strong,
As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame
Of his resolved powers; nor all the wind
Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong
His settled peace, or to disturb the same:
What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may
The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey!
And with how free an eye doth he look down
Upon these lower regions of turmoil,
Where all the storms of passions mainly beat
On flesh and blood: where honour, pow'r, renown,

Are only gay afflictions, golden toil;

Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet
As frailty doth; and only great doth seem

To little minds, who do it so esteem.

He looks upon the mightiest monarch's wars
But only as on stately robberies;

Where evermore the fortune that prevails
Must be the right: the ill-succeeding mars
The fairest and the best fac'd enterprize.
Great pirate Pompey lesser pirates quails:
Justice, he sees (as if seduced) still

Conspires with pow'r, whose cause must not be ill.
He sees the face of right t' appear as manifold
As are the passions of uncertain man;

Who puts it in all colours, all attires,

To serve his ends, and make his courses hold.
He sees, that let deceit work what it
can,
Plot and contrive base ways to high desires;
That the all-guiding Providence doth yet
All disappoint, and mocks this smoke of wit.

Nor is he mov'd with all the thunder-cracks
Of tyrants' threats, or with the surly brow
Of pow'r, that proudly sits on others' crimes,
Charg'd with more crying sins than those he checks.
The storms of sad confusion, that may grow
Up in the present for the coming times,
Appal not him; that hath no side at all,
But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.
Although his heart (so near allied to earth)
Cannot but pity the perplexed state
Of troublous and distress'd mortality,
That thus make way unto the ugly hirth
Of their own sorrows, and do still beget
Affliction upon imbecility:

Yet seeing thus the course of things must run,
He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done.

And whilst distraught ambition compasses,
/And is encompass'd; whilst as craft deceives,
And is deceiv'd; whilst man doth ransack man,
And builds on blood, and rises by distress;
And th' inheritance of desolation leaves
To great expecting hopes; he looks thereon,
As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye,
And bears no venture in impiety."

Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion' is a work of great length and of unabated freshness and vigour in itself, though the monotony of the subject tires the reader. He describes each place with the accuracy of a topographer, and the enthusiasm of a

poet, as if his muse were the very genius loci. His 'Heroical Epistles' are also excellent. He has a few lighter pieces, but none of exquisite beauty or grace. His mind is a rich marly soil that produces an abundant harvest, and repays the husband. man's toil; but few flaunting flowers, the garden's pride, grow in it, nor any poisonous weeds.

P. Fletcher's 'Purple Island' is nothing but a long enigma, describing the body of a man, with the heart and veins, and the blood circulating in them, under the fantastic designation of ‘The Purple Island.'

The other poets whom I shall mention, and who properly be long to the age immediately following, were William Browne, Carew, Crashaw, Herrick, and Marvell. Browne was a pastoral poet, with much natural tenderness and sweetness, and a good deal of allegorical quaintness and prolixity. Carew was an elegant court-trifler. Herrick was an amorist, with perhaps more fancy than feeling, though he has been called by some the English Anacreon. Crashaw was a hectic enthusiast in religion and in poetry, and erroneous in both. Marvell deserves to be remembered as a true poet as well as patriot, not in the best of times. I will, however, give short specimens from each of these writers, that the reader may judge for himself, and be led by his own curiosity, rather than my recommendation, to consult the originals. Here is one by T. Carew:

"Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose:

For in your beauties, orient deep

These flow'rs, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more, whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For in pure love, Heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more, whither doth haste
The nightingale, when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.

Ask me no more, where those stars light,
That downwards fall in dead of night;

For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become, as in their sphere.

Ask me no more, if east or west
The phoenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last she flies,

And in your fragrant bosom dies."

The Hue and Cry of Love,' 'The Epitaphs on Lady Mary Villiers,' and 'The Friendly Reproof to Ben Jonson for his Angry Farewell to the Stage,' are in the author's best manner. We may perceive, however, a frequent mixture of the superficial and common-place, with far-fetched and improbable conceits.

Herrick is a writer who does not answer the expectations I had formed of him. He is in a manner a modern discovery, and so far has the freshness of antiquity about him. He is not trite and thread-bare. But neither is he likely to become so. He is a writer of epigrams, not of lyrics. He has point and ingenuity, but I think little of the spirit of love or wine. From his frequent allusion to pearls and rubies, one might take him for a lapidary instead of a poet. One of his pieces is entitled

"The Rock of Rubies and the Quarry of Pearls.

Some ask'd me where the rubies grew;

And nothing I did say ;

But with my finger pointed to

The lips of Julia.

Some ask'd how pearls did grow, and where;

Then spoke I to my girl

To part her lips, and show them there
The quarrelets of pearl."

Now this is making a petrifaction both of love and poetry. His poems, from their number and size, are "like the moats that play in the sun's beams;" that glitter to the eye of fancy, but leave no distinct impression on the memory. The two best are a translation of Anacreon, and a successful and spirited imitation of him.

"The Wounded Cupid.

Cupid, as he lay among
Roses, by a bee was stung.
Whereupon, in anger flying
To his mother, said thus, crying,
Help, oh help, your boy's a-dying!
And why, my pretty lad? said she.
Then, blubbering, replied he,

A winged snake has bitten me,
Which country-people call a bee.

At which she smiled; then with her hairs
And kisses drying up his tears,
Alas, said she, my wag! if this
Such a pernicious torment is;

Come, tell me then, how great 's the smart
Of those thou woundest with thy dart ?"

'The Captive Bee, or the Little Filcher,' is his own :

“As Julia once a slumbering lay,
It chanced a bee did fly that way,
After a dew, or dew-like show'r,
To tipple freely in a flow'r.

For some rich flow'r he took the lip

Of Julia, and began to sip:

But when he felt he suck'd from thence

Honey, and in the quintessence,

He drank so much he scarce could stir;
So Julia took the pilferer.

And thus surpris'd, as filchers use,
He thus began himself to excuse :
Sweet lady-flow'r! I never brought
Hither the least one thieving thought;
But taking those rare lips of your's
For some fresh, fragrant, luscious flow'rs,
I thought I might there take a taste,
Where so much syrup run at waste;
Besides, know this, I never sting
The flow'r that gives me nourishing;
But with a kiss of thanks do pay
For honey that I bear away.
This said, he laid his little scrip
Of honey 'fore her ladyship;
And told her, as some tears did fall,
That that he took, and that was all.
At which she smil❜d, and bid him go,