diet. He was of moderate stature, of a light and clear complexion, with grey eyes, so very weak at times as hardly to bear a candle in the room, and to give him apprehensions of blind ness. The following story is told of him while he was resident at Magdalen College. It happened one afternoon at a tea-visit, that several intelligent friends were assembled at his rooms, to enjoy each other's conversation, when in comes a certain member of the University, as remarkable, at that time, for his brutal disposition, as for his good scholarship; who, though he met with a circle of the most peaceable people in the world, was determined to quarrel; and, though no man said a word, raised his foot, and kicked the tea-table, and all its contents, to the other side of the room. Our Poet, though of a warm temper, was so confounded at the unexpected downfall, and so astonished at the unmerited insult, that he took no notice of the aggressor at that time, but getting up from his chair calmly, he began to pick up the slices of bread and butter, and the fragments of his china, repeating very mildly, "Invenias etiam disjecta membra poeta." ROYAL POETS. A SINGLE flower, and that almost hidden in the obscurest angle of those realms, owns itself the property of King Henry VI. It is emblematic of the temper and condition of its Royal Master. "Kingdoms are but cares ; Riches are ready snares, And hasten to decay. Pleasure is a privy [game] Which vice does still provoke; Pomp, unprompt; and fame, a flame; Power, a smouldering smoke. Who meaneth to remove the coke Out of his slimy mud, Shall mire himself, and hardly 'scape The pious and contemplative disposition of this Monarch well betrays itself in these verses: they are not inelegant, and were written, probably, about 40 years after the time of Chaucer. The author of such unambitious sentiments might well be supposed to utter those congenial lines which the Poet has given him: "O God! methinks it were a happy life, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, So many days my ewes have been with young; So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years, Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely! To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery?" HENRY VI. Part III. It is more than probable, that the Poet had never seen his Royal Brother's verses; yet how admirably has he hit off the same melancholy and philosophic strain, which, it appears, Henry himself had indulged. What a pity this unfortunate Monarch was not born to a crook instead of a sceptre! Lest we should not find even so unfit an opportunity as this is, we beg leave to subjoin here two sentences, written by the same Henry, and preserved by one who had taken him prisoner in the wars of York and Lancaster: "Patience is the armour and conquest of the godly; this meriteth mercy, when causeless is suffered sorrow. "Nought else is war but fury and madness, wherein is not advice but rashness; not right but rage ruleth and reigneth." These breathe the same mild and amiable spirit; they confirm that character which their author has received from history: more of the saint than the soldier, less of the prince than he philosopher. King Bluff, as he had a finger in every thing, so had he a foot (a gouty one, we confess) on the hill of poesy: he was the landlord of so much ground there, as produced one weed of a proud carriage, but of little fragrance,-the Turk's Cap, probably: "The eagle's force subdues each bird that flies What metal can resist the flaming fire? Doth not the sun dazzle the clearest eyes, ; And melt the ice, and make the frost retire? So much for the Royal Polygamist and his despotic verses. "Fools," indeed, to allow a son of clay like themselves, to insult them in poetry, as if prose were not sublime enough to express the greatness of their insignificance ! The Emperor Adrian had, undoubtedly, a soul for poetry: the pathetic lines, which he wrote whilst on his death-bed, have never been equalled, though frequently imitated, by those who would blush to be compared with him as poets: 66 Animula, vagula, blandula, |