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.

8 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.

if possible, with grace;

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

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

Have paid scot and lot there any time this eighteen years. Every Man in his Humour. Act iii. Sc. 3. Act iv. Sc. v.

It must be done like lightning.

There shall be no love lost.1

Every Man out of his Humour. Act ii. Sc. 1,

Still to be neat, still to be drest,

As you were going to a feast.2

Epicone; Or, the Silent Woman. Act i. Sc. 1

Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free,-
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all the adulteries of art:

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.3

Almighty dollar. - IRVING: The Creole Village.

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.

To the Memory of Shakespeare.

Ibid.

Small Latin, and less Greek.

Ibid.

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

Ibid.

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

Ibid.

1 Ἐμοὶ δὲ μόνοις πρέπινε τοῖς ὄμμασιν. . . Εἰ δὲ βούλει, τοῖς χείλεσι 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.

I know death hath ten thousand several doors

For men to take their exit.3 Duchess of Malfi. Act iv. Sc. 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.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.

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright,
But look'd too near have neither heat nor light.1
The White Devil. Act iv. Sc. 4.

Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.

Act v. Sc. 2.

Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burns brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweetheart, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.2

Westward Hoe. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Ibid.

I saw him now going the way of all flesh.

Is like a sacred book that 's never read,
To himself he lives, and to all else seems dead.
This age thinks better of a gilded fool

Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school.

Old Fortunatus.

And though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds,
There's a lean fellow beats all conquerors.

Ibid.

1 The mountains, too, at a distance appear airy masses and smooth, but when beheld close they are rough. - DIOGENES LAERTIUS: Pyrrho. Love is like a landscape which doth stand Smooth at a distance, rough at hand.

ROBERT HEGGE: On Love.

We're charm'd with distant views of happiness,
But near approaches make the prospect less.

YALDEN Against Enjoyment.

As distant prospects please us, but when near
We find but desert rocks and fleeting air.

GARTH: The Dispensatory, canto iii. line 27.

'T is distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.

CAMPBELL: Pleasures of Hope, part i. line 7.

2 See Bacon, page 171.