happiness that a man could receive in the sweet society of the best of wives."

The Countess of Bridgwater died June 24, 1663, in the thirty-seventh year of her age. The Earl survived her twenty-three years, four months, and twelve days, "enduring, rather than enjoying life." He died October 26, 1686, aged sixty-three.

Her eldest sister, Lady Jane, who married Charles Cheyne, Esq., afterwards Viscount Newhaven, was also the authoress of a series of devout reflections, never published. Lady Jane died beloved, revered, and lamented, October 8, 1669, in the forty-eighth year of her age, and was buried in Chelsea Church, where her effigy by Bernini remains.

CATHERINE PHILIPS.

Catherine, daughter of John Fowler of Bucklersbury, merchant, was born January 1, 1631. She is the first eminent Englishwoman of whom it is distinctly recorded that she was brought up at a boarding-school. In 1647, she married James Philips, Esq., of the Priory, Cardigan. Two children, a son and daughter, were the issue of this marriage. Her husband had suffered great losses in the Royalist cause; and vain attempts to retrieve his affairs, and to solace his anxieties, gave active and constant occupation to his wife. She was highly esteemed by the principal persons of her time in England, Wales, and Ireland, and died in Fleet Street of the small-pox, June 22, 1664, being thirty-three years of age, and was buried in the church of St. Bennet, Sherehog.

Granger mentions a portrait of her at Strawberry Hill, an engraving from a bust inscribed "Orinda ;" and a mezzotinto by Becket.

Sir William Temple, "at the desire of Lady Temple," wrote a poem on the death of Catherine Philips, which contains the following terse and spirited eulogy :

"Orinda! what? the glory of our stage!
Crown of her sex, and wonder of the age!
Graceful and fair in body and in mind,
She that taught fallen virtue to be kind,
Youth to be wise, mirth to be innocent,
Fame to be steady, envy to relent,

Love to be cold, and friendship to be warm,
Praise to do good, and wit to do no harm.
Orinda that was sent the world to give
The best example how to write and live:
The queen of poets, whosoe'er 's the king,
And to whose sceptre all their homage bring;
Who more than men conceived and understood,
And more than women knew how to be good."

The poems, according to Oldys, as cited in the Censura Literaria,' vol. ii. p. 174, were published in 1664, and again in an enlarged edition with her tragedies of 'Pompey' and 'Horace' (translations from Corneille) in 1667; another edition appeared in 1669, and yet another in 1678; Tonson's edition in 1710 appears to have been the last. Her letters to Sir Charles Cotterill were published in 1705, under the affected title of Letters from Orinda to Poliarchus.'

Bishop Jeremy Taylor showed his appreciation of her mental and moral qualities by addressing to her his Measures and Offices of Friendship,' in 1657. Cowley wrote during her life a eulogistic Ode on Orinda's Poems,' in which he quaintly congratulates her on having cancelled "great Apollo's Salique law." The third stanza expresses an exaggerated degree of sincere and cordial approval.

Thou dost my wonder, wouldst my envy raise,

If to be praised I loved more than to praise;

Where'er I see an excellence,

I must admire to see thy well-knit sense,

Thy numbers gentle, and thy fancies high,

Those as thy forehead smooth, these sparkling as thine eye.
"Tis solid, and 'tis manly all,

Or rather 'tis angelical,

For, as in angels, we

Do in thy verses see

Both improved sexes eminently meet:

They are than man more strong, and more than woman sweet." In his 'Ode on the Death of Mrs. Catherine Philips,' Cowley praises her beauty, accomplishments, and piety; and of her literary productions, he says in the third stanza :“The certain proofs of our Orinda's wit

In her own lasting characters are writ,
And they will long my praise of them survive,
Though long perhaps too that may live.
The trade of glory, managed by the pen,
Though great it be, and everywhere is found,
Does bring in but small profit to us men,

"Tis by the number of the sharers drowned.
Orinda, on the female coasts of fame,

Engrosses all the goods of a poetic name."

In the fourth stanza, extolling her "hate of vice and scorn of vanities," he adds:

"Never did spirit of the manly make,

And dipped all o'er in learning's sacred lake,

A temper more invulnerable take.

No violent passion could an entrance find

Into the tender goodness of her mind."

Then in the fifth stanza, after commending her friendship with "Leucasia"-Anne Owen-he concludes with the following beautiful lines:

"As when a prudent man does once perceive
That in some foreign country he must live,
The language and the manners he does strive
To understand and practise here,

That he may come no stranger there:
So well Orinda did herself prepare

In this much different clime for her remove
To the glad world of poetry and love."

Specimens of her poetry can scarcely fail to disappoint the expectations raised by such eulogies; but in versification and in sentiment her compositions show an acquaintance with the literature of her day, and a cultivated preference for the best models of imitation.

66

AGAINST PLEASURE.-AN ODE.

There's no such thing as pleasure here,
"Tis all a perfect cheat,

Which does but shine and disappear,
Whose charm is but deceit ;
The empty bribe of yielding souls,
Which first betrays and then controls.
"Tis true it looks at distance fair;
But, if we do approach,

The fruit of Sodom will impair

And perish at a touch;

It being than in fancy less,
And we expect more than possess.

For by our pleasures we are cloyed,
And so desire is done;

Or else, like rivers, they make wide
The channels where they run;
And either way true bliss destroys,
Making us narrow, or our joys.
We covet pleasure easily,

But ne'er true bliss possess ;
For many things must make it be,

But one may make it less;

Nay, were our state as we would choose it
"T would be consumed by fear to lose it.

What art thou, then, thou winged air,
More weak and swift than fame,
Whose next successor is despair,
And its attendant shame?

Th' experienced prince then reason had,
Who said of pleasure-' It is mad.'

A COUNTRY LIFE.

How sacred and how innocent

A country life appears;

How free from tumult, discontent,
From flattery, or fears.

This was the first and happiest life,
When man enjoyed himself,
Till pride exchanged peace for strife,
And happiness for pelf.

"T was here the poets were inspired,
Here taught the multitude;

The brave they here with honour fired,
And civilised the rude.

That golden age did entertain

No passion but of love;

The thoughts of ruling and of gain
Did ne'er their fancies move.

Them that do covet only rest,
A cottage will suffice;
It is not brave to be possessed
Of earth, but to despise.
Opinion is the rate of things,

From hence our peace doth flow;
I have a better fate than kings,
Because I think it so.

When all the stormy world doth roar,
How unconcerned am I!

I cannot fear to tumble lower,
Who never could be high.
Secure in these unenvied walls,
I think not on the state,
And pity no man's case that falls
From his ambitious height.
Silence and innocence are safe;

A heart that's nobly true
At all these little arts can laugh,
That do the world subdue."

Campbell, in his 'British Poets,' justly pronounces of Catherine Philips, that "she cannot be said to have been a woman of genius, but her verses betoken an interesting and placid enthusiasm of heart and a cultivated taste, that form a beautiful specimen of female character."

MRS. HUTCHINSON.

Lucy, the second daughter of Sir Allen Apsley, Lieutenant of the Tower, and the eldest daughter of his third wife, a daughter of Sir John St. John, of Lidiard Tregoze,