FROM THE ELEGY ON SHAKESPEARE. Soul of the age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! * Triumph my Britain, thou hast one to show, * Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were And make those flights upon the banks of Thames, But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage, Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night, And despairs day, but for thy volume's light. EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. Underneath this sable hearse, Sydney's sister, Pembroke's mother; PHINEAS AND GILES FLETCHER. (PHINEAS, 1584-1650? GILES, -1623.) THE brothers Fletcher belong to a family eminently poetical. Their father, Dr Giles Fletcher, was a poet, and their cousin, John Fletcher, one of the most eminent dramatists of the age of James I. Both of them were clergymen, and were of amiable character. "The two Fletchers," says Southey, "are the best poets of the school of Spencer." "The Purple Island" of Phineas is an allegorical exposition of the anatomy and physiology of the human body, and of the mental constitution of man. The subject is unhappy; the first cantos are tiresome, and often disgustingly minute; the latter portion of the poem rises to eloquence and beauty of allegory. He published also "Piscatory Eclogues," and miscellaneous poems. The poem of Giles, "Christ's Victory and Triumph," is "rich and picturesque in the high est degree," distinguished by "energy of style, sublimity of sentiment, opulence of description, and harmony of numbers." Milton has borrowed a feather or two from this work. 86 CANTO X. Encrates.-Agneia.-Parthenia.3 "By him the stout Encrates boldly went, Which all on him alone their spite mispent; With him nor might nor cunning slights prevail; "His body full of vigour, full of health; His table feeds not lust, but strength and need; On 's shield an hand from Heaven an orchard dressing, "His settled mind was written in his face: Nor yet his treasure hide by neighbouring Hell: "A lovely pair of twins closed either side: Not those in Heav'n, the flow'ry Geminies, And love, as pure as Heav'n's conjunction: Upon her archéd brow, unarmed love And in her eyes thousand chaste graces move, Ten thousand more her fairer breast contains; 2 Chastity in the married. 3 Chastity in the unmarried. 1 Temperance. N "Her sky-like arms glittered in golden beams, Fire to their flames, but heavenly fire, imparts: Upon her shield a pair of turtles shone; A loving pair, still coupled, ne'er alone; Her word, 'Though one when two, yet either two, or none.' "With her, her sister went, a warlike maid, "Her goodly armour seemed a garden green, Ever the same, but new in newer date: And underneath was writ, Such is chaste single state.' "Thus hid in arms, she seem'd a goodly knight, But when she list lay down her armour bright, " Choice nymph! the crown of chaste Diana's train, "Upon her forehead Love his trophies fits, Upon her brows lies his bent ebon bow, And ready shafts: deadly those weapons show: The Phoenix.-See note 1, p. 155. fection into the shade. Thy incomparable beauties throw all per 3 Compare Parthenia with Spencer's Belphabe.-See p. 59. AGAINST A RICH MAN DESPISING POVERTY. If well thou view'st us with no squinted eye, Our ends and births alike; in this, as I, My little fills my little wishing mind, Poor are thy riches, rich my poverty. Whatever man possesses, God has lent ; To reckon how, and where, and when he spent ; The more thou hast, thy debt still grows the more. But, seeing God himself descended down, To enrich the poor by His rich poverty; His meat, his house, his grave, were not his own ; Let me be like my head whom I adore! Be thou great, wealthy-I still base and poor! A HYMN. Drop, drop, slow tears, and bathe those beauteous feet, Which brought from heaven the news and Prince of Peace! Cease not, wet eyes, His mercy to entreat! To cry for vengeance sin doth never cease. In your deep floods drown all my faults and fears; Nor let his eye see sin but thro' my tears. FROM "CHRIST'S VICTORY AND TRIUMPH." THE DEMAND OF JUSTICE. Upon two stony tables, spread before her, There hung the score1 of all our debts, the card Where good, and bad, and life, and death, were painted: But when that scroll was read, with thousand terrors fainted. Witness the thunder that mount Sinai heard, On this dread Justice, she, the living law, All Heav'n, to hear her speech, did into silence draw. "Dread Lord of spirits, well thou didst devise And thine own seat, that here the child of loss, That wretch, beast, captive, monster, man, might spend Clodded in lumps of clay, his weary life to end. "His body, dust-where grew such cause of pride? That his own soul would her own murder wreak,2 "How many darts made furrows in his side, With which, vain man, he thought God's eyes to have deceiv'd? "And well he might delude those eyes that see, Reckoning; from the custom of chalking a line or score for each item of debt incurred. Allusions to this are innumerable-"Here's no scoring but upon the pate," says Falstaff in the battle of Shrewsbury, with a rueful remembrance of the less destructive scoring of tavern bills. 2 Insisted upon working her own murder. 3 Luke xix. 40. • Compare Byron's lines on Kirke White, in "English Bards:" "So the struck eagle Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, |