To tell my riches and endowments rare, Were but lost labour, that few would believe, High towers, fair temples, goodly theatres, FULKE GREVILE, LORD BROOKE. (1554-1628.) THIS poet, "descended from the ancient family of the Greviles, was born at Alcaster in Warwickshire." He was a court favourite during the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles I. He was assassinated by his servant in 1628. His poetry is remarkable for its depth of thought and masculine strength of expression. Southey calls him "the most difficult of all our poets." In reference to his two tragedies, Lamb says, " He is nine parts of Machiavel and Tacitus for one of Sophocles or Seneca." And again; "Whether we look into his plays, or his most passionate love-poems, we shall find all frozen and made rigid with intellect." Southey says of Lord Brooke, "No writer of this, or any other country, appears to have reflected more deeply on momentous subjects." His chief works are," A Treatise on Humane Learning ;" "An Inquisition upon Fame and Honour;" "A Treatise of Wars ;" "A Treatise of Monarchy;" "A Treatise of Religion ;"—with plays and smaller poems. His writings are understood to represent the opinions of his friend Sir Philip Sydney. 66 FROM THE TREATISE ON HUMANE LEARNING." IMAGINATION. KNOWLEDGE's next organ is imagination; This power, besides, always cannot receive So must th' imagination from the sense Hence our desires, fears, hopes, love, hate, and sorrow, FROM THE TREATISE OF MONARCHY." CROWNS, therefore keep your oaths of coronation, Make not men's conscience, wealth, and liberty, Yet above all these, tyrants must have care Brave moulds for laws, a medium that in one 1 These stanzas form a specimen of the abstruse thinking that pervades Lord Brooke poetry. 2 The Athenian robber, killed by Theseus; his guests were either cut down to the lon gitude of the bed he provided for them, or racked to the proper dimensions.-Ovid, Heroid ii. v. 69. Met. vii. 43. 3 Haughty. 4 It is not difficult to see what side Lord Brooke would have embraced had he lived to see the civil war, and been young enough to take part in it. REALITY OF A TRUE RELIGION. FOR sure in all kinds of hypocrisy No bodies yet are found of constant being; No inward nature, but an outward seeming; But types of these, which time makes more or less. And, from these springs, strange inundations flow, With massacres, conspiracy, treason, woe, Besides, with furies, fiends, earth, air and hell, But, as there lives a true God in the heaven, Such as we are to him, to us is he, Where goodness must be wrought in flesh and blood: SAMUEL DANIEL. (1562-1619.) DANIEL was the son of a music master, and was born near Taunton, in Somerset. He was educated at Oxford, and applied himself early to history and poetry. His merit procured him the patronage of the great, particularly of Mary, Countess of Pembroke, the sister of Sir Philip Sydney. He was a favourite also of Anne of Denmark, the Queen of James I. His largest work is "The History of the Civil Wars:" he wrote also a number of Epistles, sonnets, and masques. The style of the "weil languaged Daniel" is pure and more modern in appearance than that of most writers of the times. "For his diction alone he would deserve to be studied, even though his works did not abound in passages of singular beauty."-Southey. He was an amiable and good man, and died in 1619, in virtuous and well earned retirement. LET their vile cunning, in their limits pent, LXXXVII. Let them have fairer cities, goodlier soils, And let us want their vines, their fruits the whiles, We care not for these pleasures; so we may Have better hearts and stronger hands than they. LXXXVIII. Neptune, keep out from thy embraced isle FROM THE EPISTLE TO THE COUNTESS OF CUMBERLAND. HE that of such a height hath built his mind, Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong ? And with how free an eye doth he look down Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet As frailty doth; and only great doth seem Nor is he moved with all the thunder cracks1 And whilst distraught ambition compasses, FROM 66 MUSOPHILUS." THE NOBILITY EXHORTED TO THE PATRONAGE OF LEARNING. You mighty lords, that with respected grace And all the body of this populace Guide with the turning of your hand; Keep a right course; bear up from all disgrace; Hold up disgraced Knowledge from the ground; Unto her death, that must give life to you. Where will you have your virtuous name safe laid ?— Do you not see those prostrate heaps betray'd Your fathers' bones, and could not keep them sure? And think they will be to your honour truer? 1 Compare Hor. Odes III. 3. 2 A mercantile speculation. The muse has too frequently had reason to remind negligent Mccænases that Achilles is indebted to Homer for immortality. G |