"Now, lovers, in a word to tell
What noble love is, mark me well.
It is the counterpoise that minds
To fair and virtuous things inclines;
It is the gust we have and sense
Of every noble excellence:

It is the pulse, by which we know
Whether our souls have life or no;
And such a soft and gentle fire,
As kindles and inflames desire;
Until it all like incense burns,
And into melting sweetness turns."
And these lines:

"What you'll be in time we know
By the stock on which you grow,
As by roses we may see

What in time the buds will be:
So in flowers, and so in trees,
So in every thing that is;
Like its like does still produce,
As 'tis nature's constant use;
Grow still then till you
discover

All the beauties of your mother:
Nothing but fair and sweet can be
From so sweet and fair a tree."

The following character "Of one who troubles himself with nothing," will make an excellent study:

"He suffers none but gay and pleasant thoughts to enter his imagination, putting the rest off till to-morrow still; saying, "To-day is too soon: and then, quite dismissing them, saying, It is too late.' He is as great a master in the art of consolation, as he who, when he lost his eyes, comforted himself that there was so much saved in candle-light, was but a bungler at it, compared to him. He accounts nothing in this world his own, whence he is never afflicted for the loss of any thing; and, for the world itself, counts it but as a pilgrimage, and himself a pilgrim, that has no other business in it but only to pass through it unto the next, to which since all ways equally conduce, he laveers not by sea, but ever sails before the wind, and makes for the next port, be it where it will; and by land, knows all his easiest passages, and all his turnings to avoid uneasy ones; whilst, to beguile the tediousness of the way, he has still choice of the best company, and at relay. So passes he this vale of miseries, so easily, he scarcely feels its miseries; neither contracting so much wealth nor guiltiness in living, as may make him apprehend to leave the one behind him in

this world, when he dies, nor find the punishment of the other in the next. Mean time, that neither the revolution of things, nor inconstancy of persons, may transport or trouble him, he has no tie to any thing, nor person; beauty, riches, nor honours, having never yet the power to make him quit his liberty, nor has the world chains strong enough to make him a slave, he wondering as much at courtiers as at galleyslaves; and for those who, for a little profit, sell their liberties, whilst they call it fishing for a golden fish, he calls it angling with a golden hook. So the splendour of a palace, and obscurity of a cottage, equally take his eyes; nor sees he any thing in the riches of the one to envy, nor in the other's poverty to pity, more than the means that the one has more than the other. Thus having provided against all trouble without himself, that nothing within himself may trouble him, (holding still the mean betwixt idleness and too great employ); he cultivates his mind rather like a garden than a field, delightfully, not laboriously; with studies which may rather render it gay and cheerful, than melancholy and sad: shunning all by-ways of doctrine, to avoid error; and all highways of the vulgar, to avoid ignorance and viciousness; nor puts he his mind so on the rack of hope to extend them farther than to possible and easy things; which, failing his expectation, he is no more troubled than at seeing juglers play fast and loose. Lastly, not to live stranger nor enemy to himself, he first makes compact with his genius to lead him to no ill, and then follows it, whatsoever it leads him to; doing just by it as by his horse, which he is not still putting upon new ways, but only spurs it when it goes on slowly in the old. So constituting his pleasure rather in content than voluptuousness, and in nothing fruition may lessen and destroy, or that may be rendered impotent by age. He can never be without pleasure in himself, nor can any thing out of himself ever molest and trouble him. Nor is this a happiness to be attained to but by long accustomance, and by doing by our mind just as we do by our bodies in time of pestilence, that is, by carefully avoiding all commerce with those that are sick; else, being once infected, all council is in vain, and you may as well bid one that is sick, be well, as one that is sad and grieved, be merry and comforted."

His epigram on a rich miser is very good:

"Thou boasts thy money, and if that be all,
Thy praise and commendations are but small;
For every cobler may, with industry

And pains, in time, boast that as well as thee:
Money's like muck, that's profitable while
'T serves for manuring of some fruitful soil.
But on a barren one, like thee, methinks
'Tis like a dunghill, that lies still and stinks."

And the one" On Friends and Foes" is well turned :

"Two painters, friend and foe, once went about
To paint Antigones, whose one eye was out,

Which t'one to shew, and t'other for to hide,
That turn'd his blind, and this his better, side.
Just so 'twixt friends and foes men are exprest,
By halves set forth, whilst they conceal the rest;
None, as their friends or foes, depaint them wou'd,
Being ever half so bad, or half so good."

The following rural dialogue is spirited and pointed:
Chorus." Once a nymph and shepherd meeting,
Never past there such a greeting;
Nor was heard 'twixt such a pair.
Plainer dealing than was there :
He play'd women, and she men;
He slights her, she him again.
Words with words were over thwarted,
Thus they meet, and greet, and parted.

Shepherd. He who never takes a wife,
Lives a most contented life.

Nymph. She her whole contentment loses,
Who a husband ever chooses.

Shepherd. I, of women, know too much,
Ere to care for any such.

Nymph. I, of men, too much do know,
To care whether you do or no.

Shepherd. Since you are resolv'd, farewell;
Look you lead not apes in hell.

Nymph. Better lead apes thither, than
Thither to be led by men.

Shepherd. They to Paradise would lead you,
Be but rul'd by what they bid ye.

Nymph. To fool's paradise, 'tis true,

Would they but be rul❜d by you.

Chorus. Thus they parted as they met,
Hard to say who best did get;
Or of love was least afraid,
When, being parted, either said:

Ambo. Love, what fools thou mak'st of men
When th' are in thy power! but when
From thy pow'r they once are free,
Love, what a fool men make of thee !"

"The Commutation of Love and Death's Darts" is well

worth a place here:

"Love and Death o'th' way once meeting,

Having past a friendly greeting,

Sleep their weary eye-lids closing,

Lay they down themselves reposing.
Love, whom divers cares molested,
Could not sleep, but whilst Death rested,
All in haste, away he posts him,
But his haste too dearly costs him;
For it chanced, that going to sleeping,
Both had given their darts in keeping
Unto Night, who, Error's mother,
Blindly knowing not one from t'other,
Gave Love Death's, and ne'er perceiv'd it,
Whilst as blindly Love receiv'd it.
Since which time their darts confounding,
Love now kills instead of wounding:
Death our hearts with sweetness filling,

Gently wounds instead of killing."

The last extract, for which we can allow space, is also the best, and occurs in the play which was damned:

σε Sacred silence, thou that art
Flood-gate of the deeper heart;
Offspring of a heavenly kind;

Frost o'th' mouth, and thaw o'th' mind.
Admiration's readiest tongue,

Leave thy desert shades among

Reverend hermit's hallow'd cells,
Where retir'd Devotion dwells,
With thy enthusiasms come,

Cease this nymph, and strike her dumb."

ART. VII.-The Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey, Cardinall: divided into three parts; his Aspiring, Triumph, and Death. By Thomas Storer, Student in Christchurch, Oxford. 1599.

We hope, that the very interesting extracts from Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, which graced our last number, have left an impression on the minds of our readers so agreeable, as to

render a recurrence to the subject far from being unacceptable. The private history of every man who, during life, has fixed the eyes of the world upon his public actions, can never fail to attract the notice and rivet the attention of the curious observer of mankind. It is from Cavendish and from similar works, alone, that a true idea of the "great Cardinal" can be formed; for, during his life and after his life, so various and powerful were the interests which, on either side, distorted every truth respecting him, that it is not surprising that, up to this time, there should be much of error connected with the popular opinions of both himself and his master. This, however, is matter of history, and the number of facts and details to be taken into consideration too numerous to be discussed here. The character of Wolsey is a noble subject for biography, and we regret to say, that it has not been taken up by abler hands than some of those who have already been employed upon it. The bulky life of Fiddes is a dry detail, interspersed with dull and trite remarks. Wolsey has since been much more fortunate in Mr. Galt, who, in 1812, published a quarto volume on The Life and Administration of Wolsey. But our business is at present with Storer. Poetry, in the time of Storer, still retained many marks of its original destination, for, when applied to matters of fact, the poet seems to have thought his duty was rather to record than to embellish; that his verse was rather intended for an assistance to the memory, than a pleasure to the imagination. We are not inclined to quarrel with this adherence to truth, but we have a right to find fault with the poet for chusing a subject, in which such adherence is necessary. To write a life in verse, is merely to say that in rhyme which had much better be said in prose. The real poetry which a man can introduce into such a subject must be small; and we conceive it no recommendation of a fact, to find it wrapped up in smooth lines, which depend upon expletives for their ease; or rugged metre, which mangles the story it would relate. These poems, however, when of ancient date, and nearly contemporary composition, acquire an adscititious value; and though the lover of poetry may turn from their uncouth measures, and coarse and even ludicrous expressions, with disgust, the antiquarian and historian find them valuable assistants. They sometimes convey the feeling of the times, and, at any rate, that of a single contemporary individual; they supply new facts, or confirm old ones; and when the historian has given them up, the antiquarian hunts them for ancient customs, and the grammarian for obsolete words. We are inclined to treat the little work before us in none of these characters. In this volume, as in many others, equally neglected, we discover indications of poetical feeling, rudiments of noble images, and