TO WILLIAM CAMDEN.

CAMDEN, most reverend head, to whom I owe

All that I am in arts, all that I know.

(How nothing 's that!) to whom my country owes The great renown, and name wherewith she goes. Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave, More high, more holy, that she more would crave. What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in things!

What sight in searching the most antique springs!
What weight, and what authority in thy speech!
Man scarce can make that doubt, but thou canst
teach.

Pardon free truth, and let thy modesty,
Which conquers all, be once o'er-come by thee.
Many of thine this better could, than I,
But for their powers, accept my piety.

FROM CYNTHIA'S REVELS.

QUEEN and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the Sun is laid to sleep;
Seated in thy silver chair,

State in wonted manner keep :
Hesperus intreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear, when day did close;
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,

And thy crystal-shining quiver; Give unto the flying heart

Space to breathe, how short soever : Thou that mak'st a day of night, Goddess excellently bright.

FROM THE SILENT WOMAN.

STILL to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfum'd:
Lady, it is to be presum'd,

Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
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 th' adulteries of art;

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

HAGS.

1. I HAVE been, all day, looking after

A raven, feeding upon a quarter;

And, soon as she turn'd her beak to the south, I snatch'd this morsel out of her mouth.

2. I have been gathering wolves' hairs,
The mad-dogs' foam, and the adders' ears;
The spurgings of a dead-man's eyes,
And all since the evening-star did rise.

3. I, last night, lay all alone

O' the ground, to hear the mandrake groan; And pluck'd him up, though he grew full low; And, as I had done, the cock did crow.

4. And I ha' been choosing out this skull,
From charnel-houses, that were full;
From private grots, and public pits,
And frighted a sexton out of his wits.

5. Under a cradle I did creep,

By day; and, when the child was asleep,
At night, I suck'd the breath; and rose,
And pluck'd the nodding nurse by the nose.

7. A murderer, yonder, was hung in chains, The sun and the wind had shrunk his veins; I bit off a sinew, I clipp'd his hair,

I brought off his rags, that danc'd i' the air.

8. The screech-owls' eggs, and the feathers black,
The blood of the frog, and the bone in his back,
I have been getting; and made of his skin
A purset, to keep sir Cranion in.

9. And I ha' been plucking (plants among)
Hemlock, henbane, adder's tongue,
Night-shade, moon-wort, libbard's bane;
And twice by the dogs, was like to be ta'en.

10. I, from the jaws of a gardener's bitch,

Did snatch these bones, and then leap'd the ditch; Yet went I back to the house again,

Kill'd the black cat, and here's the brain.

11. I went to the toad breeds under the wall,

I charm'd him out, and he came at my call;
I scratch'd out the eyes of the owl before,

I tore the bat's wing: what would you have more?

DAME.

Yes, I have brought (to help our vows)
Horned poppy, cypress boughs,
The fig-tree wild, that grows on tombs,
And juice, that from the larch-tree comes,
The basilisk's blood, and the viper's skin:
And, now, our orgies let's begin.

EPITAPH

ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE, SISTER TO SIR PHILIP

SIDNEY.

UNDERNEATH this marble herse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother;
Death, ere thou hast slain another,
Learn'd, and fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw his dart at thee.

ON LUCY COUNTESS OF BEDFORD.

THIS morning, timely rapt with holy fire,

I thought to form unto my zealous Muse, What kind of creature I could most desire,

To honour, serve, and love; as poets use. I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise,

Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great; I meant the day-star should not brighter rise,

Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat.
I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,
Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride;
I meant each softest virtue there should meet,
Fit in that softer bosom to reside.
Only a learned, and a manly soul

I purpos'd her; that should, with even pow'rs,
The rock, the spindle, and the sheers controul
Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours.
Such when I meant to feign, and wish'd to see,
My Muse bade, Bedford write, and that was she.

FROM THE SHEPHERD'S HOLIDAY.
NYMPH I.

THUS, thus, begin the yearly rites
Are due to Pan on these bright nights;
His morn now riseth, and invites
To sports, to dances, and delights:
All envious, and prophane away,
This is the shepherd's holiday.

NYMPH II.

Strew, strew, the glad and smiling ground,
With every flower, yet not confound
The primrose drop, the spring's own spouse,
Bright daisies, and the lips of cows,

The garden-star, the queen of May,
The rose, to crown the holiday.

NYMPH III.

Drop, drop you violets, change your hues,
Now red, now pale, as lovers use,
And in your death go out as well
As when you lived unto the smell:
That from your odour all may say,
This is the shepherd's holiday.

SONG.

TO CELIA.

Kiss me, sweet: the wary lover
Can your favours keep, and cover,
When the common courting jay
All your bounties will betray.
Kiss again: no creature comes.
Kiss, and score up wealthy sums
On my lips, thus hardly sund'red,

While you breathe. First give a hundred,
Then a thousand, then another
Hundred, then unto the tother
Add a thousand, and so more:
Till you equal with the store,
All the grass that Romney yields,
Or the sands in Chelsea fields,
Or the drops in silver Thames,
Or the stars, that gild his streams,
In the silent summer nights,
When youths ply their stol'n delights.
That the curious may not know
How to tell 'em as they flow,
And the envious, when they find
What their number is, be pin'd.

TO THE SAME.

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.
The thirst, that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine:

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee, late, a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there

It could not withered be.

But thou thereon did'st only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me:

Since when, it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

LOVE, A LITTLE BOY.

FROM THE

MASQUE ON LORD HADDINGTON'S MARRIAGE.

FIRST GRACE.

BEAUTIES, have ye seen this toy,
Called Love, a little boy,
Almost naked, wanton, blind,
Cruel now; and then as kind?
If he be amongst ye, say;
He is Venus' run-away.

SECOND GRACE.

She, that will but now discover
Where the winged wag doth hover,
Shall, to-night, receive a kiss,
How, or where herself would wish:
But, who brings him to his mother,
Shall have that kiss, and another.

THIRD GRACE.

He hath of marks about him plenty :
You shall know him among twenty.
All his body is a fire,

And his breath a flame entire,
That being shot, like lightning, in,
Wounds the heart, but not the skin.

FIRST GRACE.

At his sight, the Sun hath turned,
Neptune in the waters, burned;
Hell hath felt a greater heat:
Jove himself forsook his seat :
From the centre, to the sky,
Are his trophies reared high.

SECOND GRACE.

Wings he hath, which though ye clip, He will leap from lip to lip,

In 1636 he was elected a scholar of Trinity college, Cambridge. In this favourable situation he obtained much praise for his academical exercises; and he again appeared as an author, in a pastoral comedy, called Love's Riddle, and a Latin comedy, entitled, Naufragium Joculare; the last of which was acted before the university, by the members of Trinity college. He continued to reside at Cambridge till 1643, and was a Master of Arts when he was ejected from the university by the puritanical visiters. He thence removed to Oxford, and fixed himself in St. John's college. It was here that he engaged actively in the royal cause, and was present in several of the king's journeys and expeditions, but in what quality, does not appear. He ingratiated himself, however, with the principal persons about the court, and was particularly honoured with the friendship of Lord Falkland.

When the events of the war obliged the queenmother to quit the kingdom, Cowley accompanied her to France, and obtained a settlement at Paris, in the family of the Earl of St. Alban's. During an absence of nearly ten years from his native country, he took various journeys into Jersey, Scotland, Holland, and Flanders; and it was principally through his instrumentality that a correspondence was maintained between the king and his consort. The business of cyphering and decyphering their letters was entrusted to his care, and often occupied his nights, as well as his days. It is no wonder that, after the Restoration, he long complained of the neglect with which he was treated. In 1656, having no longer any affairs to transact abroad, he returned to England; still, it is supposed, engaged in the service of his party, as a medium of secret intelligence. Soon after his arrival, he published an edition of his poems, containing most of those which now appear in his works. In a search for another person, he was apprehended by the messengers of the ruling powers, and committed to custody; from which he was liberated, by that generous and learned physician, Dr. Scarborough, who bailed him in the sum of a thousand pounds. This, however, was possibly the sum at which he was rated as a physician, a character he assumed by

After the death of Cromwell, Cowley returned to France, and resumed his station as an agent in the royal cause, the hopes of which now began to revive. The Restoration reinstated him, with other royalists, in his own country; and he naturally expected a reward for his long services. He had been promised, both by Charles I. and Charles II., the Mastership of the Savoy, but was unsuccessful in both his applications. He had also the misfortune of displeasing his party, by his revived comedy of "The Cutter of Coleman-street," which was construed as a satire on the cavaliers. At length, through the interest of the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of St. Alban's, he obtained a lease of a farm at Chertsey, held under the queen, by which his income was raised to about 300l. per annum. From early youth a country retirement had been a real or imaginary object of his wishes; and, though a late eminent critic and moralist, who had himself no sensibility to rural pleasures, treats this taste with severity and ridicule, there seems little reason to decry a propensity, nourished by the favourite strains of poets, and natural to a mind long tossed by the anxieties of business, and the vicissitudes of an unsettled condition.

Cowley took up his abode first at Barn-elms, on the banks of the Thames; but this place not agreeing with his health, he removed to Chertsey. Here his life was soon brought to a close. According to his biographer, Dr. Sprat, the fatal disease was an affection of the lungs, the consequence of staying too late in the fields among his labourers. Dr. Warton, however, from the authority of Mr. Spence, gives a different account of the matter. He says, that Cowley, with his friend Sprat, paid a visit on foot to a gentleman in the neighbourhood of Chertsey, which they prolonged, in free conviviality, tillmidnight; and that missing their way on their return, they were obliged to pass the night under a hedge, which gave to the poet a severe cold and fever, which terminated in his death. He died on July 28. 1667, and was interred, with a most honourable attendance of persons of distinction, in Westminster-abbey, near the remains of Chaucer and Spenser. King Charles II. pronounced his eulogy, by declaring," that Mr. Cowley had not left a better man behind him in England.'

At the time of his death, Cowley certainly ranked as the first poet in England; for Milton lay under a cloud, nor was the age qualified to taste him. And although a large portion of Cowley's celebrity has since vanished, there still remains enough to raise him to a considerable rank among the British poets.

It may be proper here to add, that as a prose-writer, particularly in the department of essays, there are few who can compare with him in elegant simplicity.

THE MOTTO.

TENTANDA VIA EST, &c.

WHAT shall I do to be for ever known,
And make the age to come my own?
I shall, like beasts or common people, die,
Unless you write my elegy;

Whilst others great, by being born, are grown ;

Their mothers' labour, not their own.

In this scale gold, in th' other fame does lie,

The weight of that mounts this so high. These men are Fortune's jewels, moulded bright; Brought forth with their own fire and light :

If I, her vulgar stone, for either look,

Out of myself it must be strook.

Yet I must on. What sound is't strikes mine ear?
Sure I Fame's trumpet hear:

It sounds like the last trumpet; for it can
Raise up the buried man.

Unpast Alps stop me; but I'll cut them all,
And march, the Muses' Hannibal.
Hence, all the flattering vanities that lay
Nets of roses in the way!

Hence, the desire of honours or estate,

And all that is not above Fate !

Hence, Love himself, that tyrant of my days!
Which intercepts my coming praise.

Come, my best friends, my books! and lead me on; 'Tis time that I were gone.

Welcome, great Stagyrite! and teach me now
All I was born to know:

Thy scholar's victories thou dost far out-do;

He conquer'd th' earth, the whole world you. Welcome, learn'd Cicero ! whose blest tongue and

wit

Preserves Rome's greatness yet: Thou art the first of orators; only he

Who best can praise thee, next must be. Welcome the Mantuan swan, Virgil the wise!

Whose verse walks highest, but not flies; Who brought green Poesy to her perfect age, And made that art which was a rage. Tell me, ye mighty Three! what shall I do To be like one of you?

But you have climb'd the mountain's top, there sit
On the calm flourishing head of it,

And, whilst with wearied steps we upwards go,
See us, and clouds, below.

Noisy nothing! stalking shade!
By what witchcraft wert thou made?
Empty cause of solid harms!
But I shall find out counter-charms
Thy airy devilship to remove
From this circle here of love.

Sure I shall rid myself of thee
By the night's obscurity,
And obscurer secrecy!
Unlike to every other sprite,
Thou attempt'st not men to fright,
Nor appear'st but in the light.

OF MYSELF.

THIS only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.

Some honour I would have,
Not from great deeds, but good alone;
Th' unknown are better than ill known:
Rumour can ope the grave.

Acquaintance I would have, but when't depends
Not on the number, but the choice, of friends.

Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturb'd as death, the night.

My house a cottage more
Than palace; and should fitting be
For all my use, no luxury.

My garden painted o'er

With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures yield,
Horace might envy in his Sabin field.

Thus would I double my life's fading space;
For he, that runs it well, twice runs his race.
And in this true delight,

These unbought sports, this happy state,
I would not fear, nor wish, my fate;
But boldly say each night,
To-morrow let my sun his beams display,
Or in clouds hide them; I have liv'd to-day.

HONOUR.

SHE loves, and she confesses too;
There's then, at last, no more to do;
The happy work's entirely done;
Enter the town which thou hast won;
The fruits of conquest now begin;
Iö, triumphe! enter in.

What's this, ye gods! what can it be?
Remains there still an enemy?
Bold Honour stands up in the gate,
And would yet capitulate;

Have I o'ercome all real foes,

And shall this phantom me oppose?

THE CHRONICLE.

A BALLAD.

MARGARITA first possest,

If I remember well, my breast,
Margarita first of all;

But when awhile the wanton maid
With my restless heart had play'd,
Martha took the flying ball.

Martha soon did it resign

To the beauteous Catharine. Beauteous Catharine gave place (Though loth and angry she to part With the possession of my heart) To Eliza's conquering face.

Eliza till this hour might reign,

Had she not evil counsels ta'en.
Fundamental laws she broke,