Whose golden gardens seem th' Hesperides to mock: Nor there the damson wants, nor dainty apricock, Nor pippin, which we hold of kernel-fruits the king, The apple-orange; then the savoury russettan ;

The pear-main which to France long e'er to us was known,

Which careful fruit'rers now have denizen'd our own. The renat, which though first it from the pippin came, Grown through his pureness nice, assumes that curious

name,

Upon the pippin stock, the pippin being set;

As on the gentle, when the gentle doth beget:

Both by the sire and dame being anciently descended
The issue born of them his blood hath much amended—
The sweeting, for whose sake the plowboys oft make war,
The wilding, costard, then the well-known pomwater,
And sundry other fruits, of good, yet several taste,
That have their sundry names in sundry countries plac'd
Unto whose dear increase the gardener spends his life,
With piercer, wimble, saw; his mallet, and his knife;
Oft covereth, oft doth bare the dry and moist'ued root,
As faintly they mislike, or as they kindly suit;
And their selected plants doth workman-like bestow,
That in true order they conveniently may grow,
And kills the slimy snail, the worm, and labouring ant,
Which many times annoy the graft and tender plant;
Or else maintains the plot much starved with the wet,
Wherein his daintiest fruits in kernels he doth set:

'Or scrapeth off the moss, the trees that oft

annoy." But with these trifling things why idly do I toy, Who any way the time intend not to prolong? To those Thamisian isles now nimbly turns my song.

Fair Shepey and the Greane* sufficiently supply'd,
To beautify the place where Medway shews her pride.
But Greane seems most of all the Medway to adore,
And Tenett standing forth to the Rhutupian shore ; ‡
By mighty Albion placed till his return again

From Gaul; where after he by Hercules was slain.'
For earth-born Albion then, great Neptune's eldest

son,

Ambitious of the fame by stern Alcides won,

Would over needs to Gaul, with him to hazard fight, Twelve labours which before accomplished by his might. His daughters then but young, on whom was all his care,-

Which Doris, Thetis' nymph, unto the giant bare, With whom those isles he left, and will'd her for his sake,

That in her grandsire's court she much of them would make:

But Tenet, th' eld'st of three, when Albion was to go, Which lov'd her father best, and loth to leave him so, There at the giant raught, which was perceiv'd by chance, This loving isle would else have followed him to France; To make the channel wide that then he forced was, Whereas, some say, before he us'd on foot to

pass.

Thus Tenet being stay'd, and surely settled there, Who nothing less than want and idleness could bear, Doth only give herself to tillage of the ground, With sundry sorts of grain whilst thus she doth abound, She falls in love with Stour, which coming down by Wye, And towards the goodly isle, his feet doth nimbly ply. To Canterbury then as kindly he resorts,

His famous country thus he gloriously reports:

* The Isles of Sheppey and Grain. + Thanet. Near Sandwich.

"O noble Kent, quoth he, this praise doth thee belong, The hard'st to be controul'd, impatientest of wrong. Who when the Norman first with pride and horror sway'd, Threw'st off the servile yoke upon the English laid; And with a high resolve, most bravely didst restore That liberty so long enjoy'd by thee before;

Not suff'ring foreign laws should thy free customs bind, Then only shew'd'st thyself of th' ancient Saxon kind : Of all the English shires be thou surnam❜d the Free, And foremost ever plac'd, when they shall reck'ned be. And let this town, which chief of thy rich country is, Of all the British sees be still Metropolis."

Romney Marsh.

**

Appearing to the flood, most bravely like a queen, Clad all from head to foot, in gaudy summer's green; Her mantle richly wrought, with sundry flowers and weeds;

Her moistful temples bound, with wreaths of quivering reeds;

Which loosely flowing down, upon her lusty thighs,
Most strongly seem to tempt the river's amorous eyes:
And on her loins a frock, with many a swelling.plait,
Imboss'd with well-spread horse, large sheep, and full-
fed neat.

Some wallowing on the grass, there lie awhile to batten,
Some sent away to kill, some thither brought to fatten ;
With villages amongst, oft powthered here and there;
And, that the same more like to landskip should appear,
With lakes and less er fords, to mitigate the heat
In summer when the fly doth prick the gadding neat,
Forc'd from the brakes, where late they brouz'd the
velvet buds,

In which they lick their hides and chew their sav'ry cuds”

WILLIAM SHAKSPEAR,

BORN 1564,-DIED 1616.

From King Henry VI. part 2d. Act 4th, Scene 7th. Scene Smithfield.-Present, Cade and his company, with Lord Say, prisoner.

Say-You men of Kent!

Dick-What say you

of Kent?

Say Nothing but this: 'Tis bona terra, mala gens. Cade-Away with him, away with him! he speaks Latin.

Say-Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will.
Kent, in the Commentaries Cæsar writ,

Is termed the civilest place of all this isle:
Sweet is the country, because full of riches;
The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy;
Which makes me hope you are not void of pity.

This passage is marked by Malone, in his edition of Shakspear, as one corrected only by the mighty bard. This editor has been hardy enough to venture upon a lineal definition, in the historical plays, of passages actually written, only corrected, and not written by Shakspear; but in a matter of taste his accuracy may be questioned. The above quoted passage has all the characters of Shakspear's style, and has that peculiar flow of sweet melody which none of his contemporaries ever attained to. The stigma upon the Kentish men expressed in the Latin sentence, doubtless had its origin in their aptness to rebel. Hollingshed had a similar opinion of them. "The Kentish men, whose minds be ever moveable at the change of princes," &c." Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion was then fresh in memory

From King Henry VI. part 3d. Act 1st, scene 1st, Present, York and others.

York. Richard enough; I will be king, or die.

You, Edward, shall unto my Lord of Cobham,
With whom the Kentish men will willingly rise:
In them I trust; for they are soldiers

*

Witty and courteous, liberal, full of spirit.

From King Lear. Act 4th. Scene 6th. Scene the country near Dover,-Present, Gloster and

Edgar.

Glo. When shall we come to the top of that same hill? Edg. You do climb up it now: look how we labour. Glo. Methinks the ground is even.

Edg.

Hark! do you hear the sea?

Horribly steep:

Edg. Come on, Sir; here's the place: stand still! How fearful

And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low!

The crows, and choughs, that wing the mid-way
air,

Show scarce so gross as beetles half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head :
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark,
Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,

• Of sound judgment.