hymn; and since I have apparelled my thoughts so lightly as in verse, I hope I shall be pardoned a second vanity, in communicating it with such a friend as your.. self: to whom I wish a cheerful spirit, and a thankful heart to value it, as one of the greatest blessings of our good God, in whose dear love 1 leave you, remaining

Your poor friend to serve you,

H. WOTTON."

A Hymn to my God, in a night of my late Sickness.

Oh! thou great power! in whom I move,
For whom I live,-to whom I die,
Behold me through thy beams of love,
Whilst on this couch of tears I lie;
And cleanse my sordid soul within,
By thy Christ's blood, the bath of sin.

No hallowed oils, no grains I need,
No rags of saints, no purging fire;

One rosy drop from David's seed,

Was worlds of seas to quench thine ire!
Oh! precious ransom !-which once paid,
That consummatum est was said:

And said by him, that said no more,
But sealed it with his sacred breath:
Thou then that hast disponged my score,
And dying wast the death of death,
Be to me now, on thee I call,
My life, my strength, my joy, my all!

H. WOTTON.

Upon the sudden restraint of the Earl of Somerset,

then falling from favour.

Dazzled thus with height of place,
Whilst our hopes our wits beguile,
No man marks the narrow space
Twixt a prison and a smile!

Then since fortune's favours fade,
You that in her arms do sleep,
Learn to swim and not to wade;
For the hearts of kings are deep.

But if greatness be so blind,
As to trust in towers of air,
Let it be with goodness lined,

That at least the fall be fair.

Then, though darkened, you shall say,
When friends fail, and princes frown,

Virtue is the roughest way,

But proves at night a bed of down.

H. W.

This was written of course in 1615, and may be considered one of the earliest poems of Sir Henry Wotton extant.

The Character of a happy life.

How happy is he born and taught,
That serveth not another's will!
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill.

IT

Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death;
Untied unto the world by care

Of public fame, or private breath.

Who envies not where chance doth raise,
Nor vice hath ever understood;
How deepest wounds are given by praise,
Nor rules of state, but rules of good.

Who hath his life from rumour freed,
Whose conscience is his strong retreat,
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great.

Who God doth late and early pray,
More of his grace than gifts to lend:
And entertains the harmless day

With a religious book, or friend.

This man is freed from servile hands,
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,

And having nothing, yet hath all.

H. WOTTON.

It may be presumed, that Sir Henry designed this

as a picture of himself in his retirement.

An Ode to the King; at his returning from Scotland to the Queen, after his Coronation there.

Rouse up thyself my gentle muse,—
Though now our green conceits be grey,-
And yet, once more, do not refuse
To take thy Phrygian harp and play,
In honour of this cheerful day.

Make first a song of joy and love,
Which chastly flame in royal eyes;
Then tune it to the spheres above,
When the benignest stars do rise,
And sweet conjunctions grace the skies.

To this let all good hearts resound,
While diadems invest his head;

Long may be live, whose life doth bound
More than his laws, and better lead
By high example, than by dread!

Long may he round about him see
His roses and his lillies bloom!
Long may his only dear and he
Joy in ideas of their own,

And kingdom's hopes so timely sown!
Long may they both contend to prove,
That best of crowns is such a love!

H. W.

The return from Scotland here alluded to, took place in 1633.

A translation of the CIV. Psalm, to the original sense. My soul exalt the Lord with hymns of praise!

O Lord my God, how boundless is thy might! Whose throne of state is clothed with glorious rays, And round about hast robed thyself with light. Who like a curtain hast the heavens displayed, And in the watry roofs thy chambers laid.

Whose chariots are the thickened clouds above,

Who walk'st upon the winged winds below,

At whose command the airy spirits move,

And fiery meteors their obedience show.
Who on this base the earth didst firmly found,
And mad'st the deep to circumvest it round.

The waves that rise would drown the highest hill,
But at thy check they fly, and when they hear
Thy thundering voice they post to do thy will,
And bound their furies in their proper sphere:
Where surging floods, and valing ebbs can tell,
That none beyond thy marks must sink or swell.

Who hath disposed but thou, the winding way.
Where springs down from their steepy crags do beat
At which both fostered beasts their thirst allay,

And the wild asses come to quench their heat; Where birds resort, and in their kind, thy praise Among the branches chant in warbling lays?

The mounts are watered from thy dwelling place; The barns and meads are filled for man and beast; Wine glads the heart, and oil adorns the face,

And bread the staff whereon our strength doth rest; Nor shrubs alone feel thy sufficing hand,

But even the cedars that so proudly stand.

So have the fowls their sundry seats to breed :
The ranging stork in stately beeches dwells;
The climbing goats on hills securely feed;

The mining coneys shroud in rocky cells:
Nor can the heavenly lights their course forget;
The moon her turns, or sun his times to set.

Thou mak❜st the night to overveil the day,

Then savage beasts creep from the silent wood: