A crowd of wood-nymphs, spread i' the grassy plain

Sit round about, no niggards of their faces:

Nor do they cloud their fair with black disdain ;

All to myself will they impart their graces :
Ah! can such joys find 1 in other places?---
To them I often pipe, and often sing,
Sweet notes to sweeter voices tempering.

Not difference, nor distance, of the place,*
Makes in my mind at all a difference,

For Love is not produc'd, or pen'd to space,

Having in the soul his only residence.

Love's fire is thought; and thought is never thence,

Where it feels want: for, when true love is dear,
The mind at farthest distance is most near.

Then do not marvel Kentish strong delights,
Stealing the time, do here so long detain me;
Not powerful Circe, with her Hecate rites,
Nor pleasing Lotus thus could entertain me,
As Kentish powerful pleasures here enchain me :—
Mean time, the nymphs that in our Brenchley use,
Kindly salute your busy Cambridge Muse.

Another "last word,' -a wish at 66 new years' tide,” and we must have done!—wishing the same wish to all our readers at whatever season it may meet them :—

* We have here taken the liberty slightly to alter the construction for the sake of connexion. In this and the following stanza, (as well as in several other places in his poems,) the author appears to have copied from himself, but these pieces were written to different persons, and probably at distant periods, whilst a new turn is given to the same thought.

That sacred hand which to this year hath brought you,
Perfect your years, and with your years, his graces;
And when his will unto his will hath wrought you,
Conduct your soul unto his happy places,
Where thousand joys and pleasures ever new,
And blessings, richer than the morning dew,
With endless sweets rain on that heavenly crew,

It remains how to notice the last written, and on some accounts by far the most remarkable poem of this author. The "Locusts or Apollyonists" was certainly composed after the commencement of the reign of Charles the first, the concluding stanzas being addressed to that monarch; consequently it is of a date as recent as 1625. This poem is remarkable for the striking resemblance in some of its characters, incidents, and even its expressions, to Milton's great work of Paradise Lost, insomuch as to leave no doubt in the mind of the reader, that the divine bard had been strongly impressed with the perusal of it. The extracts we shall have occasion to make will amply prove this assertion.

The poem of "The Locusts" appears to have been published once only; it is consequently among those literary rarities which bear a high price in the book market. For a loan of the copy which now lies before us, we are very recently indebted to the liberality of Messrs. Longman and Co. the proprietors, in whose extensive and valuable sale catalogue, it is marked at the price of eight guineas.

The poem occupies a thin quarto of about 70 pages, and consists of 1700 lines: the title page is,-"The Locusts, or Apollyonists; by Phineas Fletcher, of King's College, in Cambridge. Printed by Thomas Bucke and John Bucke, printers to the University of Cambridge, 1627."

The dedication to "The right noble Lady Townshend," has nothing remarkable or worthy transcribing. There is one short copy of commendatory verses, in

conformity to the prevailing custom, signed H. M. this also may be passed over.

Canto 1 commences with a stanza of violent abuse of which the first line may serve for an example :—

Of men, nay beasts, worse, monsters, worst of all Incarnate fiends.

An invocation of the deity as the "world's sole pilot" follows in better taste, ending with the following lines,

Steer me poor ship-boy, steer my course aright;

Breathe gracious sp❜rit, breathe gently on these lays, Be thou my compass, needle to my ways,

Thy glorious works my freight, my haven is thy praise.

The action of the poem commences with the 5th

stanza.

The cloudy night came whirling up the sky,

And scattering round the dews, which first she drew From milky poppies, loads the drowsy eye:

The watery moon, cool vesper and his crew Light up their tapers: to the sun they fly.

And at his blazing flame their sparks renew. Oh! why should earthly lights then scorn to tine Their lamps alone at that first sun divine?

Hence as false falling stars, as rotten wood they shine.

Her sable mantle was embroidered gay

With silver beams, with spangles round beset : Four steeds her chariot drew, the first was grey, The second blue, third brown, fourth black as jet. The hallooing owl, her post, prepares the way,

And winged dreams, as gnat-swarms, fluttering let*

Sad sleep, who fain his eyes in rest would steep;
Why then at death do weary mortals weep?

Sleep's but a shorter death, death's but a longer sleep.

And now th' world and dreanis themselves were drown'd
In deadly sleep; the labourer snoreth fast,
His brawny arms unbent, his limbs unbound,
As dead, forgot all toil to come, or past;
Only sad guilt, and troubled greatness crown'd
With heavy gold and care, no rest can taste,
Go then vain man, go pill the live and dead,
Buy, sell, fawn, flatter, rise, then crouch thy head
In proud, but dangerous gold;—in silk, but restless bed.

When lo! a sudden noise breaks th' empty air;

A dreadful noise, which every creature daunts; Frights home the blood, shoots up the limber hair. For through the silent heaven hell's pursuivants Cutting their way, command foul spirits repair

With haste to Pluto, who their counsel wants. Their hoarse base horns like fenny bitterns sound; Th' earth shakes, dogs howl, and heaven itself astound Shuts all his eyes; the stars in clouds their candles drown'd.

Mean time bell's iron gates by fiends beneath

Are open flung; which framed with wondrous art To every guilty soul yields entrance eath; * But never wight, but he, could thence depart, Who dying once was death to endless death. So where the liver's channel to the heart Pays purple tribute, with their three-forked mace Three Tritons stand, and speed his flowing race, But stop the ebbing stream, if once it back would pace.

* Easy.

The porter to the infernal gate is Sin,

A shapeless shape, a foul deformed thing, Nor nothing, nor a substance; as those thin

And empty forms which through the ayer fling Their wandering shapes, at length are fasten'd in The chrystal sight.-It serves, yet reigns as king: It lives, yet's death; it pleases, full of pain: Monster! ah who, who, can thy being feign? Thou shapeless shape, live death, pain pleasing, servile reign.

Of that first woman, and the old serpent bred,

By lust and custom nurs'd; whom when her mother Saw so deformed, how fain would she have fled

Her birth and self? But she her dam would smother And all her brood, had not he rescued

Who was his mother's sire, his children's brother: Eternity, who yet was born and died:

His own creator, earth's scorn, heaven's pride,
Who th' deity inflesht, and man's flesh deified.

Her former parts her mother seems resemble,
Yet only seems to flesh and weaker sight;
For she with art and paint could fine dissemble
Her loathsome face; her back parts, black as night,
Like to her horrid sire would force to tremble

The boldest heart;-to the eye that meets her right
She seems a lovely sweet of beauty rare;
But at the parting, he that shall compare,
Hell will more lovely deem, the devil's self more fair.

Her rosy cheek, quick eye, her naked breast,

And whatsoe'er loose fancy might entice,