With grisly type did represent Declining age of government; And tell, with hieroglyphic spade,

Its own grave and the state's were made.
Like Samson's heart-breakers, it grew

In time to make a nation rue;
Though it contributed its own fall,
To wait upon the public downfall;
It was monastic, and did grow
In holy orders by strict vow;
Of rule as sullen and severe,
As that of rigid Cordelier;
'Twas bound to suffer persecution,
And martyrdom with resolution;
To oppose itself against the hate
And vengeance of th' incensed state,
In whose defiance it was worn,
Still ready to be pulled and torn;
With red-hot irons to be tortured,
Reviled, and spit upon, and martyred;
Maugre all which 'twas to stand fast
As long as monarchy should last;
But when the state should hap to reel,
'Twas to submit to fatal steel,
And fall, as it was consecrate,
A sacrifice to fall of state;

Whose thread of life the fatal Sisters
Did twist together with its whiskers,
And twine so close, that Time should never,
In life or death, their fortunes sever;
But with his rusty sickle mow
Both down together at a blow.

His doublet was of sturdy buff,
And though not sword, yet cudgel proof;
Whereby 'twas fitter for his use,
Who feared no blows but such as bruise.
His breeches were of rugged woollen,
And had been at the siege of Bullen;
To old king Harry so well known,
Some writers held they were his own;
Through they were lined with many a piece
Of ammunition, bread and cheese,
And fat black-puddings, proper
For warriors that delight in blood;
For, as we said, he always chose
To carry victual in his hose,

food

That often tempted rats and mice
The ammunition to surprise;

And when he put a hand but in

The one or t' other magazine,

They stoutly on defence on 't stood,

And from the wounded foe drew blood;

And till th' were stormed and beaten

out,

Ne'er left the fortified redoubt;

And though knights-errant, as some think,

Of old, did neither eat nor drink,

Because when thorough deserts vast,
And regions desolate they passed,
Where belly-timber above ground,
Or under, was not to be found,

Unless they grazed, there's not one word
Of their provision on record;

Which made some confidently write
They had no stomachs but to fight.
'Tis false; for Arthur wore in hall
Round table like a farthingal ;
On which, with shirt pulled out behind,
And ek before, his good knights dined;
Though 'twas no table some suppose,
But a huge pair of round trunk-hose,
In which he carried as much meat
As he and all the knights could eat;
When laying by their swords and truncheons,
They took their breakfasts or their nuncheons.
But let that pass at present, lest

We should forget where we digressed,

As learned authors use, to whom
We leave it, and to th' purpose come.
His puissant sword unto his side,
Near his undaunted heart, was tied,
With basket-hilt that would hold broth,
And serve for fight and dinner both;
In it he melted lead for bullets

To shoot at foes, and sometimes pullets,
To whom he bore so fell a grutch,
He ne'er gave quarter t' any such.
The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting, was grown rusty,
And ate into itself, for lack
Of somebody to hew and hack:
The peaceful scabbard where it dwelt,
The rancour of its edge had felt;
For of the lower end two handful
It had devoured, 'twas so manful,
And so much scorned to lurk in case,
As if it durst not shew its face.
In many desperate attempts

Of warrants, exigents, contempts,

It had appeared with courage bolder Than Sergeant Bum invading shoulder: Oft had it ta'en possession,

And prisoners too, or made them run.
This sword a dagger had, his page,
That was but little for his age;
And therefore waited on him so
As dwarfs upon knights-errant do:
It was a serviceable dudgeon,
Either for fighting, or for drudging:
When it had stabbed or broke a head,
It would scrape trenchers, or chip bread;
Toast cheese or bacon, though it were
To bait a mouse-trap, would not care:
'Twould make clean shoes, and in the earth
Set leeks and onions, and so forth:
It had been 'prentice to a brewer,
Where this and more it did endure,
But left the trade, as many more
Have lately done on the same score.

Miscellaneous Thoughts.-From Butler's Remains.
The truest characters of ignorance

Are vanity, and pride, and arrogance;
As blind men use to bear their noses higher
Than those that have their eyes and sight entire.

All wit and fancy, like a diamond,

The more exact and curious 'tis ground,

Is forced for every carat to abate

As much in value as it wants in weight.

Love is too great a happiness

For wretched mortals to possess;
For could it hold inviolate
Against those cruelties of fate
Which all felicities below
By rigid laws are subject to,
It would become a bliss too high
For perishing mortality;

Translate to earth the joys above;
For nothing goes to heaven but love.
All love at first, like generous wine,
Ferments and frets until 'tis fine;
For when 'tis settled on the lee,
And from the impurer matter free,
Becomes the richer still the older,
And proves the pleasanter the colder.

* An allusion to Cromwell. There was a tradition that the Protector's father had a brewery in Huntingdon, which was carried on successfully after his death by his widow. It is certain that the premises occupied by the family had previously been employed as a brewery. The father, Robert Cromwell, was a country gentleman of good estate, younger son of a knight.

As at the approach of winter, all
The leaves of great trees use to fall,
And leave them naked, to engage
With storms and tempests when they rage,
While humbler plants are found to wear
Their fresh green liveries all the year;
So when their glorious season's gone
With great men, and hard times come on,
The greatest calamities oppress
The greatest still, and spare the less.

In Rome no temple was so low
As that of Honour, built to shew
How humble honour ought to be,
Though there 'twas all authority.

All smatterers are more brisk and pert
Than those that understand an art;
As little sparkles shine more bright
Than glowing coals that give them light.

To his Mistress.

Do not unjustly blame

My guiltless breast,

For venturing to disclose a flame

It had so long supprest.

In its own ashes it designed

For ever to have lain;

But that my sighs, like blasts of wind,

Made it break out again.

CHARLES COTTON.

It

The name of CHARLES COTTON (1630-1687) calls up a number of agreeable associations. is best known from its piscatory and affectionate union with that of good old Izaak Walton; but Cotton was a cheerful, witty, accomplished man, and only wanted wealth and prudence to have made him one of the leading characters of his day. His father, Sir George Cotton, died in 1658, leaving the poet an estate at Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, near the river Dove, so celebrated in the annals of trout-fishing. The property was much encumbered, and the poet soon added to its burdens. As a means of pecuniary relief, as well as recreation, Cotton translated several works from the French and Italian, including Montaigne's Essays. In his fortieth year, he obtained a captain's commission in the army; and afterwards made a fortunate second marriage with the Countess-dowager of Ardglass, who possessed a jointure of £1500 a year. It does not appear, however, that Cotton ever got out of his difficulties. The lady's fortune was secured from his mismanagement, and the poet died insolvent. His happy, careless disposition seems to have enabled him to study, angle, and delight his friends, amidst all his embarrassments. He published several burlesques and travesties, some of them grossly indelicate; but he wrote also some copies of verses full of genuine poetry. One of his humorous pieces, A Journey to Ireland, seems to have anticipated, as Campbell remarks, the manner of Anstey in the New Bath Guide. As a poet, Cotton may be ranked with Andrew Marvell.

The New Year.

Hark! the cock crows, and yon bright star
Tells us the day himself's not far;
And see! where, breaking from the night,
He gilds the western hills with light.

With him old Janus doth appear,
Peeping into the future year,
With such a look, as seems to say
The prospect is not good that way.
Thus do we rise ill sights to see,
And 'gainst ourselves to prophesy;
When the prophetic fear of things
A more tormenting mischief brings,
More full of soul-tormenting gall
Than direst mischiefs can befall.
But stay! but stay! methinks my sight,
Better informed by clearer light,
Discerns sereneness in that brow,
That all contracted seemed but now.
His reversed face may shew distaste,
And frown upon the ills are past;
But that which this way looks is clear,
And smiles upon the new-born year.
He looks, too, from a place so high,
The year lies open to his eye;
And all the moments open are
To the exact discoverer.

Yet more and more he smiles upon
The happy revolution.

Why should we then suspect or fear
The influences of a year,

So smiles upon us the first morn,
And speaks us good as soon as born i
Plague on 't! the last was ill enough,
This cannot but make better proof;
Or, at the worst, as we brushed through
The last, why so we may this too;
And then the next in reason should

Be super-excellently good :

For the worst ills, we daily see,
Have no more perpetuity

Than the best fortunes that do fall;
Which also brings us wherewithal
Longer their being to support,
Than those do of the other sort :
And who has one good year in three,
And yet repines at destiny,
Appears ungrateful in the case,
And merits not the good he has.
Then let us welcome the new guest
With lusty brimmers of the best :
Mirth always should good-fortune meet,
And renders e'en disaster sweet;
And though the princess turn her back,
Let us but line ourselves with sack,
We better shall by far hold out
Till the next year she face about.

Invitation to Izaak Walton.

In his eighty-third year, Walton professed a resolution to begin difficult and hazardous for an aged man to travel in, to visit his a pilgrimage of more than a hundred miles into a country then friend Cotton, and, doubtless, to enjoy his favourite diversion of angling in the delightful streams of the Dove. To this journey he seems to have been invited by Cotton in the following beautiful stanzas, printed with other of his poems in 1689, and addressed to his dear and most worthy friend, Mr Izaak Walton,

Whilst in this cold and blustering clime,

Where bleak winds howl, and tempests roar,
We pass away the roughest time

Has been of many years before;

Whilst from the most tempestuous nooks The chillest blasts our peace invade, And by great rains our smallest brooks Are almost navigable made;

Whilst all the ills are so improved
Of this dead quarter of the year,
That even you, so much beloved,
We would not now wish with us here:

The sun in the morning disclosed his light,
With complexion as ruddy as mine overnight;
And o'er th' eastern mountains peeping up's head,
The casement being open, espied me in bed;
With his rays he so tickled my lids, I awaked,
And was half ashamed, for I found myself naked;
But up I soon start, and was dressed in a trice,
And called for a draught of ale, sugar, and spice;
Which having turned off, I then call to pay,
And packing my nawls, whipt to horse, and away.
A guide I had got who demanded great vails,
For conducting me over the mountains of Wales:
Twenty good shillings, which sure very large is;
Yet that would not serve, but I must bear his charges;
And yet for all that, rode astride on a beast,
The worst that e'er went on three legs, I protest;
It certainly was the most ugly of jades;
His hips and his rump made a right ace of spades;
His sides were two ladders, well spur-galled withal;
His neck was a helve, and his head was a mall;

For his colour, my pains and your trouble I'll spare,

For the creature was wholly denuded of hair;
And, except for two things, as bare as my nail,
A tuft of a mane, and a sprig of a tail;

Now, such as the beast was, even such was the rider,

With a head like a nutmeg, and legs like a spider;
A voice like a cricket, a look like a rat,

The brains of a goose, and the heart of a cat;

Ev'n such was my guide and his beast; let them

pass,

The one for a horse, and the other an ass.

The Retirement.

Stanzas Irreguliers, to Mr Izaak Walton.
Farewell, thou busy world! and may
We never meet again;

Here I can eat, and sleep, and pray,
And do more good in one short day
Than he who his whole age outwears
Upon the most conspicuous theatres,
Where nought but vanity and vice do reign.

Good God, how sweet are all things here!
How beautiful the fields appear!

How cleanly do we feed and lie!
Lord, what good hours do we keep!
How quietly we sleep!

What peace, what unanimity!
How innocent from the lewd fashion,
Is all our business, all our recreation!

Oh, how happy here's our leisure!
Oh, how innocent our pleasure!
Oh, ye valleys! Oh, ye mountains!
Oh, ye groves and crystal fountains!
How I love, at liberty,

By turns to come and visit ye!

Dear Solitude, the soul's best friend,

To read, and meditate, and write,

By none offended, and offending none !

To walk, ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease,
And, pleasing a man's self, none other to displease.

Oh, my beloved nymph, fair Dove,
Princess of rivers, how I love
Upon thy flowery banks to lie,
And view thy silver stream,
When gilded by a summer's beam!
And in it all thy wanton fry,
Playing at liberty;

And with my angle, upon them
The all of treachery

I ever learned, industriously to try!

Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber cannot shew;
The Iberian Tagus, or Ligurian Po,

The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine,
Are puddle-water all compared with thine;
And Loire's pure streams yet too polluted are
With thine, much purer, to compare;

The rapid Garonne and the winding Seine
Are both too mean,

Beloved Dove, with thee

To vie priority;

Nay, Thame and Isis, when conjoined, submit,
And lay their trophies at thy silver feet.

Oh, my beloved rocks, that rise

To awe the earth and brave the skies,
From some aspiring mountain's crown,
How dearly do I love,

Giddy with pleasure, to look down,

And from the vales, to view the noble heights above! Oh, my beloved caves! from dog-star's heat,

And all anxieties, my safe retreat;

What safety, privacy, what true delight,

In the artificial night,

Your gloomy entrails make,

Have I taken, do I take!

In all Charles's days

Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays. WENTWORTH DILLON, EARL OF ROSCOMMON (1634-1685), was the nephew and godson of the celebrated Earl of Strafford. He travelled abroad during the Civil War, and returned at the time of the Restoration, when he was made captain of the band of pensioners, and subsequently Master of the Horse to the Duchess of York. Roscommon, like Denham, was addicted to gambling; but he cultivated his taste for literature, and produced a poetical Essay on Translated Verse, a translation of Horace's Art of Poetry, and some other minor pieces. He planned, in conjunction with Dryden, a scheme for refining our language and fixing its standard; but, while meditating on this and similar topics connected with literature, the arbitrary measures of James II. caused public alarm and commotion. Roscommon, dreading the result, prepared to retire to Rome, saying, it was best to sit near the chimney when the chamber smoked. An attack of gout prevented the poet's departure. He died, and was buried (January 21, 1684-5) in Westminster Abbey. At the moment in which he expired,' says Johnson, 'he uttered, with an energy of voice that expressed the most fervent devotion, two lines of his own version of Dies Ira:

My God, my Father, and my Friend,
Do not forsake me in my end!'

The only work of Roscommon's which may be said to elevate him above mediocrity, is his Essay on Translated Verse, in which he inculcates in didactic poetry the rational principles of translation previously laid down by Cowley and Denham. It was published in 1681; and it is worthy of remark, that Roscommon notices the sixth book of Paradise Lost-published only four years before -for its sublimity. Dryden has heaped on Roscommon the most lavish praise, and Pope has said that 'every author's merit was his own.' Posterity has not confirmed these judgments.

Roscommon stands on the same ground with Denham - elegant and sensible, but cold and unimpassioned. We shall subjoin a few passages from his Essay on Translated Verse:

The Modest Muse.

With how much ease is a young maid betrayed-
How nice the reputation of the maid!
Your early, kind, paternal care appears
By chaste instruction of her tender years.
The first impression in her infant breast
Will be the deepest, and should be the best.
Let not austerity breed servile fear;
No wanton sound offend her virgin ear.
Secure from foolish pride's affected state,
And specious flattery's more pernicious bait;
Habitual innocence adorns her thoughts;
But your neglect must answer for her faults.
Immodest words admit of no defence,
For want of decency is want of sense.

What moderate fop would rake the park or stews,
Who among troops of faultless nymphs may choose?
Variety of such is to be found;

Take then a subject proper to expound,
But moral, great, and worth a poet's voice;
For men of sense despise a trivial choice:
And such applause it must expect to meet,
As would some painter busy in a street
To copy bulls and bears, and every sign
That calls the staring sots to nasty wine.
Yet 'tis not all to have a subject good;
It must delight us when 'tis understood.
He that brings fulsome objects to my view-
As many old have done, and many new-
With nauseous images my fancy fills,
And all goes down like oxymel of squills.
Instruct the listening world how Maro sings
Of useful subjects and of lofty things.
These will such true, such bright ideas raise,
As merit gratitude, as well as praise.
But foul descriptions are offensive still,
Either for being like or being ill.

For who without a qualm hath ever looked
On holy garbage, though by Homer cooked?
Whose railing heroes, and whose wounded gods,
Make some suspect he snores as well as nods.
But I offend-Virgil begins to frown,

And Horace looks with indignation down:
My blushing Muse, with conscious fear retires,
And whom they like implicitly admires.

Caution against False Pride.

On sure foundations let your fabric rise,
And with attractive majesty surprise;
Not by affected meretricious arts,
But strict harmonious symmetry of parts;
Which through the whole insensibly must pass
With vital heat, to animate the mass:

A pure, an active, an auspicious flame,

And bright as heaven, from whence the blessing came.
But few-O few! souls pre-ordained by fate,
The race of gods, have reached that envied height.
No rebel Titans' sacrilegious crime,
By heaping hills on hills, can hither climb:
The grisly ferryman of hell denied
Eneas entrance, till he knew his guide.
How justly then will impious mortals fall,
Whose pride would soar to heaven without a call!
Pride of all others the most dangerous fault-
Proceeds from want of sense, or want of thought.
The men who labour and digest things most,
Will be much apter to despond than boast;
For if your author be profoundly good,
'Twill cost you dear before he's understood.

How many ages since has Virgil writ!
How few are they who understand him yet!
Approach his altars with religious fear;
No vulgar deity inhabits there.

Heaven shakes not more at Jove's imperial nod Than poets should before their Mantuan god. Hail, mighty Maro! may that sacred name Kindle my breast with thy celestial flame, Sublime ideas and apt words infuse;

EARL OF ROCHESTER.

JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER (16471680), is known principally from his having-to use the figurative language of Johnson-blazed out his youth and his health in lavish voluptuousness,' and died from physical exhaustion and

Muse!

An Author must Feel what he Writes.

I pity, from my soul, unhappy men,
Compelled by want to prostitute the pen;
Who must, like lawyers, either starve or plead,
And follow, right or wrong, where guineas lead!
But you, Pompilian, wealthy pampered heirs,
Who to your country owe your swords and cares;
Let no vain hope your easy mind seduce,
For rich ill poets are without excuse;
'Tis very dangerous tampering with the Muse;
The profit's small, and you have much to lose;
For though true wit adorns your birth or place,
Degenerate lines degrade the attainted race.
No poet any passion can excite,

But what they feel transport them when they write.

himself.

courtiers of the day, Rochester travelled in France and Italy. He was at sea with the Earl of Sandwich and Sir Edward Spragge, and distinguished himself for bravery. In the heat of an engagement, he went to carry a message in an open boat amidst a storm of shot. This manliness of character forsook Rochester in England, for he was accused of betraying cowardice in street-quarrels, and he refused to fight with the Duke of Buckingham. In the profligate court of Charles, Rochester was the most profligate; his intrigues, his low amours and disguises, his erecting a stage and playing the mountebank on Tower-hill, and his having been five years in a state of inebriety, are circumstances well known and partly admitted by It is remarkable, however, that his domestic letters shew him in a different light' tender, playful, and alive to all the affections of a husband, a father, and a son.' His repentance itself says something for the natural character of the unfortunate profligate: to judge from the memoir left by Dr Burnet, who was his lordship's spiritual guide on his death-bed, it was sincere and unreserved. We may, therefore, with some confidence, set down Rochester as one of those whose vices are less the effect of an inborn tendency, than of external corrupting circumstances. It may fairly be said of him, Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.' His poems consist of slight effusions, thrown off without labour. Many of them are so very licentious as to be unfit for publication; but in one of these, he has given in one line a happy character of Charles II.:

A merry monarch, scandalous and poor. His songs are sweet and musical. Rochester wrote a poem Upon Nothing, which is merely a string of puns and conceits. It opens, however, with a fine

image:

Nothing! thou elder brother even to shade, That hadst a being ere the world was made, And, well fixed, art alone of ending not afraid.

Song.

While on those lovely looks I gaze,

To see a wretch pursuing,

In raptures of a blest amaze,

His pleasing happy ruin;

'Tis not for pity that I move;

His fate is too aspiring,

Whose heart, broke with a load of love,
Dies wishing and admiring.

But if this murder you'd forego,
Your slave from death removing,
Let me your art of charming know,
Or learn you mine of loving.
But whether life or death betide,
In love 'tis equal measure;
The victor lives with empty pride,
The vanquished die with pleasure.