think of subduing or setting bounds to those that are within you? What advantage have you by your reason, which enables you to overcome lions, if, after all, you yourself are overcome by anger? To what purpose do you rule over the birds, and catch them with gins, if you yourself, with the inconstancy of a bird, or hurried hither and thither, and sometimes flying high, are ensnared by pride, sometimes brought down and caught by pleasure? But, as it is shameful for him who rules over nations to be a slave at home, will it not be, in like manner, disgraceful for you, who exercise dominion over the beasts that are without you, to be subject to a great many, and those of the worst sort, that roar and domineer in your distempered mind? ALL CHRISTIANS, PREACHERS. What the apostles were in an extraordinary way befitting the first annunciation of a religion for all mankind, this all teachers of moral truth, who aim to prepare for its reception by calling the attention of men to the law in their own hearts, may, without presumption, consider themselves to be, under ordinary gifts and circumstances: namely, ambassadors for the Greatest of Kings, and upon no mean employment, the great Treaty of Peace and Reconcilement betwixt Him and Mankind. TEMPERANCE. As excessive eating or drinking both makes the body sickly and lazy, fit for nothing but sleep, and besots the mind, as it clogs up with crudities the way through which the spirits should pass, bemiring them, and making them move heavily, as a coach in a deep way; thus doth all immoderate use of the world and its delights wrong the soul in its spiritual condition, makes it sickly and feeble, full of spiritual distempers and inactivity, benumbs the graces of the Spirit, and fills the soul with sleepy vapors, makes it grow secure and heavy in spiritual exercises, and obstructs the way and motion of the Spirit of God, in the soul. Therefore, if you would be spiritual, healthful, and vigorous, and enjoy much of the consolations of Heaven, be sparing and sober in those of the earth; and what you abate of the one, shall be certainly made up in the other. THE HEART THE GREAT REGULATOR. To set the outward actions right, though with an honest inten tion, and not so to regard and find out the inward disorder of the heart, whence that in the actions flows, is but to be still putting the index of a clock right with your finger, while it is foul, or out of order within, which is a continual business, and does no good. Oh! but a purified conscience, a soul renewed and refined in its temper and affections, will make things go right without, in ali the duties and acts of our callings. A CONTRACTED SPHERE NO SECURITY AGAINST WORLDLINESS. The heart may be engaged in a little business as much, if thou watch it not, as in many and great affairs. A man may drown in a little brook or pool, as well as in a great river, if he be down and plunge himself into it, and put his head under water. Some care thou must have, that thou mayest not care. are thorns indeed, thou must make a hedge of them, to keep out those temptations that accompany sloth, and extreme want that waits on it; but let them be the hedge: suffer them not to grow within the garden. Those things that ANNE KILLEGREW. Died 1685. THIS very accomplished young woman, whom Dryden has immortalized, was the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Henry Killegrew, one of the prebendaries of Westminster. She gave strong indications of genius at a very early age, and became equally eminent in the sister arts of poetry and painting, as well as distinguished for her unblemished virtue and exemplary piety, amid the seductions of a licentious court. She was one of the maids of honor to the Duchess of York. but was cut off in the midst of her usefulness and fame, talling a victim to the small-pox in the summer of 1685, in her twenty-fifth year. THE DISCONTENT. 1. HERE take no care, take here no care, my Muse, Nor aught of art or labor use: But let thy lines rude and unpolish'd go, Nor equal be their feet, nor numerous let them flow. They'll livelier paint th' unequal paths fond mortals trend. Briskly they climb, and great things undertake; For tis not long before their feet Inextricable mazes meet; Perplexing doubts obstruct their way; In vain for aid they then to reason call, Where rapid streams of tears do flow. Which drown them in a briny flood. My Muse, pronounce aloud, there's nothing good, II. Not boundless heaps of its admired clay, When spread in our frail virtue's way: Join'd in one mass, can bribe sufficient be, Or purchase for the mind's relief One moment's sweet repose, when restless made by grief, When some the price of what they dearest love Are masters of, and hold it in their hand, To part with it their hearts they can't command: Wise fools, to do them right, we these must hold, IV. But, oh, the laurell'd fool! that doats on fame, Of what he does, what others say, And all for praise of fools! for such are those, Or calm a stormy breast, Which asks a music soft and still. "Twas not Amalek's vanquish'd cry, Nor Israel's shouts of victory, That could in Saul the rising passion lay; Twas the soft strains of David's lyre the evil spirit chased away VI. Is there that earth by human foot ne'er press'd! That air which never yet by human breast Respired, did life supply? Oh! thither let me fly! Where from the world at such a distance set, All that's past, present, and to come, I may forget The lover's sighs, and the afflicted's tears, EDMUND WALLER hardly deserves a place among the best names in Eng lish literature, either as a poet or as a man; and in giving him a small space here, I yield my own judgment to that of Dryden and Pope. He was born in 1605, studied at Cambridge, and was admitted into parliament as early as his eighteenth year. In political life he was a mere time-server, veering from the king to the parliament, and from the parliament to the king, as each might happen for the time to possess the ascendency. As a member of par liament he at first took the popular side, but soon after he joined in a plot to let the king's forces into the city, for which he was tried and sentenced to on? year's imprisonment, and to pay a fine of £10,000, and it is said that he spen' three times that sum in bribes. He acquired the means to do this from hav ing married in 1630 a rich heiress of London, who died the same year. After his release from prison he went to France, where it is said he lived on the proceeds of his wife's jewels which he took with him. At the Restoration he returned, and wrote a congratulatory address to Charles II, as he had before done to Cromwell; and when the monarch frankly told him how inferior the verses in his own praise were to those addressed to his predecessor, the hol low-hearted, selfish sycophant replied, Poets, sire, succeed better in fiction than in truth." Of his conduct when in parliament, Bishop Burnet says, "He never laid the business of the House to heart, being a vain and empty, though a witty man." On the accession of James II., though eighty years of age, he was elected representative for a borough in Cornwall; but he did not live to wit ness the glorious Revolution, having died the year before, October 21, 1687. As a poet, Waller is certainly "smooth," as Pope styles him, and compara tively destitute of that affectation which characterizes most of his contempo raries. "If he rarely sinks, he never rises very high; and we find much good sense and selection, much skill in the mechanism of language and metre, without ardor and without imagination. In his amorous poetry he has little passion or sensibility; but he is never free and petulant, never tedious, and never absurd. His praise consists much in negations." The foliowing is a portion of what I deem his best piece, his Eulogy on Cromwell. "Of these lines says Dr. Johnson, "some are grand, some are graceful, and all are musical." 1 Hallam's "Introduction to the Literature of Europe," il. 372, Harper's edition A FANEGYRIC TO MY LORD PROTECTOR While with a strong, and yet a gentle hand, You bridle faction, and our hearts command; Protect us from ourselves, and from the foe, Make us unite, and make us conquer too: Let partial spirits still aloud complain; Think themselves injured that they cannot reign; And own no liberty, but where they may Without control upon their fellows prey. Above the waves as Neptune show'd his face To chide the winds, and save the Trojan race, So has your Highness, raised above the rest, Storms of ambition tossing us, represt. Your drooping country, torn with civil hate, Restored by you, is made a glorious state; The seat of empire, where the Irish come, And the unwilling Scots, to fetch their doom. The sea's our own: and now, all nations greet, With beading sails, each vessel of our fleet: Your power extends as far as winds can blow. Or swelling sails upon the globe may go. Heaven (that hath placed this island to give aw, To balance Europe, and her states to awe) In this conjunction doth on Britain smile; The greatest Leader, and the greatest Isle! Hither the oppressed shall henceforth resort, Justice to crave, and succor, at your Court; And then your Highness, not for ours alone, But for the world's Protector shall be known. Things of the noblest kind our own soil breeds; Your never-failing sword inade war to cease; Less pleasure take brave minds in battles won, To pardon, willing; and to punish, loath; You strike with one hand, but you heal with both. Oft have we wonder'd, how you hid in peace |