No cure to care; farewell all joy;
Retire poor soul, and die!

Yet ere thou die, thyself employ

That thou may'st mount the sky :
Where thou may move commanding Jove
That Pluto he might go

To wed thy wife, who end't thy life;

For this will cure thy wo!

Care's Cure, or a Fig for Care.*

[From "Panedone, or Health from Helicon," 1621, 8vo.]

HAPPY is that state of his,

Take the world as it is.

Lose he honour, friendship, wealth;

Lose he liberty or health;

Lose he all that earth can give,
Having nought whereon to live;
So prepar❜d a mind's in him,
He's resolv'd to sink or swim.

Should I ought dejected be,
'Cause blind Fortune frowns on me?

Or put finger in the eye

When I see my Damon die?

* Much of this poem seems to be an imitation of Wither's celebrated ode, inserted p. 83.

Or repine such should inherit
More of honours-than of merit?
Or put on a sourer face,
To see virtue in disgrace?

Should I weep, when I do try
Fickle friends' inconstancy,
Quite discarding mine and me,
When they should the firmest be?
Or think much when barren brains
Are possess'd of rich domains,
When in reason it were fit

They had wealth unto their wit?

Should I spend the morn in tears,
'Cause I see my neighbour's ears
Stand so slopwise from his head,
As if they were horns indeed?
Or to see his wife at once

Branch his brow and break his sconce,

Or to hear her in her spleen

Callet like a butter-quean?

Should I sigh, because I see
Laws like spider-webs to be,

[Where] lesser flies are quickly taʼen,

While the great break out again ?

Or so many schisms and sects,
Which foul heresy detects,
To suppress the fire of zeal

Both in church and common-weal?

No, there's nought on earth I fear That may force from me one tear. Loss of honours, freedom, health, Or that mortal idol, wealth;

With these babes may grieved be, But they have no power o'er me. Less my substance, less my share my fear and in my care.

In

Thus to love, and thus to live, Thus to take, and thus to give, Thus to laugh, and thus to sing, Thus to mount on pleasure's wing, Thus to sport, and thus to speed, Thus to flourish, nourish, feed, Thus to spend, and thus to spare, Is to bid a fig for care.

WILLIAM BROWNE

Seems to have been born about 1590 at Tavistock, in Devonshire, where he was instructed in grammatical learning. Having passed some time at Exeter College, Oxford, he quitted the University without a degree, entered into the Society of the Middle Temple, and published in 1613 the first part of his" Britannia's Pastorals," fol. In 1614 was published his" Shepherd's Pipe," 8vo. (contained also in the pirated edition of Wither, 1620), and in 1616 the second part of the Pastorals, fol. Both parts were reprinted in 1625, 8vo. In 1624 he returned to Exeter College, and became tutor to Robert Dormer, afterwards earl of Carnarvon. During his stay he was created A. M., being styled in the public register“ Vir omni hum anâ literaturâ "et bonarum artium cognitione instructus."

He then

went into the family of the earl of Pembroke, obtained wealth, and purchased an estate, and is supposed to have died in 1645. See Wood (Ath. Ox. I. 491), who says, "that as he had a little body, so a great mind." . A neat edition of his works, which were become scarce, was published in 1772, in three small volumes, by Mr Thomas Davies, the laudable reviver of several forgotten poets. We are indebted to Browne for having preserved in his "Shepherd's Pipe" a curious poem by Occleve. Mr Warton conceives his works to "have been well known "to Milton," and refers to "Britannia's Pastorals" for the same assemblage of circumstances in a morning landscape as were brought together more than thirty years afterwards by Milton, in a passage of L'Allegro, which has been supposed to serve as a repository of imagery on that subject for all succeeding poets. Warton's Milton, 2d ed. p. 51.

LAY.

[In " Britannia's Pastorals." Book II. Song 2.]

SHALL I tell you whom I love?

Hearken then a while to me:
And if such a woman move
As I now shall versifie,
Be assur'd 'tis she, or none,
That I love, and love alone.

Nature did her so much right,
As she scorns the help of art;
In as many virtues dight

As e'er yet embrac❜d a heart;
So much good, so truly tried,
Some for less were deified.

Wit she hath, without desire

To make known how much she hath ;

And her anger flames no higher

Than may fitly sweeten wrath;

Full of pity as may be,
Though, perhaps, not so to me.

Reason masters every sense,

And her virtues grace her birth;