Oh, lull me, lull me, charming air,

My senses rock'd' with wonder sweet! Like snow on 3 wool thy fallings are,

Soft like a spirit are thy feet.

Grief who need $ fear

That hath an ear?

Down let him lie,

And slumbering die,

And change his soul for harmony.

"Lull, lull, lull."

3❝and."

4" Griefs."

2❝ rock."

5" needs."

N. B. The variations in the text of this song are taken from

a copy in Bishop Sancroft's MS. collection of poetry in the Bodleian Library, dated 1647, to which Strode's name is subjoined. The printed copy is anonymous.

ROBERT GOMERSALL

Was born in 1600, and in 1614 sent to Christ Church, Oxford, where he was afterwards made a student. Having taken the degree of A. M. and entered into orders, he became a celebrated preacher, and published several sermons (Vide Wood's Ath. Vol. I. p. 598.) He wrote "The Levite's Revenge, containing Poeticall Meditations upon the 19th and 20th chapters of Judges" (a sort of heroic poem,) 1628, and "The Tragedie of Lodovick Sforza, Duke of Millan." Both were reprinted with a few occasional verses in 1633, 12mo.

Upon our vain Flattery of Ourselves, that the succeeding Times will be better than the former.

How we dally out our days!
How we seek a thousand ways
To find death! the which, if none

We sought out, would show us one.

*

*

*

Never was there morning yet

Sweet as is the violet

Which man's folly did not soon
Wish to be expir'd in noon;

As though such an haste did tend
To our bliss, and not our end.

Nay, the

young ones in the nest Suck this folly from the breast; And no stammering ape but can Spoil a prayer to be a man.

But suppose that he is heard,
By the sprouting of his beard,
And he hath what he doth seek,
The soft clothing of the cheek,
Would he yet stay here?or be
Fix'd in this maturity?—

Sooner shall the wandering star
Learn what rest and quiet are:
Sooner shall the slippery rill
Leave his motion and stand still.

Be it joy, or be it sorrow,

We refer all to the morrow;

That, we think, will ease our pain;

That, we do suppose again,

Will increase our joy; and so Events, the which we cannot know, We magnify, and are (in sum) Enamour'd of the time to come.

Well, the next day comes, and then
Another next, and so to ten,
To twenty we arrive, and find
No more before us than behind
Of solid joy; and yet haste on
To our consummation;

(Till the forehead often have
The remembrance of a grave;)
And, at last, of life bereav'd,
Die unhappy and deceiv'd.

SIR KENELM DIGBY.

This celebrated English philosopher was born in 1603, and entered a commoner at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, in 1618, where he remained two years, and was pronounced “ the "Mirandula of his age." The succeeding events of his life are to be found in all our biographical dictionaries. He died at his house in Covent Garden in 1665, having been a convert to popery for the last twenty years of his life. His works are carefully enumerated by Wood, (Ath. Vol. II. p. 351,) who calls him the "magazine of "all arts." The poem from which the following lines are extracted is attributed to him in a miscellany called "Wit's Interpreter," 1671, though it is elsewhere ascribed to Sir H. Wotton, under whose name it is printed in Mr Headley's collection.

FAME, honour, beauty, state, trains, blood, and birth,

Are but the fading blossoms of the earth.

I would be great; but that the sun doth still
Level his rays against the rising hill.

I would be high; but see the proudest oak
More subject to the rending thunder-stroke.
I would be rich; but see men, too unkind,
Dig out the bowels of the richest mine.

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