Gentle Henrietta then, And a third Mary next began; Then Joan, and Jane, and Andria: And then a pretty Thomasine, But should I now to you relate If I should tell the politic arts The letters, embassies, and spies, The frowns, and smiles, and flatteries, The quarrels, tears, and perjuries, Numberless, nameless mysteries! And all the little lime-twigs laid I more voluminous should grow But I will briefer with them be, Since few of them were long with me: Whom God grant long to reign. ANDREW MARVELL. The life of this accomplished man, who, though principally distinguished by his inflexible patriotism, was generally and justly admired for his learning, his acuteness in controversial writing, his wit, and his poetical talents, is to be found in almost every biographical work (excepting Dr Johnson's Lives of the Poets); and is, besides, incapable of being so far compressed as to find its place in this little miscellany. He was born in 1620), at Kingston upon Hull (the town which he so long represented in Parliament,) was admitted in 1635 of Trinity College, Cambridge, and died in London, 1678. A neat edition of his poems was published by Davis, in two small volumes, 1772. But the most complete and splendid collection of his works appeared in three volumes, 4to. 1776, under the care of Capt. Edward Thomson. Daphnis and Chloe. [From 27 stanzas.] DAPHNIS must from Chloe part: Now is come the dismal hour That must all his hopes devour, All his labour, all his art, Nature, her own sex's foe, Long had taught her to be coy: But she neither knew t' enjoy, Nor yet let her lover go. But, with this sad news surpriz'd, He, well read in all the ways By which men their siege maintain, Knew not that, the fort to gain, Better 'twas the siege to raise. But he came so full possess'd Till love in her language breath'd * As the soul of one scarce dead, So did wretched Daphnis look, "Are my hell and heaven join'd, "Ah my Chloe! how have I "Such a wretched minute found, "When thy favours should me wound "More than all thy cruelty? "So to the condemned wight |