Those scraps are good deeds past: which are devour'd
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honor bright: To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
For honor travels in a strait so narrow,

Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons,
That one by one pursue: If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost;-

Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,

Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O'er-run and trampled on: Then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours:

For time is like a fashionable host,

That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand;
And with his arms out-stretch'd, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,

And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not yirtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;

For beauty, wit,

High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,-
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust, that is a little gilt,1

More land than gilt o'er-dusted.

The present eye praises the present object:
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might; and yet it may again,
If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive,
And case thy reputation in thy tent;
Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves,
And drave great Mars to faction.

Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Scene II.
THE COMMONWEALTH OF BEES.
So work the honey bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts:4

1 Dust that is a little gilt, means, ordinary performances ostentatiously displayed, and lauded by the favor of friends. Gilt o'er-dustid, means, splendid actions of preceding ages, the remembrance of which is weakened by time

* Emulous missions refers to the machinery of Homer, which makes the deities descend from heaven to engage on either side. 3 Law. 4 That is, of different degrees.

Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor:

Who, busied in his majesty, surveys

The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to éxecutors2 pale
The lazy yawning drone.

Henry V., Act L. Scene II.

THEзE names, united in their lives by friendship and confederate genrus, have always been considered together; for they wrote together, their works were published together, nor is it possible now to assign to each his specific share of their joint labors. Some of the productions of each, however, are distinctively known.

ADDRESS TO MELANCHOLY.

Francis Beaumont was born in Leicestershire, in 1586. He studied at Oxford, and thence passed to the Inner Temple; but the law had few charms for him, and, in conjunction with his friend Fletcher, he devoted his short life to the drama, and died in 1616, in the thirtieth year of his age.

John Fletcher was the son of Dr. Richard Fletcher, bishop of London, and was born in that city in 1576. He was educated at Cambridge: little, how ever, is known of his life. He survived his coadjutor nine years, dying of the plague in 1625.

Hence, all you vain delights;.
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly;
There's nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see't,

The plays of Beaumont and Fletcher consist of tragedies, comedies, and mixed pieces. That they have many and great merits is undoubtedly true; but there are two things which will ever be a bar to their being generally read: one is, that they have not that truthfulness to nature which alone can permanently please; and the other is, that they are filled with so much that is repulsive to a delicate and virtuous mind. Still, as has been justly remarked, a proper selection from the works of these dramatists would make a volume of refined sentiment, and of lofty and sweet poetry, combined with good sense, humor, and pathos. In lyrics they have not been surpassed, not even by Shakspeare or Milton; and to these, therefore, we shall confine our extracts.3

1 Sober, grave.

2 Executioners.

3 Read-Hazlitt's "Age of Elizabeth," and Lamb's "Specimens of Dramatic Poets."

But only melancholy;

Oh, sweetest melancholy,
Welcome folded arms and fixed eyes,
A sight that piercing mortifies;
A look that's fasten'd to the ground,
A tongue chain'd up without a sound;
Fountain heads, and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves:
Moonlight walks, where all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls;
A midnight bell, a passing groan,
These are the sounds we feed upon:

Then stretch our bones in a still, gloomy valley; Nothing so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.

BEAUMONT.

THE LIFE OF MAN.

Like to the falling of a star,

Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
E'en such is man, whose borrow'd light
Is straight call'd in and paid to-night:
The wind blows out, the bubble dies:
The spring entomb'd in autumn lies;
The dew's dried up, the star is shot,
The flight is past, and man forgot.

1

BEAUMONT.

MORNING.

See, the day begins to break,
And the light shoots like a streak
Of subtile fire; the wind blows cold,
While the morning doth unfold;
Now the birds begin to rouse,
And the squirrel from the boughs
Leaps, to get him nuts and fruit;
The early lark, that erst was mute
Carols to the rising day
Many a note and many a lay.

FLETCHER.

EXHORTATION TO EARLY RISING.

Shepherds, rise, and shake off sleep!
See, the blushing morn doth peep
Through the windows, while the sun
To the mountain tops is run,
Gilding all the vales below
With his rising flames, which grow
Greater by his climbing still.
Up, ye lazy grooms, and fill

Bag and bottle for the field!
Clasp your cloaks fast, lest they yield
To the bitter north-east wind.
Call the maidens up, and find
Who lies longest, that she may
Go without a friend all day;
Then reward your dogs, and pray
Pan to keep you from decay:
So unfold, and then away!

FLETCHER.

THE SHEPHERD'S EVENING.

Shepherds all, and maidens fair,
Fold your flocks up, for the air
'Gins to thicken, and the sun
Already his great course hath run.
See the dew-drops how they kiss
Every little flower that is;
Hanging on their velvet heads,
Like a rope of crystal beads.
See the heavy clouds low falling,
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead night from under ground,
At whose rising mists unsound,
Damps, and vapors fly apace,
Hovering o'er the wanton face
Of these pastures, where they come
Striking dead both bud and bloom;
Therefore, from such danger, lock
Every one his loved flock;

And let your dogs lie loose without,
Lest the wolf come as a scout
From the mountain, and, ere day,
Bear a lamb or kid away;
Or the crafty thievish fox
Break upon your simple flocks.
To secure yourselves from these
Be not too secure in ease;
Let one eye his watches keep,
While the other eye doth sleep;
So you shall good shepherds prove,
And for ever hold the love

Of our great God. Sweetest slumbers,
And soft silence, fall in numbers

On your eyelids! So, farewell!
Thus I end my evening's knell.

FLETCHER.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 1552-1618.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH, one of the most remarkable men England has produced, was born in the parish of Budley in Devonshire, in 1552. About the year 1568 he entered Oxford, where he continued but a short time, for in the following year he was in France, where Hooker says "he spent good part of his youth in wars and martial exercises." He escaped the massacre of St. Bartholomew, (August, 1572,) by taking refuge with Sir Philip Sidney in the house of the English ambassador. In 1579 he accompanied his half brother, Sir Henry Gilbert, in a voyage to Newfoundland: the expedition proved unfortunate, but it doubtless had an influence in leading him to engage in subsequent expeditions which have made his name famous. He soon ingratiated himself with the queen, who, in 1584, granted him a patent to discover such remote heathen and barbarous lands, not actually possessed by any Christian prince, as to him might seem good." Two ships were soon after fitted out by Raleigh, which arrived on the coast of Carolina in July. They were commanded by Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow, who took possession of the country in the name of the Virgin Queen, and called it Virginia. In 1585 he projected a second voyage, and seven vessels were sent out, which arrived at Roanoke, an island in Albemarle Sound. But the colonists failed in their object, and in July 27, 1586, returned to England, carrying with them, for the first time, that nauseous weed, tobacco, instead of diamonds and gold. In 1594 he matured the plan of his first voyage to Guiana-a voyage memorable in his history, as it was eventually the cause of his destruction. This expedi tion he attended in person, and returned to England in the summer of 1595, when he published a work, entitled "Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana."

But his fortune fell with the death of the queen. "A prince from the north, with the meanness of soul which has no parallel, and a narrow subtilty of intellect which is worse than folly, ascended the British throne, and changed the face and character of the court and the nation. King James frowned upon Raleigh, and within three months entertained a charge against him for high treason," of conspiring to dethrone the king, of exciting sedition, and of endeavoring to establish popery by the aid of foreign powers. After a trial, perhaps the most disgraceful in the annals of English jurisprudence, he was condemned to lose his head. He was reprieved, however, by the king, but his estates were taken from him, and he was sent to the Tower for twelve years a period the best employed of any in his life, as he there composed the great work on which his literary fame chiefly rests" The History of the World." In the year 1615 he was liberated by the king, who wanted him to plan and conduct an expedition to Guiana, and in 1617 he sailed with twelve vessels. But the expedition failed, and Sir Walter's death was determined on. Finding no present grounds against him, his enemies proceeded on the old sentence, and he was beheaded on the 29th of October, 1618, dying with the same dauntless resolution he had displayed through his life. "Who is there," exclaims Sir Egerton Brydges, "that will not read with a heart first expanding with admiration, and afterwards wrung with resentment and soi

1 Read--a memoir of Raleigh in that most fascinating of books, Sir Egerton Brydges's "Imaginative Biography;" also, the biography preceding the edition of his poems, by the same author, who has done so much for English literature.