encaged, or roaming at liberty, Wither never seems to have abated one jot of that free spirit which fets its mark upon his writings, as much as a predominant feature of independence impreffes every page of our late glorious Burns; but the elder poet wraps his proof armour clofer about him, the other wears his too much outwards; he is thinking too much of annoying the foe to be quite easy within; the spiritual defences are a perpetual fource of inward funshine; the magnanimity of the modern is not without its alloy of forenefs, and a sense of injustice which feems perpetually to gall and irritate. Wither was better fkilled in the 'fweet ufes of adverfity; he knew how to extract the precious jewel' from the head of the toad,' without drawing any of the 'ugly venom' along with it. The prison notes of Wither are finer than the wood notes of most of his poetical brethren. The description in the Fourth Eclogue of his Shepherd's Hunting * (which was compofed during his imprisonment in the Marshalfea) of the power of the Muse to extract pleasure from common objects, has been oftener quoted, and is more known, than any part of his writings. Indeed, the whole Eclogue is in a ftrain fo much above not only what himself, but what almost any other poet has written, that he himself could not help noticing it; he remarks that his Quoted at page 170.

fpirits had been raised higher than they were wont, 'through the love of poefy.' The praises of poetry have been often fung in ancient and in modern times; ftrange powers have been ascribed to it of influence over animate and inanimate auditors; its force over fascinated crowds has been acknowledged; but before Wither, no one ever celebrated its power at home, the wealth and the strength which this divine gift confers upon its poffeffor. Fame, and that too after death, was all which hitherto the poets had promised themselves from this art. It feems to have been left to Wither to discover that poetry was a prefent poffeffion, as well as a rich reverfion, and that the Muse had a promise of both lives, of this, and of that which was to come."

What more can, or need be faid? We can but fay of his works what he has himself so beautifully faid of woman's beauty :

"Her true beauty leaves behind
Apprehenfions in my mind

Of more sweetness than all art
Or inventions can impart.

Thoughts too deep to be exprefs'd,
And too strong to be suppress'd."

LOVELACE, THE CAVALIER.

PARLIAMENTARIAN, Commonwealth's man as I am upon principle and conviction, I cannot help admiring the Cavaliers. Gallant, gay, loyal, devoted, and unselfish, indifferent to life and fortune in the cause they fupported, fome of the choiceft virtues of our nature were poffeffed by thefe "curled darlings of the land." While the Puritans were ftruggling for truth, and light, and liberty, the very neceffaries of a brave and noble life, the Cavaliers had that which made life fair and beautiful, All the graces and amenities of life were theirs. They loved mufic and drawing, poetry, the drama, painting-all things in fhort that are wifely and truly confidered as fhedding a grace upon and giving a sweetness to existence. The one fought after and obtained the strong, ftern daily bread, the others rejoiced in the flowers and wine of life. Both fhowed equal devotion, bravery and daring, but with this difference-the Puritans were devoted to a good cause, the Cavaliers to a weak bad man, who used their fervices, their money, their fwords,

but never fcrupled to facrifice them when fuch facrifice ferved or appeared to ferve his own ends. Looking back upon that struggle, it is impoffible not to love and pity the men who through battle and lofs, and ruin, exile, poverty, neglect and death, ftill adhered to the cause of Charles the First, and wept, and toiled, and bled, and prayed for the reftoration of Charles the Second.

It is true that many of them were riotous, roystering, swaggering blades, drunk deeply, fwore roundly, gambled madly, and were very loose livers in other respects. A good deal of this reckless, bravado fort of life was however put on, and was not fo much the nature of the men, as a fign of their antagonism to the Roundhead. Whatever was most oppofed in thought, word and deed to the enemies of the king was fure to be adopted by his friends. The Puritan prayed, therefore the Cavalier swore; the one fang only pfalms or hymns, therefore the other chanted loose fongs and roared out wild bacchanalian ftaves, and "roused the night-owl with a catch." To the one, stageplays were an abomination, a device and invention of the evil one; the others, therefore, were the fworn friends of the actor and the devotees of the theatre. From their intense hatred of "papistry," and the ufe which the Roman Church had made of that art in forcing what they called the "fervice of

idolatry," the Puritans abufed, and, where they could, too often destroyed works of inestimable value; this only made the Cavaliers more zealous lovers of the fine arts, and more vociferous in publishing the fact. Whatever could distinguish them from their foes, even when it penetrated more deeply than in letting their hair flow in ringlets down their backs, because the Puritans cut theirs fhort; or in wearing rich and coloured clothes, because the Puritans adopted drab as "their only wear," and affected the morals of themselves and of their party, the Cavaliers did not hesitate to win and keep a distinction based upon diffoluteness of living, and shameless effrontery of fin. The abfurd peculiarities and the frequent hypocrifies of the Puritans alfo tended to keep up the wantonness of the Royalists. To be the very oppofite of what he hated, and to appear even more oppofite than he truly was, became the actuating feeling of the Cavalier. The fhort-cut hair, the lengthened, ferious face, the downcaft eye, the fombre suit, the nafal twang, the "fix-mile prayers and three-mile graces" of the Roundhead were sure to provoke long hair, frank open face, ftaring looks, gay and coloured clothes, loud-ringing voice, and fhort devotions in the Cavalier. And this would go on until in the defire to make the diftinction as broad and marked as poffible he would put on a vice,