Like mortal life to meet eternity.
Though with those streams he no remembrance hold,
Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold,
His genuine and less guilty wealth to explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring,
And then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay;
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil,
But Godlike his unwearied bounty flows;
First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confin'd,
But free and common, as the sea or wind.
When he to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying towers
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours:
Finds wealth where 't is, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants;

So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.
O, could 1 flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without overflowing full.

But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds: his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes; his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat,
The common fate of all that 's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is plac'd,
Between the mountain and the stream embrac'd,
Which shade and shelter from the hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives;
And in the mixture of all these appears
Variety, which all the rest endears.

This scene had some bold Greek or British bard
Beheld of old, what stories had we heard

Of fairies, satyrs, and the nymphs their dames,
Their feasts, their revels, and their amorous flames!
'Tis still the same, although their airy shape
All but a quick poetic sight escape.

e

We subjoin an extract also from Denham's Elegy, in which it will appear, however, that the poet seems to have forgotten, that Shakspeare was buried on the banks of his own native Avon, not in Westminster Abbey, and that both he and Fletcher died long ere time had 'blasted their bays.'

ON THE DEATH OF MR. ABRAHAM COWLEY.

Old Chaucer, like the morning star,
To us discovers day from far.
His light those mists and clouds dissolv'd
Which our dark nation long involv'd;
But he, descending to the shades,
Darkness again the age invades;
Next (like Aurora) Spenser rose
Whose purple blush the day foreshows;
The other three with his own fires
Phœbus, the poet's god, inspires :
By Shakspeare's, Jonson's, Fletcher's lines,
Our stage's lustre Rome's outshines.
These poets near our princes sleep,
And in one grave their mansion keep.
They lived to see so many days,

Till time had blasted all their bays;
But cursed be the fatal hour

That pluck'd the fairest sweetest flower
That in the Muses' garden grew,
And amongst wither'd laurels threw.
Time, which made them their fame outlive,
To Cowley scarce did ripeness give.
Old mother wit and nature gave
Shakspeare and Fletcher all they have:
In Spenser and in Jonson, art

Of slower nature got the start;

But both in him so equal are,

None knows which bears the happiest share;
To him no author was unknown,

Yet what he wrote was all his own;

He melted not the ancient gold,
Nor with Ben Johnson did make bold

To plunder all the Roman stores
Of poets and of orators:
Horace his wit and Virgil's state
He did not steal, but emulate;
And when he would like them appear,
Their garb, but not their clothes, did wear:
He not from Rome alone, but Greece
Like Jason bought the golden fleece;
To him that language (though to none
Of th' others) as his own was known.
On a stiff gale, as Flaccus sings,
The Theban swan extends his wings,
When through th' ethereal clouds he flies
To the same pitch our swan doth rise;
Old Pindar's heights by him are reach'd,
When on that gale his wings are stretch'd;
His fancy and his judgment such,
Each to th' other seem'd too much;
His severe judgment giving law,
His modest fancy kept in awe.

Contemporary with Denham was the comparatively unknown poet, Chamberlayne-an author whose genius was imbued with a depth of poetical spirit to which the former was an entire stranger. Denham could reason fluently in verse, without any glaring faults of style; but such a description of a summer morning as the following, from Chamberlayne, was altogether beyond his powers :

The morning hath not lost her virgin blush,

Nor step, but mine, soil'd the earth's tinsell'd robe.

How full of heaven this solitude appears,

This healthful comfort of the happy swain;

Who from his hard but peaceful bed roused up,
In 's morning exercise saluted is

By a full quire of feather'd choristers,
Wedding their notes to the enamour'd air!
Here nature in her unaffected dress
Plaited with valleys, and emboss'd with hills
Enchas'd with silver streams, and fring'd with woods,
Sits lovely in her native russet.

WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE was born at Shaftesbury, Dorsetshire, in 1619. Of his family, and of his early education, nothing is now definitely known. He studied the medical profession, and afterward practiced as a physician in his native place; but he appears to have wielded the sword as well as the lancet, as he was present, and took part with the royalists, in the famous battle of Newbury. His circumstances, like those of Vaughan, seem to have been, during his whole life, far from flourishing; and he bitterly complains that his continuous poverty debarred him from the society of the congenial wits of the age. The latter part of his life was passed in the toils of his laborious profession, and his death occurred in 1688, the memorable year that witnessed the downfall of James the Second.

The principal works of Chamberlayne are Love's Victory, a tragic-comedy, published in 1658; and Pharonnida, a Heroic Poem, which appeared in the following year. The scene of the first is laid in the island of Sicily, and that of 'Pharonnida,' partly in Sicily and partly in Greece. With no court connection, no light or witty copies of verses to float him into popularity, relying solely on his too long and comparatively unattractive works to appreciate which, through all the windings of romantic love, plots, escapes, and adventures, more time is required than the author's busy age could afford-we should not be surprised that Chamberlayne was an unsuccessful poet. His works were, indeed, almost entirely forgotten, till Campbell, in his 'Specimens of the Poets,' published in 1819, by quoting largely from 'Pharonnida,' and pointing out the 'rich breadth and variety of its scenes,' and the power and pathos of its characters and situations, drew attention to the passion, the imagery, the purity of sentiment, and the tenderness of description, which lay, 'like metals in the mine' in the neglected volume of this author. We do not, however, think that the works of Chamberlayne can ever be popular; for though his genius is of a very high order, his beauties are constantly marred by infelicities of execution. But fine passages, like the description of morning already quoted, and that which follows, abound in every part of his works:

Where every bough

Maintain'd a feather'd chorister to sing
Soft panegyrics, and the rude wings bring
Into a murmuring slumber, whilst the calm
Morn on each leaf did hang her liquid balm,
With an intent before the next sun's birth,
To drop it in those wounds, which the cleft earth
Receiv'd from last day's beams.

Of virgin purity, he says, with singular beauty of expression

The morning pearls,

Dropt in the lily's spotless bosom, are
Less chastely cool, ere the meridian sun
Hath kiss'd them into heat.

In a grave narrative passage of Pharonnida,' the beauties of morning, of which, like Milton, he seems to have been peculiarly fond, are thus sweetlv

touched off

The glad birds had sung

A lullaby to-night, the lark was fled,

On dropping wings, up from his dewy bed

To fan them in the rising sunbeams.

We shall close these brief extracts with the following finely executed de scription of a dream :

A strong prophetic dream,

Diverting by enigmas nature's stream,

Long hovering through the portals of her mind
On vain fantastic wings, at length did find
The glimmerings of obstructed reason, by
A brighter beam of pure divinity
Led into supernatural light, whose rays
As much transcended reason's, as the days
Dull mortal fires, faith apprehends to be
Beneath the glimmerings of divinity.
Her unimprison'd soul, disrob'd of all
Terrestrial thoughts (like its original
In heaven, pure and immaculate), a fit
Companion for those bright angels' wit
Which the gods made their messengers, to bear
This sacred truth, seeming transported where
Fix'd in the flaming centre of the world,
The heart o'th' microcosm, about which is hurl'd
The spangled curtains of the sky, within
Whose boundless orbs the circling planets spin
Those threads of time upon whose strength rely
The pond'rous burdens of mortality.

An adamantine world she sees, more pure,
More glorious far than this-fram'd to endure
The shock of doomsday's darts.

This passage so strikingly resembles the splendid opening lines of Dryden's Religio Laici, as to leave the impression that it must have suggested them.

ANDREW MARVELL, the assistant of Milton as Latin secretary under the protectorate of Cromwell, was the son of a clergyman, and was born at Kingston, upon Hull, where his father officiated, in 1620. He early evinced great aptness for learning, and such was his proficiency in his studies that before he reached the thirteenth year of his age he was admitted into Trinity College, Cambridge. Some monks, however, of the Jesuit order, who resided near the university, prevailed upon him to relinquish his studies and repair to London, where they placed him, as a clerk, in a bookstore. Here his father found him, and having convinced him of his error, easily persuaded him to return to Cambridge and resume his studies.

In 1638, Marvell took the degree of bachelor of arts; and about the same time he had the misfortune to lose his excellent father, who was unfortunately drowned, while crossing the Humber, in attendance upon the daughter of an intimate female friend, to her marriage in Lincolnshire. The lady, thus rendered childless, sent for young Marvell, and in order to render him all the return in her power for his sad bereavement, conferred upon him a very considerable fortune. Possessed thus of ample means for the purpose, he resolved to enlarge his information by foreign travel; and he accordingly visited, in succession, all the polite countries of the continent. At Rome he passed some time in close and severe study, and thence went to Constantinople, as secretary to the English embassy at that court.

Marvell's expenses abroad had drawn so very considerably upon his fortune, that, on his return to England, in 1653, he accepted the situation of tutor in languages to the daughter of General Fairfax; and four years after he became assistant to Milton, the Latin secretary of state, upon the recommendation of that great poet himself. Shortly before the Restoration, Marvell was elected member of parliament for his native city; and though not like Waller, an eloquent speaker, yet his consistency and integrity caused him to be highly esteemed and greatly respected. He is supposed to have been the last English member of parliament who was remunerated by his constituents for his services in the house. Charles the Second delighted in his society, and believing that every man had his price, he resolved to win Marvell over to his interest. With this view he sent his treasurer, Lord Danby, to wait upon him, with an offer of a place at court, and an immediate present of a thousand pounds. But the inflexible patriot resisted his offers, and it is said humorously illustrated his independence by calling his servant to witness that he had dined for three days successively on a shoulder of mutton! Marvell preserved his integrity to the last, and