Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' th' sky, If those be stars which paint the galaxy.

"Tis not when two like words make up one noise, Jests for Dutch men and English boys;

In which who finds out wit, the same may see
In an'grams and acrostics poetry.
Much less can that have any place
At which a virgin hides her face;

Such dross the fire must purge away; 'tis just
The author blush there where the reader must.

"Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage,
When Bajazet begins to rage;

Nor a tall met'phor in the bombast way,
Nor the dry chips of short-lung'd Seneca :
Nor upon all things to obtrude

And force some odd similitude.

What is it then, which, like the Power Divine,
We only can by negatives define?

In a true piece of wit all things must be,
Yet all things there agree:

As in the ark, join'd without force or strife,
All creatures dwelt, all creatures that had life.
Or as the primitive forms of all,

(If we compare great things with small,) Which without discord or confusion lie, In that strange mirror of the Deity.

OF SOLITUDE.

HAIL, old patrician trees, so great and good!
Hail, ye plebeian underwood!
Where the poetic birds rejoice,

And for their quiet nests and plenteous food
Pay with their grateful voice.

Hail the poor Muse's richest manor-seat!

Ye country-houses and retreat,

Which all the happy gods so love,

That for you oft they quit their bright and great Metropolis above.

Here Nature does a house for me erect,

Nature! the fairest architect,

Who those fond artists does despise

That can the fair and living trees neglect,
Yet the dead timber prize.

Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying,
Hear the soft winds above me flying,
With all their wanton boughs dispute,
And the more tuneful birds to both replying,
Nor be myself, too, mute.

A silver stream shall roll his waters near,
Gilt with the sunbeams here and there,
On whose enamell'd bank I'll walk,
And see how prettily they smile,
And hear how prettily they talk.

Ah! wretched, and too solitary he,
Who loves not his own company!
He'll feel the weight of it many a day,
Unless he calls in sin or vanity
To help to bear it away.

Oh, Solitude! first state of humankind!
Which bless'd remain'd till man did find
Even his own helper's company:

As soon as two, alas! together join'd,
The serpent made up three.

Though God himself, through countless ages, thee
His sole companion chose to be,
Thee, sacred Solitude! alone,

Before the branchy head of number's tree
Sprang from the trunk of one;

Thou (though men think thine an unactive part)
Dost break and tame th' unruly heart,
Which else would know no settled pace,
Making it move, well managed by thy art,
With swiftness and with grace.

Thou the faint beams of reason's scatter'd light Dost, like a burning-glass, unite.

Dost multiply the feeble heat,

And fortify the strength, till thou dost bright
And noble fires beget.

Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks I see
The monster London laugh at me;

I should at thee, too, foolish city!
If it were fit to laugh at misery;
But thy estate I pity.

Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.

THE SWALLOW.

FOOLISH prater! what dost thou
So very early at my window do
With thy tuneless serenade?
Well it had been had Tereus made
Thee as dumb as Philomel;
There his knife had done but well.
In thy undiscover'd nest

Thou dost all the winter rest,
And dreamest o'er thy summer joys
Free from the stormy season's noise;
Free from th' ill thou 'st done to me;
Who disturbs or seeks out thee?
Hadst thou all the charming notes
Of the woods' poetic throats,
All thy art could never pay
What thou 'st ta'en from me away.
Cruel bird! thou 'st ta'en away
A dream out of my arms to-day;
A dream that ne'er must equall'd be
By all that waking eyes may see:
Thou this damage to repair,
Nothing half so sweet or fair,
Nothing half so good can'st bring,
Though men say thou bring'st the spring.

DAVENANT'S personal history is sufficiently curious without attaching importance to the insinuation of Wood, so gravely taken up by Mr. Malone, that he was the son of Shakspeare. He was the son of a vintner at Oxford, at whose house the immortal poet is said to have frequently lodged. Having risen to notice by his tragedy of Albovine, he wrote masques for the court of Charles I. and was made governor of the king and queen's company of actors in Drury-lane. In the civil wars we find the theatric manager quickly transmuted into a lieutenant-general of ordnance, knighted for his services at the siege of Gloucester, and afterwards negotiating between the king and his advisers at Paris. There he began his poem of Gondibert, which he laid aside for a time for the scheme of carrying a colony from France to Virginia; but his vessel was seized by one of the parliament ships, he was thrown into prison, and owed his life to friendly interference-it is said, to that of Milton, whose friendship he returned in kind. On being liberated, his ardent activity was shown in attempting to restore theatrical amusements in the very teeth of bigotry and puritanism, and he actually succeeded so far as to open a theatre in the Charterhouse Yard. At the Restoration he received the

[ His life by his widow is one of the most agreeable additions to literary history made within the last five-andtwenty years.]

patent of the Duke's Theatre in Lincoln's Inn, which he held till his death.

Gondibert has divided the critics. It is undeniable, on the one hand, that he showed a high and independent conception of epic poetry, in wishing to emancipate it from the slavery of ancient authority and to establish its interest in the dignity of human nature, without incredible and stale machinery. His subject was well chosen from modern romantic story, and he strove to give it the close and compact symmetry of the drama. Ingenious and witty images and majestic sentiments are thickly scattered over the poem. But Gondibert, who is so formally described, has certainly more of the cold and abstract air of an historical, than of a poetical portrait, and, unfortunately, the beauties of the poem are those of elegy and epigram, more than of heroic fiction. It wants the charm of free and forcible narration; the life-pulse of interest is incessantly stopped by solemn pauses of reflection, and the story works its way through an intricacy of superfluous fancies, some beautiful and others conceited, but all as they are united, tending to divert the interest, like a multitude of weeds upon a stream, that entangle its course while they seem to adorn it.

[† There is other testimony to what Malone took up too gravely besides Wood's insinuation-there is the Betterton belief, preserved in Spence from Pope's relation.]

FROM "GONDIBERT," CANTO IV.

The Father of Rhodalind offering her to Duke Gondibert, and the Duke's subsequent interview with Birtha, to whom he is attached.

THE king (who never time nor power misspent
In subject's bashfulness, whiling great deeds
Like coward councils, who too late consent,)
Thus to his secret will aloud proceeds:

"If to thy fame, brave youth, I could add wings,
Or make her trumpet louder by my voice,
I would (as an example drawn for kings)
Proclaim the cause, why thou art now my choice.

For she is yours, as your adoption free;

And in that gift, my remnant life I give; But 'tis to you, brave youth! who now are she; And she that heaven where secondly I live. And richer than the crown (which shall be thine When life's long progress I have gone with fame) Take all her love; which scarce forbears to shine And own thee, through her virgin-curtain, shame."

Thus spake the king; and Rhodalind appear'd Through publish'd love, with so much bashfulness,

As young kings show, when by surprise o'erheard, Moaning to fav'rite ears a deep distress.

For love is a distress, and would be hid [grow; Like monarch's griefs, by which they bashful And in that shame beholders they forbid; [show.

Since those blush most, who most their blushes And Gondibert, with dying eyes, did grieve

At her vail'd love, (a wound he cannot heal,) As great minds mourn, who cannot then relieve The virtuous, when through shame they want conceal.

And now cold Birtha's rosy looks decay;

Who in fear's frost had like her beauty died, But that attendant hope persuades her stay A while, to hear her duke; who thus replied: "Victorious king! abroad your subjects are

Like legates, safe; at home like altars free! Even by your fame they conquer, as by war; And by your laws safe from each other be. A king you are o'er subjects so, as wise

And noble husbands seem o'er loyal wives; Who claim not, yet confess their liberties,

And brag to strangers of their happy lives. To foes a winter storm; whilst your friends bow, Like summer trees, beneath your bounty's load; To me (next him whom your great self with low And cheerful duty serves) a giving god.

Since this is you, and Rhodalind (the light

By which her sex fled virtue find) is yours;
Your diamond, which tests of jealous sight,
The stroke, and fire, and Oisel's juice endures;

Since she so precious is, I shall appear
All counterfeit of art's disguises made;

And never dare approach her lustre near,

Who scarce can hold my value in the shade. Forgive me that I am not what I seem;

But falsely have dissembled an excess
Of all such virtues as you most esteem;
But now grow good but as I ills confess.
Far in ambition's fever am I gone!

Like raging flame aspiring is my love;
Like flame destructive too, and, like the sun,
Does round the world tow'rds change of objects

move.

Nor is this now through virtuous shame confess'd;
But Rhodalind does force my conjured fear,
As men whom evil spirits have possess'd,

Tell all when saintly votaries appear.

When she will grace the bridal dignity,

It will be soon to all young monarchs known; Who then by posting through the world will try Who first can at her feet present his crown. Then will Verona seem the inn of kings;

And Rhodalind shall at her palace-gate Smile, when great love these royal suitors brings; Who for that smile would as for empire wait. Amongst this ruling race she choice may take

For warmth of valour, coolness of the mind,

Eyes that in empire's drowsy calms can wake,

In storms look out, in darkness dangers find; A prince who more enlarges power than lands, Whose greatness is not what his map contains; But thinks that his where he at full commands,

Not where his coin does pass, but power remains. Who knows that power can never be too high

When by the good possest, for 'tis in them The swelling Nile, from which though people fly, They prosper most by rising of the stream. Thus, princes, you should choose; and you will find,

Even he, since men are wolves, must civilize (As light does tame some beasts of savage kind)

Himself yet more, by dwelling in your eyes." Such was the duke's reply; which did produce Thoughts of a diverse shape through sev'ral ears: His jealous rivals mourn at his excuse;

But Astragon it cures of all his fears. Birtha his praise of Rhodalind bewails; And now her hope a weak physician seems; For hope, the common comforter, prevails Like common med'cines, slowly in extremes. The king (secure in offer'd empire) takes

This forced excuse as troubled bashfulness, And a disguise which sudden passion makes, To hide more joys than prudence should express. And Rhodalind (who never loved before,

Nor could suspect his love was giv'n away) Thought not the treasure of his breast so poor, But that it might his debts of honour pay.

To hasten the rewards of his desert,

The king does to Verona him command; And, kindness so imposed, not all his art Can now instruct his duty to withstand.

Yet whilst the king does now his time dispose
In seeing wonders, in this palace shown,
He would a parting kindness pay to those
Who of their wounds are yet not perfect grown.
And by this fair pretence, whilst on the king
Lord Astragon through all the house attends,
Young Orga does the duke to Birtha bring,

Who thus her sorrows to his bosom sends:

"Why should my storm your life's calm voyage Destroying wholly virtue's race in one; [vex? So by the first to my unlucky sex,

All in a single ruin were undone.

Make heav'nly Rhodalind your bride! whilst I, Your once loved maid, excuse you since I know That virtuous men forsake so willingly

Long cherish'd life, because to heav'n they go. Let me her servant be: a dignity,

Which if your pity in my fall procures,
I still shall value the advancement high,
Not as the crown is hers, but she is yours."

Ere this high sorrow up to dying grew,

The duke the casket open'd, and from thence (Form'd like a heart) a cheerful emerald drew; Cheerful, as if the lively stone had sense. The thirtieth carract it had doubled twice; Not ta'en from the Attic silver mine, Nor from the brass, though such (of nobler price) Did on the necks of Parthian ladies shine:

Nor yet of those which make the Ethiop proud; Nor taken from those rocks where Bactrians climb:

But from the Scythian, and without a cloud;

Not sick at fire, nor languishing with time. Then thus he spake: "This, Birtha, from my male Progenitors, was to the loyal she

On whose kind heart they did in love prevail,

The nuptial pledge, and this I give to thee:

Seven centuries have passed, since it from bride

To bride did first succeed; and though 'tis known From ancient lore, that gems much virtue hide, And that the em'rald is the bridal-stone: Though much renown'd because it chastens loves, And will, when worn by the neglected wife, Show when her absent lord disloyal proves,

By faintness, and a pale decay of life. Though emeralds serve as spies to jealous brides, Yet each compared to this does counsel keep; Like a false stone, the husband's falsehood hides, Or seems born blind, or feigns a dying sleep.

With this take Orgo, as a better spy,
Who may in all your kinder fears be sent
To watch at court, if I deserve to die

By making this to fade, and you lament."

Had now an artful pencil Birtha drawn,
(With grief all dark, then straight with joy all
light,)

He must have fancied first, in early dawn,
A sudden break of beauty out of night.

Or first he must have mark'd what paleness fear,
Like nipping frost, did to her visage bring;
Then think he sees, in a cold backward year,
A rosy morn begin a sudden spring.

Her joys (too vast to be contained in speech)
Thus she a little spake: "Why stoop you down,
My plighted lord, to lowly Birtha's reach,
Since Rhodalind would lift you to a crown?
Or why do I, when I this plight embrace,
Boldly aspire to take what you have given?
But that your virtue has with angels place,
And 'tis a virtue to aspire to heav'n.

And as tow'rds heav'n all travel on their knees,
So I tow'rds you, though love aspire, will move:
And were you crown'd, what could you better please
Than awed obedience led by bolder love!

If I forget the depth from whence I rise,
Far from your bosom banish'd be my heart;
Or claim a right by beauty to your eyes;
Or proudly think my chastity desert.
But thus ascending from your humble maid
To be your plighted bride, and then your wife,
Will be a debt that shall be hourly paid,

Till time my duty cancel with my life.

And fruitfully if heav'n e'er make me bring,

Your image to the world, you then my pride No more shall blame, than you can tax the spring For boasting of those flowers she cannot hide. Orgo I so received as I am taught

By duty to esteem what'er you love; And hope the joy he in this jewel brought

Will luckier than his former triumphs prove. For though but twice he has approach'd my sight, He twice made haste to drown me in my tears; But now I am above his planet's spite,

And as for sin beg pardon for my fears." Thus spake she: and with fix'd continued sight, The duke did all her bashful beauties view; Then they with kisses seal'd their sacred plight, Like flowers, still sweeter as they thicker grew. Yet must these pleasures feel, though innocent, The sickness of extremes, and cannot last; For pow'r (love's shunn'd impediment) has sent To tell the duke, his monarch is in haste: And calls him to that triumph which he fears

So as a saint forgiven (whose breast does all Heaven's joys contain) wisely loved pomp forbears, Lest tempted nature should from blessings fall. He often takes his leave, with love's delay, And bids her hope he with the king shall find, By now appearing forward to obey,

A means to serve him less in Rhodalind. She weeping to her closet-window hies,

Where she with tears doth Rhodalind survey; As dying men, who grieve that they have eyes, When they through curtains spy the rising day.

[* Sir William Davenant's Gondibert is not a good poem, if you take it on the whole; but there are a great many good things in it.-POPE to Spence.]

SIR JOHN DENHAM was born in Dublin, where his father was chief-baron of the Irish Exchequer. On his father's accession to the same office in the English Exchequer, our poet was brought to London, and there received the elements of his learning. At Oxford he was accounted a slow, dreaming young man, and chiefly noted for his attachment to cards and dice. The same propensity followed him to Lincoln's Inn, to such a degree, that his father threatened to disinherit him. To avert this, he wrote a penitentiary Essay on Gaming; but after the death of his father he returned to the vice that most easily beset him, and irrecoverably injured his patrimony. In 1641, when his tragedy of The Sophy appeared, it was regarded as a burst of unpromised genius, In the better and bygone days of the drama, so

tame a production would not perhaps have been regarded as astonishing, even from a dreaming young man. He was soon after appointed highsheriff of Surrey, and made governor of Farnham Castle for the king: but being unskilled in military affairs, he resigned his command, and joined his majesty at Oxford, where he published his Cooper's Hill.* In the civil wars he served the royal family, by conveying their correspondence; but was at length obliged to quit the kingdom, and was sent as ambassador, by Charles II. in his exile, to the king of Poland. At the Restoration he was made suveyor of the king's buildings, and knighted with the order of the Bath; but his latter days were imbittered by a second marriage, that led to a temporary derangement of mind.

COOPER'S HILL.†

SURE there are poets which did never dream
Upon Parnassus, nor did taste the stream
Of Helicon; we therefore may suppose
Those made not poets, but the poets those,
And as courts make not kings, but kings the court,
So where the Muses and their train resort,
Parnassus stands; if I can be to thee
A poet, thou Parnassus art to me.
Nor wonder if (advantaged in my flight,
By taking wing from thy auspicious height)
Through untraced ways and airy paths I fly,
More boundless in my fancy than my eye;
My eye,
which swift as thought contracts the space
That lies between, and first salutes the place
Crown'd with that sacred pile, so vast, so high,
That whether 'tis a part of earth or sky
Uncertain seems, and may be thought a proud
Aspiring mountain, or descending cloud; [flight
Paul's, the late theme of such a Muse.‡ whose
Has bravely reach'd and soar'd above thy height;
Now shalt thou stand, though sword, or time, or fire,
Or zeal, more fierce than they, thy fall conspire,
Secure, whilst thee the best of poets sings,
Preserved from ruin by the best of kings.
Under his proud survey the city lies,
And like a mist beneath a hill doth rise, [crowd,
Whose state and wealth, the business and the
Seems at the distance but a darker cloud,

[The earliest edition known was printed at London in 1642.7

it Denham has been frequently imitated in this kind of local poetry, as Johnson calls it, and since Cooper's Hill appeared, we have had Waller's St. James's Park; Pope's Windsor Forest; Garth's Claremont; Tickell's Kensington Garden; Dyer's Grongar Hill; Jago's Elge-Hill; Scott's Amwell; Michael Bruce's Lochleven; and Kirke

[run,

And is, to him who rightly things esteems,
No other in effect than what it seems;
Where, with like haste, though several ways they
Some to undo, and some to be undone;
While luxury and wealth, like war and peace,
Are each the other's ruin and increase;
As rivers lost in seas, some secret vein
Thence reconveys, there to be lost again.
Oh! happiness of sweet retired content!
To be at once secure and innocent.
Windsor the next (where Mars with Venus dwells,
Beauty with strength) above the valley swells
Into my eye, and doth itself present
With such an easy and unforced ascent,
That no stupendous precipice denies
Access, no horror turns away our eyes;
But such a rise as doth at once invite
A pleasure and a reverence from the sight:
Thy mighty master's emblem, in whose face
Sat meekness, heighten'd with majestic grace;
Such seems thy gentle height, made only proud
To be the basis of that pompous load,
Than which a nobler weight no mountain bears,
But Atlas only, which supports the spheres.
When Nature's hand this ground did thus advance,
'Twas guided by a wiser power than Chance;
Mark'd out for such an use, as if 'twere meant
T'invite the builder, and his choice prevent.
Nor can we call it choice, when what we choose
Folly or blindness only could refuse.