Wife. There is some mystery Within your language, madam. I would hope You have more charity than to imagine My present condition worth your triumph, In which I am not so lost but I have Some friends and servants with proportion To my lord's fortune; but none within the lists Of those that obey me can be more ready To express their duties, than my heart to serve Your just commands.

Queen. Then pride will ebb, I see ;
There is no constant flood of state and greatness;
The prodigy is ceasing when your lord

Comes to the balance; he, whose blazing fires
Shot wonders through the kingdom, will discover
What flying and corrupted matter fed him.
Wife. My lord?

Queen. Your high and mighty justicer,
The man of conscience, the oracle

Of state, whose honourable titles

[mortal;

Would crack an elephant's back, is now turn'd
Must pass examination and the test
Of law, have all his offices ripp'd up,
And his corrupt soul laid open to the subjects;
His bribes, oppressions, and close sins, that made
So many groan and curse him, now shall find
Their just reward; and all that love their country
Bless Heaven and the king's justice, for removing
Such a devouring monster.

Father. Sir, your pardon.

Madam, you are the queen, she is my daughter,
And he that you have character'd so monstrous
My son-in-law, now gone to be arraign'd.

The king is just, and a good man; but 't does not
Add to the graces of your royal person
To tread upon a lady thus dejected

By her own grief: her lord's not yet found guilty,
Much less condemn'd, though you have pleased to
Queen. What saucy fellow's this? [execute him.
Father. I must confess

I am a man out of this element,
No courtier, yet I am a gentleman,
That dare speak honest truth to the queen's ear,
(A duty every subject will not pay you,)
And justify it to all the world; there's nothing
Doth more eclipse the honours of our soul
Than an ill-grounded and ill-follow'd passion,
Let fly with noise and license against those
Whose hearts before are bleeding.

Father. 'Cause you are a queen, to trample o'er
Whose tongue and faculties are all tied up;
Strike out a lion's teeth, and pare his claws,
And then a dwarf may pluck him by the beard-
"Tis a gay victory.

Queen. Did you hear, my lord?
Father. I ha' done.

Wife. And it concerns me to begin.

I have not made this pause through servile fear,
Or guilty apprehension of your rage,
But with just wonder of the heats and wildness
Has prepossess'd your nature 'gainst our innocence.

You are my queen, unto that title bows
The humblest knee in France, my heart made lower
With my obedience and prostrate duty,
Nor have I powers created for my use

When just commands of you expect their service;
But were you queen of all the world, or something
To be thought greater, betwixt Heaven and us,
That I could reach you with my eyes and voice,
I would shoot both up in defence of my
Abused honour, and stand all your lightning.
Queen. So brave?

Wife. So just and boldly innocent.

I cannot fear, arm'd with a noble conscience,
The tempest of your frown, were it more frightful
Than every fury made a woman's anger,
Prepared to kill with death's most horrid ceremony;
Yet with what freedom of my soul I can
Forgive your accusation of my pride.

Queen. Forgive? What insolence is like this lanCan any action of ours be capable [guage? Of thy forgiveness? Dust! how I despise thee! Can we sin to be object of thy mercy?

Wife. Yes, and have done 't already, and no stain To your greatness, madam; 'tis my charity, I can remit; when sovereign princes dare Do injury to those that live beneath them, They turn worth pity and their prayers, and 'tis In the free power of those whom they oppress To pardon 'em ; each soul has a prerogative And privilege royal that was sign'd by Heaven. But though, in th' knowledge of my disposition, Stranger to pride, and what you charge me with, I can forgive the injustice done to me, And striking at my person, I have no Commission from my lord to clear you for The wrongs you have done him, and till he pardon The wounding of his loyalty, with which life Can hold no balance, I must talk just boldness To say

Father. Nomore! Now I must tell you, daughter, Lest you forget yourself, she is the queen, And it becomes you not to vie with her Passion for passion: if your lord stand fast To the full search of law, Heaven will revenge him, And give him up precious to good men's loves. If you attempt by these unruly ways To vindicate his justice, I'm against you; Dear as I wish your husband's life and fame, Subjects are bound to suffer, not contest With princes, since their will and acts must be Accounted one day to a Judge supreme.

Wife. I ha' done. If the devotion to my lord, Or pity to his innocence, have led me Beyond the awful limits to be observed By one so much beneath your sacred person, I thus low crave your royal pardon, madam; [Kneels. I know you will remember, in your goodness, My life-blood is concern'd while his least vein Shall run black and polluted, my heart fed With what keeps him alive; nor can there be A greater wound than that which strikes the life Of our good name, so much above the bleeding

Of this rude pile we carry, as the soul
Hath excellence above this earth-born frailty.
My lord, by the king's will, is led already
To a severe arraignment, and to judges
Will make no tender search into his tract
Of life and state; stay but a little while,

And France shall echo to his shame or innocence.
This suit I beg with tears, I shall have sorrow
Enough to hear him censured foul and monstrous
Should you forbear to antedate my sufferings. [cline
Queen. Your conscience comes about, and you in-
To fear he may be worth the law's condemning.
Wife [rising]. I sooner will suspect the stars may
lose

Their way, and crystal Heaven return to chaos;
Truth sits not on her square more firm than he ;
Yet let me tell you, madam, were his life
And action so foul as you have character'd
And the bad world expects, though as a wife
'Twere duty I should weep myself to death
To know him fall'n from virtue, yet so much
I, a frail woman, love my king and country,
I should condemn him too, and think all honours,
The price of his lost faith, more fatal to me
Than Cleopatra's asps warm in my bosom,
And as much boast their killing.

ALEXANDER BROME was an attorney in the Lord Mayor's Court. From a verse in one of his poems, it would seem that he had been sent once in the civil war (by compulsion no doubt), on the parliament side, but had staid only three days, and never fought against the king and the cavaliers. He was in truth a strenuous loyalist, and the bacchanalian songster of his party. Most of the songs and epigrams that were published against the Rump have been ascribed to him. He had besides a share in a translation of Horace, with Fanshawe, Holiday, Cowley, and others, and published a single comedy, the Cunning Lovers,

which was acted in 1651, at the private house in Drury. There is a playful variety in his metre, that probably had a better effect in song than in reading. His thoughts on love and the bottle have at least the merit of being decently jovial, though he arrays the trite arguments of convivial invitation in few original images. In studying the traits and complexion of a past age, amusement, if not illustration, will often be found from the ordinary effusions of party ridicule. In this view the Diurnal, and other political satires of Brome, have an extrinsic value as contemporary caricatures.

THE RESOLVE.

TELL me not of a face that's fair,
Nor lip and cheek that's red,
Nor of the tresses of her hair,
Nor curls in order laid;
Nor of a rare seraphic voice,

That like an angel sings;
Though if I were to take my choice,
I would have all these things.
But if that thou wilt have me love,
And it must be a she;
The only argument can move
Is, that she will love me.

The glories of your ladies be
But metaphors of things,
And but resemble what we see

Each common object brings.
Roses out-red their lips and cheeks.
Lilies their whiteness stain:
What fool is he that shadows seeks,
And may the substance gain!
Then if thou'lt have me love a lass,
Let it be one that's kind,
Else I'm a servant to the glass
That's with Canary lined.

ON CANARY.

Of all the rare juices

That Bacchus or Ceres produces,
There's none that I can, nor dare I
Compare with the princely Canary.
For this is the thing

That a fancy infuses,

This first got a king,

And next the nine Muses;

"Twas this made old poets so sprightly to sing,
And fill all the world with the glory and fame on't; |
They Helicon call'd it, and the Thespian spring,
But this was the drink though they knew not |
[the name on't.

Our cider and perry
May make a man mad, but not merry ;
It makes people windmill-pated,
And with crackers sophisticated;
And your hops, yest, and malt,
When they're mingled together,
Makes our fancies to halt,
Or reel any whither :

It stuffs up our brains with froth and with yest,
That if one would write but a verse for a bellman,
He muststudy till Christmas for an eight-shilling jest;
These liquors won't raise, but drown, and o'er-
whelm man.

Our drowsy metheglin

Was only ordain'd to inveigle in

The novice that knows not to drink yet,
But is fuddled before he can think it:
And your claret and white

Have a gunpowder fury,
They're of the French spright,

But they won't long endure you.
And your holiday muscadine, Alicant and tent,
Have only this property and virtue that's fit in't,
They'll make a man sleep till a preachment be spent,
But we neither can warm our blood nor wit in't.

The bagrag and Rhenish

You must with ingredients replenish;
'Tis a wine to please ladies and toys with,
But not for a man to rejoice with.

But 'tis sack makes the sport,
And who gains but that flavour,
Though an abbess he court,

In his high-shoes he'll have her;

"Tis this that advances the drinker and drawer: Though the father came to town in his hobnails and leather,

He turns it to velvet, and brings up an heir,
In the town in his chain, in the field with his feather.

TO A COY LADY.

I PRITHEE leave this peevish fashion, Don't desire to be high prized; Love's a princely noble passion,

And doth scorn to be despised. Though we say you're fair, you know We your beauty do bestow, For our fancy makes you so.

Dont be proud 'cause we adore you,

We do't only for our pleasure; And those parts in which you glory

We by fancy weigh and measure. When for deities you go,

For angels or for queens, pray know 'Tis our own fancy makes you so.

Don't suppose your Majesty

By tyranny's best signified, And your angelic Natures be

Distinguish'd only by your pride. Tyrants make subjects rebels grow, And pride makes angels devils below, And your pride may make you so!

THE MAD LOVER.

I HAVE been in love, and in debt, and in drinkThis many and many a year;

And those three are plagues enough, one would For one poor mortal to bear. [think, 'Twas drink made me fall into love,

And love made me run into debt; And though I have struggled, and struggled and I cannot get out of them yet. [strove,

There's nothing but money can cure me,
And rid me of all my pain;
"Twill pay all my debts,
And remove all my lets!

And my mistress that cannot endure me,
Will love me, and love me again :
Then I'll fall to loving and drinking again.

HERRICK'S vein of poetry is very irregular; but where the ore is pure, it is of high value. His song beginning, "Gather ye rose-buds, while ye may," is sweetly Anacreontic. Nichols, in his History of Leicestershire, has given the fullest account of his history hitherto published, and reprinted many of his poems, which illustrate his family connexions. He was the son of an eminent goldsmith in Cheapside, was born in London, and educated at Cambridge. Being patronised by the Earl of Exeter, he was, in 1629, presented by Charles I. to the vicarage of Dean Prior, in Devonshire, from which he was ejected during the civil war, and then having assumed the habit of a layman, resided in Westminster. After the Restoration he was replaced in his vicarage.

To his Hesperides, or works human and divine*, he added some pieces on religious subjects, where his volatile genius was not in her ele

ment.

[* What is Divine' has much of the essence of poetry; that which is human, of the frailty of the flesh. Some are playfully pastoral, some sweetly Anacreontic, some in the higher key of religion, others lasciviously wanton and unclean. The whole collection seems to have passed into oblivion till about the year 1796, and since then we have had a separate volume of selections, and two complete reprints. His several excellences have preserved his many indecencies, the divinity of his verse (poetically speaking) the dunghill of his obscener moods. Southey, admitting the perennial beauty of many of his poems, has styled him, not with too much severity, 'a coarseminded and beastly writer.' Jones' Attempts in Verse, p. 85; see also Quar. Rev. vol. iv. p. 171.]

SONG.

GATHER ye rose-buds, while ye may,

Old Time is still a flying;

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

The age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse and worst Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time, And, whilst ye may, go marry; For having lost but once your prime, You may for ever tarry.

TO MEADOWS.

YE have been fresh and green,

Ye have been fill'd with flowers; And ye the walks have been,

Where maids have spent their hours.

Ye have beheld where they
With wicker arks did come,
To kiss and bear away

The richer cowslips home.

You've heard them sweetly sing,
And seen them in a round,
Each virgin like a Spring
With honeysuckles crown'd.

But now we see none here,
Whose silvery feet did tread,
And, with dishevell❜d hair,
Adorn'd this smoother mead.

Like unthrifts, having spent
Your stock, and needy grown,
Ye're left here to lament
Your poor estates alone.

TO DAFFODILS.

FAIR daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet, the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd its noon.
Stay, stay

Until the hasting day

Has run

But to the even song;

And having pray'd together, we Will go with you along.

THE COUNTRY LIFE.

SWEET country life, to such unknown
Whose lives are others', not their own!
But serving courts and cities, be
Less happy, less enjoying thee!
Thou never plough'st the ocean's foam
To seek and bring rough pepper home;
Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove,

To bring from thence the scorched clove:
Nor, with the loss of thy loved rest,
Bring'st home the ingot from the West.
No thy ambition's master-piece
Flies no thought higher than a fleece;
Or how to pay thy hinds, and clear
All scores, and so to end the year;
But walk'st about thy own dear bounds,
Not envying others' larger grounds:
For well thou know'st, 'tis not th' extent
Of land makes life, but sweet content.
When now the cock, the ploughman's horn,
Calls forth the lily-wristed morn,
Then to thy corn-fields thou dost go,
Which though well-soil'd, yet thou dost know
That the best compost for the lands
Is the wise master's feet and hands.
There at the plough thou find'st thy team,
With a hind whistling there to them;
And cheer'st them up by singing how
The kingdom's portion is the plough.
This done, then to th' enamell'd meads
Thou go'st; and as thy foot there treads,
Thou see'st a present godlike power
Imprinted in each herb and flower;
And smell'st the breath of great-eyed kine,
Sweet as the blossoms of the vine.
Here thou behold'st thy large sleek neat,
Unto the dewlaps up in meat ;

And, as thou look'st, the wanton steer,
The heifer, cow, and ox, draw near,
To make a pleasing pastime there.
These seen, thou go'st to view thy flocks
Of sheep, safe from the wolf and fox;
And find'st their bellies there as full
Of short sweet grass, as backs with wool;
And leavest them as they feed and fill ;
A shepherd piping on a hill.

For sports, for pageantry, and plays,
Thou hast thy eves and holidays;

On which the young men and maids meet,
To exercise their dancing feet;
Tripping the comely country round,
With daffodils and daisies crown'd.
Thy wakes, thy quintels, here thou hast;
Thy may-poles too, with garlands graced ;
Thy morris-dance, thy Whitsun-ale,
Thy shearing feast, which never fail ;
Thy harvest-home, thy wassail-bowl,
That's tost up after fox i' th' hole;
Thy mummeries, thy Twelfth-night kings
And queens, thy Christmas revellings;
Thy nut-brown mirth, thy russet wit;
And no man pays too dear for it.
To these thou hast thy times to go,
And trace the hare in the treacherous snow;
Thy witty wiles to draw, and get
The lark into the trammel net;
Thou hast thy cockrood, and thy glade
To take the precious pheasant made;
Thy lime-twigs, snares, and pit-falls, then
To catch the pilfering birds, not men.
O happy life, if that their good
The husbandmen but understood !
Who all the day themselves do please,
And younglings, with such sports as these;
And, lying down, have nought to affright
Sweet sleep, that makes more short the night.

ABRAHAM COWLEY was the posthumous son of a grocer in London. His mother, though left a poor widow, found means to get him educated at Westminster School, and he obtained a scholarship at Cambridge. Before leaving the former seminary, he published his Poetical Blossoms. He wrote verses while yet a child; and amidst his best poetry as well as his worst, in his touching and tender as well as extravagant passages, there is always something that reminds us of childhood in Cowley. From Cambridge he was ejected, in 1643, for his loyalty; after a short retirement, he was induced by his principles to follow the queen to Paris, as secretary to the Earl of St. Albans, and, during an absence of

ten years from his native country, was employed in confidential journeys for his party, and in deciphering the royal correspondence. The object of his return to England, in 1656, I am disposed to think, is misrepresented by his biographers: they tell us that he came over, under pretence of privacy, to give notice of the posture of affairs. Cowley came home indeed, and published an edition of his poems, in the preface to which he decidedly declares himself a quietist under the existing government, abjures the idea of all political hostility, and tells us that he had not only abstained from printing, but had burnt the very copies of his verses that alluded to the civil wars. "The enmities of fellow-citizens,” he continues, "should