better still, of his own thoughts, without minding Rymer's abuse of "the tragedies of the last age." His native stream of Avon would then have flowed with softer murmurs to the ear, and his pleasant birth-place, Stratford, would in that case have worn even a more gladsome smile than it does, to the eye of fancy!-Poets however have a sort of privileged after-life, which does not fall to the common lot: the rich and mighty are nothing but while they are living: their power ceases with them: but "the sons of memory, the great heirs of fame" leave the best part of what was theirs, their thoughts, their verse, what they most delighted and prided themselves in, behind them-imperishable, incorruptible, immortal!-Sir John Beaumont (the brother of our dramatist) whose loyal and religious effusions are not worth much, very feelingly laments his brother's untimely death in an epitaph upon him.

"Thou should'st have followed me, but death to blame
Miscounted years, and measured age by fame:
So dearly hast thou bought thy precious lines,
Their praise grew swiftly; so thy life declines.
Thy Muse, the hearer's Queen, the reader's Love,
All ears, all hearts (but Death's) could please and move."

Beaumont's verses addressed to Ben Jonson at the Mermaid, are a pleasing record of their friendship, and of the way in which they "fleeted

the time carelessly" as well as studiously "in the golden age" of our poetry.

[Lines sent from the Country with two unfinished Comedies,

which deferred their merry meetings at the Mermaid.]

"The sun which doth the greatest comfort bring
To absent friends, because the self-same thing
They know they see, however absent is,
(Here our best hay-maker, forgive me this,
It is our country style) in this warm shine
I lie and dream of your full Mermaid wine:
Oh, we have water mixt with claret lees,
Drink apt to bring in drier heresies

Than here, good only for the sonnet's strain,
With fustian metaphors to stuff the brain:-
Think with one draught a man's invention fades,
Two cups had quite spoil'd Homer's Iliads.
"Tis liquor that will find out Sutclift's wit,

Like where he will, and make him write worse yet:
Fill'd with such moisture, in most grievous qualms
Did Robert Wisdom write his singing psalms:

And so must I do this: and yet I think

It is a potion sent us down to drink

By special providence, keep us from fights,

Make us not laugh when we make legs to knights; 'Tis this that keeps our minds fit for our states,

A medicine to obey our magistrates.

*

Methinks the little wit I had is lost
Since I saw you, for wit is like a rest

* So in Rochester's Epigram.

"Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms,

When they translated David's Psalms."

Held up at tennis, which men do the best

With the best gamesters. What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! Hard words that have been

So nimble, and so full of subtile flame,

As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,

And had resolv'd to live a fool the rest

Of his dull life; then when there hath been thrown
Wit able enough to justify the town

For three days past, wit that might warrant be

For the whole city to talk foolishly,

Till that were cancell'd; and when that was gone,

We left an air behind us, which alone

Was able to make the two next companies

Right witty, though but downright fools more wise."

I shall not in this place repeat Marlowe's celebrated song, "Come live with me and be my love," nor Sir Walter Raleigh's no less celebrated answer to it (they may both be found in Walton's Complete Angler, accompanied with scenery and remarks worthy of them); but I may quote as a specimen of the high and romantic tone in which the poets of this age thought and spoke of each other the "Vision upon the conceipt of the Fairy Queen," understood to be by Sir Walter Raleigh.

"Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay,
Within that temple, where the vestal flame
Was wont to burn, and passing by that way
To see that buried dust of living fame,

Whose tomb fair Love, and fairer Virtue kept.
All suddenly I saw the Faery Queen:

At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept ;
And from thenceforth those Graces were not seen,
For they this queen attended, in whose stead
Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse.

Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed,

And groans of buried ghosts the Heav'ns did pierce,
Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief,
And curst th' access of that celestial thief."

A higher strain of compliment cannot well be conceived than this, which raises your idea even of that which it disparages in the comparison, and makes you feel that nothing could have torn the writer from his idolatrous enthusiasm for Petrarch and his Laura's tomb, but Spenser's magic verses and diviner Faery Queen-the one lifted above mortality, the other brought from the skies!

The name of Drummond of Hawthornden is in a manner entwined in cypher with that of Ben Jonson. He has not done himself or Jonson any credit by his account of their conversation; but his Sonnets are in the highest degree elegant, harmonious, and striking. It appears to me that they are more in the manner of Petrarch than any others that we have, with a certain intenseness in the sentiment, an occasional glitter of thought,

and uniform terseness of expression. The reader may judge for himself from a few examples.

"I know that all beneath the moon decays,

And what by mortals in this world is wrought
In time's great periods shall return to nought;
That fairest states have fatal nights and days.
I know that all the Muse's heavenly lays,
With toil of spright which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought;
That there is nothing lighter than vain praise.
I know frail beauty's like the purple flow'r,
To which one morn oft birth and death affords :
That love a jarring is of minds' accords,
Where sense and will bring under reason's pow'r.
Know what I list, this all cannot me move,
But that, alas! I both must write and love."
Another-

"Fair moon, who with thy cold and silver shine
Mak'st sweet the horror of the dreadful night,
Delighting the weak eye with smiles divine,
Which Phoebus dazzles with his too much light;
Bright queen of the first Heav'n, if in thy shrine
By turning oft, and Heav'n's eternal might,
Thou hast not yet that once sweet fire of thine,
Endymion, forgot, and lovers' plight:
If cause like thine may pity breed in thee,
And pity somewhat else to it obtain,
Since thou hast power of dreams as well as he
That holds the golden rod and mortal chain;
Now while she sleeps*, in doleful guise her show,
These tears, and the black map of all my woe."

* His mistress.