Nothing but illusions vain.

Zel. What stares the man at?

Fel. I compare

A picture I once mine did call—
With the divine Original.

Zel. Fall'n again asleep you are:
We poor human Shepherd Lasses

Nor are pictured, nor use glasses.

Who skip their rank, themselves and betters wrong; To our Dames, God bless 'em, such quaint things belong.

Here a tiny brook alone,

Which fringed with borrow'd flowers (he has

Gold and silver enough on his own)

Is heaven's proper looking-glass,

Copies us and its reflections,
Shewing natural perfections,
Free from soothing, free from error,
Are our pencil, are our mirror.
Fel. Art thou a Shepherdess?

Zel. - and bore

On a mountain, called THERE.

Fel. Wear'st thou ever heretofore

Lady's clothes?

Zel. I Lady's gear?

Yes-what a treacherous poll have I !—

In a Country Comedy

I once enacted a main part;
Still I have it half by heart:
The famous History it was
Of an Arabian-let me see-
No, of a Queen of Tartary,
Who all her sex did far surpass
In beauty, wit, and chivalry:
Who with invincible disdain

Would fool, when she was in the vein,
Princes with all their wits about 'em ;
But, an they slept, to death she'd flout 'em.
And, by the mass, with such a mien
My Majesty did play the Queen ;
Our Curate had my Picture made
In the same robes in which I play'd.

[To my taste this is fine, elegant, Queen-like raillery; a second part of Love's Labour's Lost, to which title this extraordinary Play has still better pretensions than even Shakspeare's; for after leading three pair of Royal Lovers thro' endless mazes of doubts, difficulties; oppositions of dead fathers' wills; a labyrinth of losings and findings; jealousies; enchantments; conflicts with giants, and single-handed against armies; to the exact state in which all the lovers might with the greatest propriety indulge their reciprocal wishes_when, the deuse is in it, you think, but they must all be married now—suddenly the three Ladies turn upon their Lovers; and, as an exemplification of the moral of the Play, Loving for loving's sake," and a hyperplatonic, truly Spanish proof of their affections-demand that the Lovers shall consent to their mistresses' taking upon them the vow of a single life! to which the Gallants, with becoming refinement, can do no less than consent.-The fact is that it was a Court Play, in which the Characters; males, giants, and all: were played by females, and those of the highest order of Grandeeship. No nobleman might be permitted amongst them; and it was against the forms, that a great Court Lady of Spain should consent to such an unrefined motion, as that of wedlock, though but in a play.

Appended to the Drama, the length of which may be judged from its having taken nine days in the representation, and me three hours in the reading of it-hours well wasted—is a poetical account of a fire, which broke out in the Theatre on one of the nights of its acting, when the whole of the Dramatis Persona were nearly burnt, because the common people out of "base fear," and the Nobles out of "pure respect," could not think of laying hands upon such "Great Donnas;" till the young King, breaking the etiquette, by snatching up his Queen, and bearing her through the flames upon his back, the Grandees, (dilatory

Æneases), followed his example, and each saved one (Anchisesfashion), till the whole Courtly Company of Comedians were got off in tolerable safety.-Imagine three or four stout London Firemen, on such an occasion, standing off in mere respect.

Address to Solitude.

Sweet Solitude! still Mirth! that fear'st no wrong,
Because thou dost none: Morning all day long!
Truth's sanctuary! Innocency's spring!
Invention's limbeck! Contemplation's wing!
Peace of my soul, which I too late pursued ;
That know'st not the world's vain inquietude;
Where friends, the thieves of time, let us alone
Whole days, and a man's hours are all his own.
Song in praise of the Same.

Solitude, of friends the best,

And the best companion;

Mother of truths, and brought at least

Every day to bed of one;

In this flowery mansion

I contemplate how the rose

Stands upon thorns, how quickly goes

The dismaying jessamine :

Only the soul, which is divine,

No decay of beauty knows,

The World is Beauty's Mirror. Flowers,

In their first virgin purity,

Flatt'rers both of the nose and eye.—

To be cropt by paramours

Is their best of destiny;

And those nice darlings of the land,

Which seem'd heav'n's painted bow to scorn.

And bloom'd the envy of the morn,

Are the gay trophy of a hand.

Unwilling to love again.

sadly I do live in fear,

For, though I would not fair appear,
And though in truth I am not fair,
Haunted I am like those that are:
And here, among these rustling leaves,
With which the wanton wind must play,
Inspired by it, my sense perceives
This snowy Jasmin whispering say,
How much more frolic, white and fair
In her green lattice she doth stand,
To enjoy the free and cooler air,
Than in the prison of a hand *.

Loving without Hope.

I look'd if underneath the cope

Were one that loved, and did not hope;
But from his nobler soul remove

That modern heresy in love;
When, hearing a shrill voice, I turn,
And lo! a sweet-tongued Nightingale,
Tender adorer of the Morn,-

In him I found that One and All.
For that same faithful bird and true.
Sweet and kind and constant lover,
Wond'rous passion did discover,
From the terrace of an eugh.

And tho' ungrateful she appear'd

Unmoved with all she saw and heard;

Every day, before 'twas day,

Claridiana, the Enchanted Queen, speaks this, and the following

speech.

!

More and kinder things he'd say.
Courteous, and never to be lost,
Return'd not with complaints, but praise
Loving, and all at his own cost;
Suffering, and without hope of ease:
For with a sad and trembling throat
He breathes into her breast this note:
"I love thee not, to make thee mine;
But love thee, 'cause thy form's divine."

The true Absence in Love.

Zelidaura, star divine,

That do'st in highest orb of beauty shine;

Pardon'd Murd'ress, by that heart

Itself, which thou dost kill, and coveted smart ;
Though my walk so distant lies

From the sunshine of thine eyes;
Into sullen shadows hurl'd,

To lie here buried from the world
'Tis the least reason of my moan,

That so much earth is 'twixt us thrown.

'Tis absence of another kind,

Grieves me; for where you are present too,
Love's Geometry does find,

I have ten thousand miles to you.

'Tis not absence to be far,

But to abhor is to absent;

To those who in disfavour are,
Sight itself is banishment *.

To a Warrioress.

Heav'n, that created thee thus warlike, stole

* Claridoro, rival to Felisbravo, speaks this.