EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH, L. H.
Wouldst thou hear what man can say
In a little? Reader, stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die,
Which in life did harbor give
To more virtue than doth live.
If at all she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault.
One name was Elizabeth;

The other, let it sleep with death:
Fitter where it died to tell
Than that it lived at all. Farewell!

SONG TO CELIA.

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise

Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove's nectar sup

I would not change for thine.

Sir John Davies.

Davies (1570-1626), an English barrister, was the author of "Nosce Teipsum" (Know Thyself), a poem on the immortality of the soul. It bears the date of 1602, when Davies was about thirty-two years old. It was printed five times during his life. In 1598 Davies was ejected from membership in the Society of the Middle Temple, for having thrashed a man within the sacred precincts of that Inn of Court. But he was an able lawyer; and having won the favor of King James, he rose from one legal distinction to another, and was knighted in 1607.

For who did ever yet in honor, wealth,

Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find? Who ever ceased to wish, when he had health; Or, having wisdom, was not vexed in mind?

Then, as a bee, which among weeds doth fall, Which seem sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and

gay,

She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all,
But, pleased with none, doth rise and soar away.

So, when the soul finds here no true content,
And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take,
She doth return from whence she first was sent,
And flies to Him that first her wings did make.

MYSELF.

FROM "NOSCE TEIPSUM."

I know my body's of so frail a kind,

As force without, fevers within, can kill; I know the heavenly nature of my mind; But 'tis corrupted both in wit and will.

I know my soul hath power to know all things,
Yet is she blind and ignorant in all;

I know I'm one of Nature's little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest thing am thrall.

I know my life's a pain, and but a span;

I know my sense is mocked in everything; And, to conclude, I know myself a Man; Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

Francis Beaumont (1586-1616) and John Fletcher (1576– 1625) were intimate friends; "the Orestes and Pylades of the poetical world." Both were of good descent. Beaumont's father was a Judge of the Common Pleas ; Fletcher was the son of the Bishop of London, and had for cousins Phineas and Giles Fletcher, the one the author of "The Purple Island," a tedious allegorical poem; the other the author of "Christ's Victory and Triumph," a work from which Milton is said to have borrowed a feather or two.

There was a difference of ten years between the ages of Beaumont and Fletcher. The latter, who was the elder, survived his friend nine years, continued to write, and died at the age of forty-nine. Beaumont died at thirty, in 1616, the same year as Shakspeare. Beaumont's poetical taste, it was said, controlled, in their joint work, Fletcher's luxuriance of wit and fancy. Their united

works amount to about fifty dramas, and were very popular in their day, even more so than those of Shakspeare and Jonson. As lyrical and descriptive poets they are entitled to high praise. Their dramas are sprightly, and abound in poetical ornament, but are often censurable for looseness of plot, repulsiveness of subject, and laxity of moral tone.

MELANCHOLY.'

FROM "NICE VALOR; OR, THE PASSIONATE MADMAN."
Hence, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights

Wherein you spend your folly!
There's naught in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see 't,
But only melancholy:
O sweetest melancholy!

Welcome, folded arms, and fixéd eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,

A look that's fastened to the ground,
A tongue chained up without a sound!

Fountain-heads, and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves,
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan,
These are the sounds we feed upon;
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley :
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy!

CESAR'S LAMENTATION OVER POMPEY'S

HEAD.

FROM "THE FALSE ONE."

Oh thou conqueror,

Thou glory of the world once, now the pity;
Thou awe of nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus?
What poor fate followed thee, and plucked thee on
To trust thy sacred life to an Egyptian ?—
The life and light of Rome to a blind stranger,
That honorable war ne'er taught a nobleness,
Nor worthy circumstance showed what a man
was?-

That never heard thy name sung but in banquets
And loose lascivious pleasures ?—to a boy
That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness,
No study of thy life to know thy goodness?—

1 Milton seems to have taken some hints for his "Il Penseroso" from this song.

SONG FROM "VALENTINIAN." Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose On this afflicted prince: fall like a cloud In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud Or painful to his slumbers; easy, sweet, And as a purling stream, thou son of Night, Pass by his troubled senses; sing his pain, Like hollow murmuring wind, or silver rain. Into this prince gently, oh, gently slide, And kiss him into slumbers like a bride!

ON THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

FRANCIS BEAUMONT.

Mortality, behold and fear!

What a change of flesh is here!

Think how many royal bones

Sleep within these heaps of stones!
Here they lie, had realms aud lands,

Who now want strength to stir their hands,
Where from their pulpits, sealed with dust,
They preach, "In greatness is no trust."
Here's an acre sown indeed
With the richest, royalest seed

That the earth did e'er suck in,

Since the first man died for sin:
Here the bones of birth have cried,
"Though gods they were, as men they died."
Here are sands, ignoble things,
Dropt from the ruined sides of kings:

Here's a world of pomp and state

Buried in dust, once dead by fate.

SONG FROM "ROLLO, DUKE OF NORMANDY."
Take, oh take those lips away,

That so sweetly were forsworn,
And those eyes, the break of day,

Lights that do mislead the morn!
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, though sealed in vain.

Hide, oh hide those hills of snow,

Which thy frozen bosom bears, On whose tops the pinks that grow Are of those that April wears: But first set my poor heart free, Bound in those icy chains by thee.

FROM "THE HUMOROUS LIEUTENANT." Seleucus. Let no man fear to die: we love to sleep all,

And death is but the sounder sleep: all ages,
And all hours call us; 'tis so common, easy,
That little children tread those paths before us.
We are not sick, nor our souls pressed with sorrows,
Nor go we out like tedious tales forgotten:
High, high, we come, and hearty to our funerals;
And as the sun, that sets in blood, let's fall.

Lysimachus. 'Tis true they have us fast: we cannot 'scape 'em ;

Nor keeps the brow of Fortune one smile for us.
Dishonorable ends we can escape, though,
And worse than those, captivities: we can die;
And, dying nobly, though we leave behind us
These clods of flesh, that are too massy burdens,
Our living souls fly crowned with living conquests.

FROM "THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY.”
What sacrifice of thanks, what age of service,
What danger of more dreadful look than death,
What willing martyrdom to crown me constant,
May merit such a goodness, such a sweetness?
A love so nobly great no power can ruin :
Most blesséd maid, go on: the gods that gave
this,

This pure unspotted love, the Child of Heaven,
In their own goodness must preserve and save it,
And raise you a reward beyond our recompense.

Philip Massinger.

Massinger (circa 1584-1640) began to write plays in the reign of James I. Like many of his literary brethren, he was poor, and one morning was found dead in his bed at Southwark. No stone marks his neglected restingplace, but in the parish register appears this brief memorial: "March 20, 1639-1640.-Buried Philip Massinger, a STRANGER." His sepulchre was like his life-obscure. Like the nightingale, he sang darkling-it is to be feared, like the nightingale of the fable, with his breast against a thorn. Eighteen of his plays are in print; and one of these, "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," is still often played at our theatres. Sir Giles Overreach, a greedy, crafty money -getter, is the great character of this powerful drama. This part was among the best personations of Kean and Booth.

FROM "A NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS." Mary. Your pleasure, sir?

Overreach. Ha! this is a neat dressing!
These orient pearls and diamonds well placed too!
The gown affects me not: it should have been
Embroidered o'er and o'er with flowers of gold;
But these rich jewels and quaint fashion help it.
And how below? since oft the wanton eye,
The face observed, descends unto the foot,
Which, being well-proportioned, as yours is,
Invites as much as perfect white and red,
Though without art.

How like you your new woman,
The Lady Downfallen?

Mary. Well for a companion,
Not for a servant. *

#

*

I pity her fortune.

Over. Pity her? Trample on her!

Mary. You know your own ways; but for me,
I blush

When I command her, that was once attended
With persons not inferior to myself
In birth.

Over. In birth? Why, art thou not my daugh

ter,

The blest child of my industry and wealth?
Why, foolish girl, was 't not to make thee great
That I have run, and still pursue, those ways
That hale down curses on me, which I mind not?
Part with these humble thoughts, and apt thyself
To the noble state I labor to advance thee;
Or, by my hopes to see thee honorable,
I will adopt a stranger to my heir,
And throw thee from my care! do not provoke me!

WAITING FOR DEATH.

FROM "THE EMPEROR OF THE EAST."

Why art thou slow, thou rest of trouble, Death,
To stop a wretch's breath

That calls on thee, and offers her sad heart
A prey unto thy dart?

I am nor young nor fair; be, therefore, bold.
Sorrow hath made me old,

John Ford.

Ford (1586-1639), a Devonshire man, belonged to the brilliant dramatic brotherhood of his period. He united authorship with practice as a lawyer. Hallam says that Ford has "the power over tears;" but his themes are often painful and even revolting.

MUSICAL CONTEST WITH A NIGHTINGALE.

FROM "THE LOVER'S MELANCHOLY."

Menaphon. Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales
Which poets of an elder time have feigned
To glorify their Tempe bred in me
Desire of visiting that Paradise.

To Thessaly I came; and living private,
Without acquaintance of more sweet companions
Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts,
I day by day frequented silent groves
And solitary walks. One morning early
This accident encountered me: I heard
The sweetest and most ravishing contention
That art and nature ever were at strife in.
Amethus. I cannot yet conceive what you infer
By art and nature.

Men. I shall soon resolve you.

A sound of music touched mine ears, or, rather,
Indeed, entranced my soul: as I stole nearer,
Invited by the melody, I saw

This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute,
With strains of strange variety and harmony,
Proclaiming, as it seemed, so bold a challenge
To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds,
That, as they flocked about him, all stood silent,
Wondering at what they heard. I wondered too.
Amet. And so do I. Good! On-
Men. A nightingale,

Nature's best-skilled musician, undertakes
The challenge; and for every several strain

The well-shaped youth could touch, she sung her

own.

He could not run divisions with more art
Upon his quaking instrument, than she,
The nightingale, did, with her various notes,
Reply to; for a voice, and for a sound,
Amethus, 'tis much easier to believe

That such they were than hope to hear again.
Amet. How did the rivals part?
Men. You term them rightly;

For they were rivals, and their mistress, harmony.
Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last
Into a pretty anger that a bird,

Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes,
Should vie with him for mastery, whose study
Had busied many hours to perfect practice.
To end the controversy,-in a rapture
Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly,

So many voluntaries, and so quick,
That there was curiosity and cunning,

Concord in discord, lines of differing method
Meeting in one full centre of delight.

Amet. Now for the bird.

Men. The bird, ordained to be

Music's first martyr, strove to imitate

49

These several sounds; which when her warbling

throat

Failed in, for grief down dropt she on his lute, And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness To see the conqueror upon her hearse

To weep a funeral elegy of tears:

That, trust me, my Amethus-I could chide
Mine own unmanly weakness-that made me
A fellow-mourner with him.

Amet. I believe thee.

Men. He looked upon the trophies of his art, Then sighed, then wiped his eyes; then sighed and cried,

"Alas! poor creature, I will soon revenge
This cruelty upon the author of it.
Henceforth this late, guilty of innocent blood,
Shall nevermore betray a harmless peace
To an untimely end:"-and in that sorrow,
As he was pashing it against a tree,
I suddenly stept in.'

William Drummond.

Drummond (1585-1649), "the first Scotch poet who wrote well in English" (according to Southey), was born at Hawthornden, near Edinburgh. His father, Sir John Drummond, held a situation about the person of James VI. (afterward James I. of England). The poet studied law, but relinquished it, as his delight was in literature. Drayton and Ben Jonson were among his friends; and he says of the latter, "He dissuaded me from poetry for that she had beggared him when he might have been a rich lawyer, physician, or merchant." Drummond reproduced the conventional Italian sonnet with success. He died, it is said, of grief at the execu tion of Charles I.

THE UNIVERSE.

Of this fair volume which we World do name,
If we the leaves and sheets could turn with care,-
Of Him who it corrects and did it frame
We clear might read the art and wisdom rare,
Find out His power, which wildest powers doth

tame,

His providence extending everywhere,

His justice which proud rebels doth not spare, In every page and period of the same.

1 Crashaw has versified this incident in his "Music's Duel," which, like most imitations, is far inferior, in simplicity and point, to the original.