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LET me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove;
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be
taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But hears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spight,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in their parts do crowned sit,

I make my love engrafted to this store:

So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised, Whilst that this shadow doth such substance

give,

That I in thy abundance am sufficed,

And by a part of all thy glory live.

Look what is best, that best I wish in thee; This wish I have; then ten times happy me!

THOSE lips, that Love's own hand did make,
Breathed forth the sound that said "I hate,”
To me that languish for her sake.
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that, ever sweet,
Was used in giving gentle doom;
And taught it thus anew to greet:
"I hate" she alter'd with an end
That follow'd it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who, like a fiend,
From heav'n to hell is flown away.
"I hate"-from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying-"not you."

No longer mourn for me when I am dead,
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell;
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I, perhaps, compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

WHEN in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possest,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark, at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

SAY that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
And I will comment upon that offence;
Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt;
Against thy reasons making no defence.
Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill,
To set a form upon desired change,
As I'll myself disgrace: knowing thy will,
I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange;
Be absent from thy walks; and on my tongue
Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell;
Lest I (too much profane) should do it wrong,
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
For thee, against myself I'll vow debate,
For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.

LET me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone,
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spight,
Which though it alter not love's sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame;
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
But do not so; I love thee in such sort,
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

[dear,

ALAS, 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most
Made old offences of affections new.
Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth
Askance and strangely; but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worst assaies proved thee my best of love.
Now all is done, have what shall have no end:
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
A god in love, to whom I am confined.
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best
Even to thy pure and most, most loving breast.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

[Born, 1552. Died, 1618.]

Ir is difficult exactly to estimate the poetical character of this great man, as many of the pieces that are ascribed to him have not been authenticated. Among these is the "Soul's Farewell," which possesses a fire of imagination that we would willingly ascribe to him; but his claim to it, as has been already mentioned, is exceedingly doubtful. The tradition of his having written it on the night before his execution, is highly interesting to the fancy, but, like many fine stories, it has the little defect of being untrue, as the poem was in existence more than twenty years before his death. It has accordingly been placed in this collection, with several other pieces to which his name has been conjecturally affixed, among the anonymous poetry of that period.

Sir Walter was born at Hayes Farm, in Devonshire, and studied at Oxford. Leaving the university at seventeen, he fought for six years under the Protestant banners in France, and afterwards served a campaign in the Netherlands. He next distinguished himself in Ireland during the rebellion of 1580, under the lord deputy Lord Grey de Wilton, with whom his personal disputes eventually promoted his fortunes; for being heard in his own cause on returning to England, he won the favour of Elizabeth, who knighted him, and raised him to such honours as alarmed the jealousy of her favourite Leicester.

In the mean time, as early as 1579, he had commenced his adventures with a view to colonize America-surveyed the territory now called Virginia, in 1584, and fitted out successive fleets in support of the infant colony. In the destruction of the Spanish armada, as well as in the expedition to Portugal in behalf of Don Antonio, he had his full share of action and glory; and though recalled, in 1592, from the appointment of general of the expedition against Panama, he must have made a princely fortune by the success of his fleet, which sailed upon that occasion, and returned with the richest prize that had ever been brought to England. The queen was about this period so indignant with him for an amour which he had with one of her maids of honour, that, though he married the lady, (she was the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton,) her majesty committed

THE SILENT LOVER.

PASSIONS are liken'd best to floods and streams,
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;
So when affection yields discourse, it seems
The bottom is but shallow whence they come;
They that are rich in words must needs discover
They are but poor in that which makes a lover.

Wrong not, sweet mistress of my heart,
The merit of true passion,

With thinking that he feels no smart
That sues for no compassion.

him, with his fair partner, to the Tower. The queen forgave him, however, at last, and rewarded his services with a grant of the manor of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, where he built a magnificent seat. Raleigh's mind was not one that was destined to travel in the wheel-ruts of common prejudice. It was rumoured that he had carried the freedom of his philosophical speculation to an heretical height on many subjects; and his acceptance of the church lands of Sherborne, already mentioned, probably supplied additional motives to the clergy to swell the outery against his principles. He was accused (by the jesuits) of atheism—a charge which his own writings sufficiently refute. Whatever were his opinions, the public saved him the trouble of explaining them; and the queen, taking it for granted that they must be bad, gave him an open, and, no doubt, edifying reprimand. To console himself under these circumstances, he projected the conquest of Guiana, sailed thither in 1595, and having captured the city of San Joseph, returned and published an account of his voyage. In the following year he acted gallantly under the Earl of Essex at Cadiz, as well as in what was called the "Island Voyage."* On the latter occasion he failed of complete success only through the jealousy of the favourite.

His letter to Cecil, in which he exhorted that statesman to the destruction of Essex, forms but too sad and notorious a blot in our hero's memory; yet even that offence will not reconcile us to behold the successor of Elizabeth robbing Raleigh of his estate to bestow it on the minion Carr; and on the grounds of a plot in which his participation was never proved, condemning to fifteen years of imprisonment the man who had enlarged the empire of his country, and the boundaries of human knowledge. James could estimate the wise, but shrunk from cordiality with the brave. He released Raleigh, from avaricious hopes about the mine of Guiana; and when disappointed in that object, sacrificed him to motives still baser than avarice. On the 29th of October, 1618, Raleigh perished on a scaffold, in Old Palace-yard, by a sentence originally iniquitous, and which his commission to Guiana had virtually revoked.

Since if my plaints were not t' approve
The conquest of thy beauty,

It comes not from defect of love,
But fear t' exceed my duty.

For not knowing that I sue to serve
A saint of such perfection

As all desire, but none deserve

A place in her affection,

A voyage that was aimed principally at the Spanish Plate fleets.

I rather choose to want relief

Than venture the revealing;
Where glory recommends the grief,
Despair disdains the healing.

Silence in love betrays more woe
Than words, though ne'er so witty;
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity.

Then wrong not, dearest to my heart,
My love for secret passion;

He smarteth most who hides his smart, And sues for no compassion.*

A NYMPH'S DISDAIN OF LOVE.
HEY down a down, did Dian sing,
Amongst her virgins sitting,
Than love there is no vainer thing
For maidens most unfitting:

And so think I, with a down down derry.

When women knew no woe,
But lived themselves to please,
Men's feigning guiles they did not know,
The ground of their disease.

Unborn was false Suspect;
No thought of Jealousy;

From wanton toys and fond affect
The virgin's life was free;

Hey down a down, did Dian sing, &c.

At length men used charms,
To which what maids gave ear,
Embracing gladly endless harms,
Anon enthralled were.

Thus women welcomed woe,
Disguised in name of love;
A jealous hell, a painted show,
So shall they find that prove.

Hey down a down, did Dian sing,
Amongst her virgins sitting,
Than love there is no vaincr thing,
For maidens most unfitting.

THE SHEPHERD'S DESCRIPTION OF LOVE. Ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh in "England's Helicon." Melib. SHEPHERD, what's love? I pray thee tell. Faust. It is that fountain and that well

Where pleasure and repentance dwell;
It is, perhaps, that sauncing bell
That tolls all into heav'n or hell,
And this is love as I heard tell.

M. Yet, what is love? I prithee say.
F. It is a work on holiday;

It is December match'd with May,
When lusty blood's in fresh array,
And this is love as I hear say.

[This poem is attributed to Lord Pembroke,-but it has been ascribed with great probability to Sir Robert Ayton in a MS. and contemporary volume of Ayton's poems once in Mr. Heber's hands.-C.]

M. Yet, what is love? good shepherd, sain. F. It is a sunshine mixt with rain;

It is a toothache, or like pain;

It is a game where none doth gain;
The lass saith no, and would full fain,
And this is love as I hear sain.

M. Yet, shepherd, what is love, I pray?
F. It is a yea, it is a nay,

A pretty kind of sporting fray,
It is a thing will soon away;

Then nymphs take vantage while you may,
And this is love as I hear say.

M. And what is love, good shepherd, show?
F. A thing that creeps, it cannot go;

A prize that passeth to and fro;
A thing for one, a thing for moe,
And he that proves shall find it so;
And, shepherd, this is love, I trow.

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HIS LOVE ADMITS NO RIVAL.

SHALL I, like a hermit, dwell,
On a rock, or in a cell,
Calling home the smallest part
That is missing of my heart,
To bestow it where I may
Meet a rival every day?
If she undervalue me,

What care I how fair she be!
Were her tresses angel gold,
If a stranger may be bold,
Unrebuked, unafraid,

To convert them to a braid,
And with little more ado
Work them into bracelets, too?
If the mine be grown so free,
What care I how rich it be!
Were her band as rich a prize
As her hairs, or precious eyes,

If she lay them out to take
Kisses, for good manners' sake:
And let every lover skip
From her hand unto her lip;

If she seem not chaste to me,
What care I how chaste she be!

No; she must be perfect snow,
In effect as well as show;
Warming but as snow-balls do,
Not like fire, by burning too;
But when she by change hath got
To her heart a second lot,
Then, if others share with me,
Farewell her, whate'er she be!

A VISION UPON "THE FAIRY QUEEN." 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 Fairy 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 heavens did pierce, Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief, And cursed th' access of that celestial thief.

JOSHUA SYLVESTER,

[Born, 1563. Died, 1618.]

WHO in his day obtained the epithet of the Silvertongued, was a merchant adventurer, and died abroad, at Middleburgh, in 1618. He was a candidate, in the year 1597, for the office of secretary to a trading company at Stade; on which occasion the Earl of Essex seems to have taken a friendly interest in his fortunes. Though esteemed by the court of England, (on one occasion he signs himself the pensioner of Prince Henry,)* he is said to have been driven from home by the enmity which his satires excited. This seems very extraordinary, as there is nothing in his vague and dull declamations against vice that needed to have ruffled the most thin-skinned enemies-so

TO RELIGION.

STANZAS FROM "ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS."
RELIGION, O thou life of life,
How worldlings, that profane thee rife,
Can wrest thee to their appetites!
How princes, who thy power deny,
Pretend thee for their tyranny,
And people for their false delights!

[He had a yearly pension of twenty pounds from Prince Henry. Owen the Epigrammatist had the same sum: and Drayton had ten.-C.]

that his travels were probably made more from the hope of gain than the fear of persecution. He was an eminent linguist, and writes his dedications in several languages, but in his own he often fathoms the bathos, and brings up such lines as these to King James.

So much, O king, thy sacred worth presume I on,
James, the just heir of England's lawful union.

His works are chiefly translations, including that of the "Divine Weeks and Works of Du Bartas." His claim to the poem of the "Soul's Errand," as has been already mentioned, is to be entirely set aside.

Under thy sacred name, all over,
The vicious all their vices cover;
The insolent their insolence,

The proud their pride, the false their fraud,
The thief his theft, her filth the bawd,
The impudent their impudence.
Ambition under thee aspires,
And Avarice under thee desires;
Sloth under thee her ease assumes,
Lux under thee all overflows,
Wrath under thee outrageous grows,
All evil under thee presumes.

Religion, erst so venerable,

What art thou now but made a fable,

A holy mask on Folly's brow,
Where under lies Dissimulation,
Lined with all abomination.

Sacred Religion, where art thou?

Not in the church with Simony,
Not on the bench with Bribery,
Nor in the court with Machiavel,
Nor in the city with deceits,
Nor in the country with debates;
For what hath Heaven to do with Hell?

SAMUEL DANIEL.

[Born, 1562, Died, Oct. 1619.]

SAMUEL DANIEL was the son of a music-master, and was born at Taunton, in Somersetshire. He was patronized and probably maintained at Oxford, by the noble family of Pembroke. At the age of twenty-three he translated Paulus Jovius's Discourse of Rare Inventions." He was afterwards tutor to the accomplished and spirited Lady Anne Clifford, daughter to the Earl of Cumberland, who raised a monument to his memory, on which she recorded that she had been his pupil. At the death of Spenser he furnished, as a

RICHARD THE SECOND, THE MORNING BEFORE
HIS MURDER IN POMFRET CASTLE.
DANIEL'S CIVIL WARS, ST. 62, 69.7
WHETHER the soul receives intelligence,
By her near genius, of the body's end,
And so imparts a sadness to the sense,
Foregoing ruin, whereto it doth tend;
Or whether nature else hath conference
With profound sleep, and so doth warning send,
By prophetizing dreams, what hurt is near,
And gives the heavy careful heart to fear :-
However, so it is, the now sad king,
Toss'd here and there his quiet to confound,
Feels a strange weight of sorrows gathering
Upon his trembling heart, and sees no ground;
Feels sudden terror bring cold shivering;
Lists not to eat, still muses, sleeps unsound;
His senses droop, his steady eyes unquick,
And much he ails, and yet he is not sick.
The morning of that day which was his last,
After a weary rest, rising to pain,
Out at a little grate his eyes he cast
Upon those bordering hills and open plain,
Where others' liberty makes him complain
The more his own, and grieves his soul the more,
Conferring captive crowns with freedom poor.
O happy man, saith he, that lo I see,
Grazing his cattle in those pleasant fields,
If he but knew his good. How blessed he
That feels not what affliction greatness yields!
Other than what he is he would not be,
Nor change his state with him that sceptre wields.
Thine, thine is that true life: that is to live,
To rest secure, and not rise up to grieve.

The latest editor of Jonson affirms the whole conduct of that great poet towards Daniel to have been perfectly honourable. Some small exception to this must be made, when we turn to the derision of Daniel's verses, which is pointed out by the editor himself, in Cynthia's Revels.

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Thou sitt'st at home safe by thy quiet fire,
And hear'st of others' harms, but fearest none:
And there thou tell'st of kings, and who aspire,
Who fall, who rise, who triumph, who do moan.
Perhaps thou talk'st of me, and dost inquire
Of my restraint, why here I live alone,
And pitiest this my miserable fall;
For pity must have part-envy not all.
Thrice happy you that look as from the shore,
And have no venture in the wreck you see;
No interest, no occasion to deplore
Other men's travels, while yourselves sit free.
How much doth your sweet rest make us the more
To see our misery and what we be:
Whose blinded greatness, ever in turmoil,
Still seeking happy life, makes life a toil.

LOVE IN INFANCY.

АH! I remember well (and how can I
But evermore remember well) when first
Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was
The flame we felt; whenas we sat and sigh'd
And look'd upon each other, and conceived
Not what we ail'd, yet something we did ail;
And yet were well, and yet we were not well,
And what was our disease we could not tell.
Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look: And thus
In that first garden of our simpleness
We spent our childhood: But when years began
To reap the fruit of knowledge; ah, how then
Would she with graver looks, and sweet stern brow,
Check my presumption and my forwardness;
Yet still would give me flowers, still would me show
What she would have me, yet not have me know.

This was unworthy of Jonson, as the verses of Daniel at which he sneers are not contemptible, and as Daniel was confessedly an amiable man, who died "beloved, honoured, and lamented."-E.

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