HER quick'ning power in ev'ry living part,
Doth as a nurse, or as a mother serve;

And doth employ her œconomick art,

And buisy care, her household to preserve.

Here she attracts, and there she doth retain ; There she dococts, and doth the food prepare;

There she distributes it to ev'ry vein,

There she expels what she may fitly spare.

This pow'r to Martha may compared be,
Who buisy was, the household things to do;
Or to a Dryas, living in a tree:

For e'en to trees this pow'r is proper to.

And though the soul may not this pow'r extend
Out of the body, but still use it there;
She hath a pow'r which she abroad doth send,
Which views and searcheth all things ev'ry where.

What is this knowledge? but the sky-stoll'n fire,
For which the thief still chain'd in ice doth sit?

And which the poor rude satyr did admire,

And needs would kiss, but burnt his lips with it.

What is it? but the cloud of empty rain,

Which when Jove's guest embrac'd, he monsters got? Or the false pails, which oft being fill'd with pain, Receiv'd the water, but retain'd it not?

In fine, what is it? but the fiery coach

Which the youth sought, and sought his death withal? Or the boy's wings, which when he did approach The sun's hot beams, did melt and let him fall?

And yet, alas! when all our lamps are burn'd,
Our bodies wasted, and our spirits spent ;
When we have all the learned volumes turn'd
Which yield men's wits both help and ornament:

What can we know, or what can we discern,

When error clouds the windows of the mind? The divers forms of things, how can we learn, That have been ever from our birth-day blind?

When reason's lamp, which (like the sun in sky) Throughout man's little world her beams did spread, Is now become a sparkle, which doth lie

Under the ashes, half extinct, and dead:

How can we hope, that through the eye and ear,
This dying sparkle, in this cloudy place,
Can recollect these beams of knowledge clear,
Which were infus'd in the first minds by grace?

So might the heir, whose father hath, in play,
Wasted a thousand pounds of ancient rent,
By painful earning of one groat a day,
Hope to restore the patrimony spent.

If ought can teach us ought, affliction's looks,
(Making us pry into ourselves so near)
Teach us to know ourselves, beyond all books,
Or all the learned schools that ever were.

This mistress lately pluck'd me by the ear,

And many a golden lesson hath me taught; Hath made my senses quick, and reason clear; Reform'd my will, and rectify'd my thought. So do the winds and thunders cleanse the air: So working seas settle and purge the wine: So lopp'd and pruned trees do flourish fair: So doth the fire the drossy gold refine.

Neither Minerva, nor the learned Muse,

Nor rules of art, nor precepts of the wise, Could in my brain those beams of skill infuse, As but the glance of this dame's angry eyes.

She within lists my ranging mind hath brought,
That now beyond myself I will not go;
Myself am centre of my circling thought,
Only myself I study, learn, and know.

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 things am thrall.

I know my life's a pain, and but a span;
I know my sense is mock'd in ev'ry thing:
And to conclude, I know myself a man,
Which is a proud, and yet a wretched thing.

*

R

JOHN DONNE was born in London in 1573; and at the early age of eleven was placed at Hart Hall, Oxford, having then given proofs of unquestionable genius; being, according to his biographer, "rather born than made wise by study." His father was a merchant, his mother was descended from the Great Chancellor Sir Thomas More, and both professed the Romish Faith. His academical residence was divided between Oxford and Cambridge, until he entered at Lincoln's Inn, with the intention of proceeding to the Bar; but this object he relinquished, devoting his time and mind to consider the controverted points between the Churches of England and Rome-the result of which was his openly and earnestly professing the reformed religion. In 1596, he accompanied the Earl of Essex in the expedition against Cadiz, and spent several years travelling in Italy and Spain; soon after his return he was appointed secretary to the Lord Chancellor Egerton, who is said on parting with him to have declared that "he was fitter to serve a king than a subject." Subsequently, he yielded to the continued solicitations of his friends, and entered into holy orders. He was promoted to be King's Chaplain, preacher of the Society of Lincoln's Inn, and Dean of St. Paul's. He died on the 31st March, 1631, and was buried in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, where a monument was erected to his memory.

During his residence with the Lord Chancellor Egerton, he had married privately, and without the consent of her father, the daughter of Sir George More, Lieutenant of the Tower, who so little esteemed the poet, that he successfully used his influence to procure his dismissal from the service of the Chancellor, and withheld from him his wife, to procure whom he was involved in a tedious and ruinous law-suit. His friend and biographer, Isaak Walton, has in his own simple and natural manner recorded the story of this young affection, and of the sad trials and pecuniary difficulties in which the poet and his wife were consequently involved; we have a beautiful though a mournful picture of the struggles of a high and generous mind against the most galling of all troubles; to him the more intolerable, because of her whom he had 'transplanted into a wretched fortune," which he "laboured to disguise from her by many honest devices."

"Donne was of stature moderately tall, of a strait and equally proportioned body; his aspect was cheerful, and such as gave a silent testimony of a clear-knowing soul, and of a conscience at peace with itself. His melting eye showed that he had a soft heart, full of noble compassion; of too brave a soul to offer injuries, and too much a Christian not to pardon them in others."

His Poems consist of "Songs and Sonnets," Epigrams, Elegies, Satires, &c. &c.— They appear rather as outbreaks of deep feeling, or reliefs to pressing troubles, than the produce of any settled purpose. His name as a poet is, however, largely known and esteemed notwithstanding his perpetual affectations and the occasional unmeasured harshness of his verse. Of his Satires, Dryden observed that they would be admired "if translated into numbers and English;" - Pope acted upon this hint; but while he gave them roundness and polish, he lessened the value of the rough and rugged masses which the Poet had heaved from the quarry of human life.

The specimens we have given will abundantly prove that all the compositions of Donne were not careless and uncouth. Some of them indeed are, by comparison, smooth even to elegance. His faults are, that he has made the natural subordinate to the artificial-that he has little of simplicity and less of taste-that he has laboured to render himself obscure rather than intelligible; and, although his productions are liable to any complaint but that of poverty, that he has crowded thought upon thought and image upon image, with so little skill or care to effect-has, in fact, so mingled beauties with deformities, that those who look with but a casual glance perceive only objects that dishearten them from desiring a nearer and more scrutinizing view. He was absolutely saturated with learning- his intellect was large and searching his fancy rich, although fantastic-and his wit playful yet caustic. At times he is full of tenderness; and in spite of himself submits to the mastery of nature. It is no slight tribute to the muse of Donne, that Jonson learnt some of his verses by heart; and our readers will at least agree with "Old Ben" in his admiration of a passage in which a Calm is described as so perfect, that

"in one place lay Feathers and dust to day and yesterday."

THE South and west winds joyn'd, and, as they blew,
Waves like a rowling trench before them threw.
Sooner than you read this line did the gale,
Like shot, not fear'd till felt, our sailes assaile;
And what at first was call'd a gust, the same
Hath now a stormes, anon a tempest's name.
Jonas! I pitty thee, and curse those men

Who, when the storm rag'd most, did wake thee then.
Sleepe is paines easiest salve, and doth fullfill
All offices of death except to kill.

But when I wak'd, I saw that I saw not;

I and the sunne, which should teach me, had forgot
East, west, day, night; and I could onely say,
If the world had lasted, now it had beene day.