WILLIAM BROWNE was born at Tavistock, Devon, in the year 1590. From the Grammar School of that town he entered at Exeter College, Oxford, but, without taking a degree, removed to the Inner Temple, where he appears to have preferred the Muse's lore to the sober study of the Law. The poem to which he is chiefly indebted for his reputation must have been written at a very early age-while the impressions left on his mind by the natural beauties of his native county were yet fresh and vivid. The first part of Britannia's Pastorals, published in 1613, was, according to the fashion of the time, heralded by many learned friends, among whom were Selden and Drayton; and on the appearance of part the second, three years afterwards, similar compliments were conferred upon him by Wither and Ben Jonson. Between the issues of these two parts, he printed the Shepherd's Pipe, in seven Eclogues, and wrote the "Inner Temple Masque." He was subsequently appointed tutor to the young Earl of Caernarvon, who was slain at the battle of Newbury, and received the patronage and resided in the family of the Earl of Pembroke, where, according to Wood, "he got wealth and purchased an estate." Of his life little else is known save that he returned to Devonshire, and died at Ottery St. Mary, in 1645,and of his personal appearance it is only recorded that "as he had a little body so a great mind."

His great poem, "Britannia's Pastorals," is divided into ten "Songs "-in which a variety of personages, real and fictitious, are introduced; it is built upon a dreamy, but not a systematic adoration of Nature; and resembles a piece of gorgeous tapestry, where the drawing is fine and the colours are gay and vivid, but in which there is a total want of keeping, and an absence of harmony, both in design and execution. He abounds in frivolous comparisons and absurd conceits, and his descriptions are frequently either puerile or extravagant. Yet he was "admired and beloved by all the best writers of his time"-was "reputed a man not only the best versed in the works and beauties of the English Poets, but also in the history of their lives and characters" -the acknowledged sources of his inspiration were the Fairy Queen and the Arcadia— and his had the honor of suggesting Comus and Lycidas.

The attentive reader of Britannia's Pastorals will certainly be at no loss to account for the fame of the writer. If he is willing to pass over its defects, he will find it abounding in beauties of the very highest order-beauties perhaps unsurpassed by any author in our language. He is at times full of nerve and fire, his imagination is always rich and fertile, and his mind healthy and vigorous. He is, moreover, one of those whom the Poet of our own age so eloquently describes as

"Nature's true friends,

The friends of God and Truth."

His versification is, for the most part, easy and harmonious, for he had obtained a complete mastery over the English tongue. His great fault is that rural descriptions form the staple and not the ornaments of his poetry; while his allegories, in which he abounds, are tame and spiritless. The extracts we have given, illustrative both of his character and style, will bear out perhaps higher praise than we have bestowed upon the Poet and the Man.

His Shepherd's Pipe is decidedly inferior; but from the Inner Temple Masque, which suggested to Milton the idea of “Comus"--we have given the "Syren's Song one of the most perfect examples of his fancy.

Although he wore the bays proudly during his life-time, his works soon after his death became extremely scarce-unhappily because they were neglected or forgottenso scarce indeed that in an advertisement to an edition of them it is stated "if the Rev. Mr. Thomas Warton had not lent his own copy to be transcribed, the public might have been deprived of so valuable a treasure." We record, with gratitude, the name of its preserver.

Mr. Coleridge, in a MS. note to the life of Browne, states that Ottery St. Mary was the birth-place of the Poet-the town in which Coleridge was himself born. But Prince, in his Worthies of Devon, assigns that honour to Tavistock; and Glanville, Speaker of the House of Commons (Charles 1.), addresses to Browne a sonnet as to his fellow-townsman of Tavistock.

Now as an angler melancholy standing, Upon a greene bancke yeelding roome for landing, A wrigling yealow worme thrust on his hooke, Now in the midst he throwes, then in a nooke: Here pulls his line, there throws it in againe, Mending his croke and baite, but all in vaine, He long stands viewing of the curled streame; At last a hungry pike, or well-growne breame, Snatch at the worme, and hasting fast away He, knowing it a fish of stubborne sway, Puls up his rod, but soft; (as having skill) Wherewith the hooke fast holds the fishe's gill.

My free-borne Muse will not, like Danae, be
Wonne with base drosse to clip with slavery;
Nor lend her choiser balme to worthless men,
Whose names would die but for some hired pen;
No: if I praise, vertue shall draw me to it,
And not a base procurement make me doe it.
What now I sing is but to passe away
A tedious houre, as some musitians play;
Or make another my owne griefes bemone;
Or to be least alone when most alone.
In this can I, as oft as I will choose,
Hug sweet content by my retyred Muse,
And in a study finde as much to please
As others in the greatest pallaces.

Each man that lives (according to his powre)
On what he loves bestowes an idle howre;
Instead of hounds that make the wooded hils
Talke in a hundred voyces to the rils,
I like the pleasing cadence of a line
Strucke by the concert of the sacred Nine.
In lieu of hawkes, the raptures of my soule
Transcend their pitch and baser earth's controule.
For running horses, contemplation flyes
With quickest speed to winne the greatest prize.
For courtly dancing I can take more pleasure
To heare a verse keepe time and equall measure.
For winning riches, seeke the best directions
How I may well subdue mine owne affections.
For raysing stately pyles for heyres to come,
Here in this poem I erect my tombe.

And time may be so kinde, in these weake lines
To keepe my name enroll'd, past his, that shines

In gilded marble, or in brazen leaves:

Since verse preserves when stone and brasse deceives.
Or if (as worthlesse) time not lets it live

To those full dayes which others' Muses give,
Yet I am sure I shall be heard and sung
Of most severest eld and kinder young
Beyond my dayes, and maugre Envye's strife
Adde to my name some houres beyond my life.
Such of the Muses are the able powres,
And, since with them I spent my vacant houres,
I find nor hawke, nor hound, nor other thing,
Turnyes nor revels, pleasures for a king,

Yeeld more delight; for I have oft possest
As much in this as all in all the rest,

And that without expence, when others oft
With their undoings have their pleasures bought.

*

*

*

*

Requests, that with deniall could not meet,
Flew to our shepheard, and the voyces sweet
Of fairest nymphes intreating him to say
What wight he lov'd; he thus began his lay:
"Shall I tell you whom I love?
Hearken then a while to me;
And if such a woman move
As I now shall versifie;
Be assur'd, 'tis she, or none
That I love, and love alone.
"Nature did her so much right,
As she scornes the help of art.

In as many vertues dight

As e're yet imbrac'd a hart.
So much good so truely tride
Some for lesse were deifide.

"Wit she hath without desire

To make knowne how much she hath;

And her anger flames no higher

Than may fitly sweeten wrath.

Ful of pitty as may be,

Though perhaps not so to me.

"Reason masters every sense,

And her vertues grace her birth;

Lovely as all excellence,

Modest in her most of mirth:
Likelihood enough to prove

Onely worth could kindle love.

"Such she is and if you know
Such a one as I have sung;
Be she browne, or faire, or so,
That she be but somewhile young;

Be assur'd, 'tis she, or none
That I love, and love alone."

VENUS by Adonis' side
Crying kist and kissing cryde,
Wrung her hands and tore her hayre
For Adonis dying there.

"Stay," (quoth she) "O stay and live! Nature surely doth not give

To the earth her sweetest flowres
To be seene but some few houres."

On his face, still as he bled
For each drop a tear she shed,
Which she kist or wipt away,
Else had drown'd him where he lay.

"Fair Proserpina" (quoth she)
"Shall not have thee yet from me;
Nor thy soul to flye begin
While my lips can keepe it in."

Here she clos'd again. And some
Say, Apollo would have come
To have cur'd his wounded lym,
But that she had smother'd him.

NEVERMORE let holy Dee
O're other rivers brave,
Or boast how (in his jollity)
Kings row'd upon his wave.
But silent be, and ever know
That Neptune for my fare would row.

Those were captives. If he say
That now I am no other,
Yet she that beares my prison's key
Is fairer than Love's mother;
A god tooke me, those one lesse high,
They wore their bonds, so doe not I.

Swell, then, gently swell, ye floods,
As proud of what you beare,
And nymphes that in low corrall woods
String pearles upon your hayre,