With princes, since their will and acts must be Accounted one day to a Judge supreme. Wife. I ha' done. If the devotion to my lord, Or pity to his innocence, have led me Beyond the awful limits to be observed By one so much beneath your sacred person, I thus low crave your royal pardon, madam; [Kneels. I know you will remember, in your goodness, To fear he may be worth the law's condemning. Wife [rising.] I sooner will suspect the stars may lose Their way, and crystal heaven return to chaos; ANONYMOUS. FROM "SELECT AYRES AND DIALOGUES," BY I DO confess thou 'rt smooth and fair, That lip could move had power to move thee; But I can let thee now alone, As worthy to be loved by none. I do confess thou 'rt sweet, yet find Which kisseth every thing it meets; The morning-rose, that untouch'd stands Arm'd with her briers, how sweetly smells! But pluck'd and strain'd through ruder hands, Her sweet no longer with her dwells; But scent and beauty both are gone, And leaves fall from her one by one. Such fate ere long will thee betide, SONG. From p. 11 of "Cromwell's Conspiracy, a tragi-comedy, relating to our latter Times; beginning at the death of King Charles the First, and ending with the happy Restauration of King Charles the Second. Written by a Person of Quality." 4to, Lond. 1660. How happy 's the pris'ner that conquers his fate With silence, and ne'er on bad fortune complains, But carelessly plays with his keys on the grate, And makes a sweet concert with them and his chains! [oppress'd, He drowns care with sack, while his thoughts are And makes his heart float like a cork in his breast. [* To this song, which was written by Sir Robert Ayton, Burns gave a Scots dress, but failed to improve.] Then since w' are all slaves who islanders be, And the world's a large prison enclosed with the sea, We will drink up the ocean, and set ourselves free, For man is the world's epitome. Let tyrants wear purple, deep dyed in the blood Of them they have slain, their sceptres to sway: If our conscience be clear, and our title be good To the rags that hang on us, w' are richer than they: We'll drink down at night what we beg or can Come, drawer, and fill us a peck of Canary, By the juice of the grape he turn'd Stagyrite; Copernicus once in a drunken fit found [round. By the course of his brains that the world turned Then since w' are all slaves, &c. "Tis sack makes our faces like comets to shine, And gives beauty beyond a complexion mask; Diogenes fell so in love with his wine, That when 'twas all out he still lived in the cask; And he so loved the scent of the wainscotted room, That dying he desired a tub for his tomb. Then since w'are all slaves, &c. LOYALTY CONFINED. FROM THE SAME. Ascribed to Sir Roger L'Estrange. BEAT on, proud billows; Boreas, blow; That innocence is tempest-proof: Though surly Nereus frown, my thoughts are calm; Then strike, Affliction, for thy wounds are balm. That which the world miscalls a jail, A private closet is to me; Locks, bars, and solitude, together met, I, whilst I wish'd to be retired, Into this private room was turn'd, As if their wisdoms had conspired The salamander should be burn'd; Or like a sophy, that would drown a fish, I am constrained to suffer what I wish. Thy cynic hugs his poverty, The pelican her wilderness; Contentment cannot smart, stoics we see I as my mistress' favours wear; I have some iron shackles there. These walls are but my garrison; this cell, Like some high-prized Margaret; And thus, proud sultan, I'm as great as thee. To keep vice out, and keep me in: A pilgrim coop'd into a cage, In that her narrow hermitage? Although my baser part's immured, Whilst loyal thoughts do still repair, T'accompany my solitude: And though immured, yet I can chirp and sing, What though I cannot see my king, That renders what I have not mine. I am that bird whom they combine UPON AMBITION. OCCASIONED ON THE ACCUSATION OF THE EARL OF STRAFFORD, IN 1640. From the "Rump," a collection of poems and songs relating to the times from 1639 to 1661. Lond. 1662. How uncertain is the state Of that greatness we adore; When ambitiously we soar, And have ta'en the glorious height, "Tis but ruin gilded o'er, To enslave us to our fate, Whose false delight is easier got than kept, Then how fondly do we try, With such superstitious care, Or seek safety in that sky, Where no stars but meteors are That portend a ruin nigh: And having reach'd the object of our aim, ALEXANDER BROME. [Born, 1620. Died, 1666.] ALEXANDER BROME was an attorney in the Lord Mayor's Court. From a verse in one of his poems, it would seem that he had been sent once in the civil war, (by compulsion no doubt,) on the parliament side, but had stayed only three days, and never fought against the king and the cavaliers. He was in truth a strenuous loyalist, and the bacchanalian songster of his party. Most of the songs and epigrams that were published against the Rump have been ascribed to him. He had, besides, a share in the translation of Horace, with Fanshawe, Holiday, Cowley, and others, and published a single comedy, the Cun ning Lovers, which was acted in 1651, at the private house in Drury. There is a playful variety in his metre, that probably had a better effect in song than in reading. His thoughts on love and the bottle have at least the merit of being decently jovial, though he arrays the trite arguments of convivial invitation in few original images. In studying the traits and complexion of a past age, amusement, if not illustration, will often be found from the ordinary effusions of party ridicule. In this view, the Diurnal, and other political satires of Brome, have an extrinsic value as contemporary caricatures. THE RESOLVE. TELL me not of a face that's fair, That like an angel sings; The glories of your ladies be Each common object brings. Roses out-red their lips and cheeks, Lilies their whiteness stain: What fool is he that shadows seeks, And may the substance gain! Then if thou 'It have me love a lass, Let it be one that's kind, Else I'm a servant to the glass That's with Canary lined. ON CANARY. Or all the rare juices That Bacchus or Ceres produces, That a fancy infuses; And next the nine Muses: 'Twas this made old poets so sprightly to sing, And fill all the world with the glory and fame on't; They Helicon call'd it, and the Thespian spring, But this was the drink, though they knew not the name on't. Our cider and perry May make a man mad, but not merry; And your hops, yeast, and malt, It stuffs up our brains with froth and with yest, These liquors won't raise, but drown, and o'erwhelm man. Our drowsy metheglin Was only ordained to inveigle in The novice that knows not to drink yet, Have a gunpowder fury; But they won't long endure you. The bagrag and Rhenish You must with ingredients replenish; 'Tis a wine to please ladies and toys with; But 'tis sack makes the sport, And who gains but that flavour, In his high-shoes he'll have her; "Tis this that advances the drinker and drawer: Though the father came to town in his hobnails and leather, He turns it to velvet, and brings up an heir, In the town in his chain, in the field with his feather. [ What is "Divine" has much of the essence of poetry; that which is human, of the frailty of the flesh. Some are playfully pastoral, some sweetly Anacreontic, some in the higher key of religion, others lasciviously wanton and unclean. The whole collection seems to have passed into oblivion till about the year 1796, and since then we have had a separate volume of selections, and two complete reprints. His several excellences have preserved his many indecencies, the divinity of his verse (poetically speaking) the dunghill of his obscener moods. Southey, Each virgin like a Spring Whose silvery feet did tread, And, with dishevell❜d hair, Adorn'd this smoother mead. Like unthrifts, having spent Your stock, and needy grown, Ye're left here to lament Your poor estates alone. admitting the perennial beauty of many of his poems, has styled him, not with too much severity, "a coarseminded and beastly writer." Jones' Attempts in Verse, p. 85; see also Quar. Rev. vol. iv. p. 171.-C.] [The last and best edition of Herrick was published by H. G. Clarke, London, 1844. in two volumes. The life of Herrick, we are inclined to think, was as licentious as his verse, and both disgraced the church and served well to round the periods of Puritan lamentations and anathemas.-G.] SONG. GATHER ye rose-buds, while ye may, And this same flower that smiles to-day, The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse and worst Times still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time, And, whilst ye may, go marry; FAIR pledges of a fruitful tree, What, were ye born to be An hour or half's delight, But you are lovely leaves, where we THE COUNTRY LIFE. SWEET Country life, to such unknown To bring from thence the scorched clove: Is the wise master's feet and hands. There at the plough thou find'st thy team, |