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,
Nor lip and cheek that's red,
Nor of the tresses of her hair,
Nor curls in order laid;
Nor of a rare seraphic voice,

That like an angel sings;
Though if I were to take my choice,
I would have all these things.
But if that thou wilt have me love,
And it must be a she;
The only argument can move
Is, that she will love me.

The glories of your ladies be
But metaphors of things,
And but resemble what we see

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 'lt 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.

Of all the rare juices

That Bacchus or Ceres produces,
There's none that I can, nor dare I
Compare with the princely Canary.
For this is the thing

That a fancy infuses;
This first got a king,

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 ;
It makes people windmill-pated,
And with crackers sophisticated;

And your hops, yeast, and malt,
When they're mingled together,
Make our fancies to halt,
Or reel any whither;

It stuffs up our brains with froth and with yest,
That if one would write but a verse for a bellman,
He must study till Christmas for an eight-shilling
jest;

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,
But is fuddled before he can think it;
And your claret and white

Have a gunpowder fury;
They're of the French spright,

But they won't long endure you.
And your holiday muscadine, Alicant and tent,
Have only this property and virtue that's fit in't,
They'll make a man sleep till a preachment be spent,
But we neither can warm our blood nor wit in't.

The bagrag and Rhenish

You must with ingredients replenish;

'Tis a wine to please ladies and toys with;
But not for a man to rejoice with.

But 'tis sack makes the sport,
And who gains but that flavour,
Though an abbess he court,

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
With honeysuckles crowned.
But now we see none here,
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,

Old Time is still a flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

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; For having lost but once your prime, You may for ever tarry.

FAIR pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do you fall so fast?
Your date is not so past;

But you may stay yet here awhile,
To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.

What, were ye born to be

An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good-night?
"Twas pity Nature brought ye forth
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

But you are lovely leaves, where we

May read how soon things have Their end, though ne'er so brave: And after they have shown their pride, Like you, awhile, they glide Into the grave.

THE COUNTRY LIFE.

SWEET country life, to such unknown
Whose lives are others', not their own!
But, serving courts and cities, be
Less happy, less enjoying thee!
Thou never plough'st the ocean's foam
To seek and bring rough pepper home:
Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove,

To bring from thence the scorched clove:
Nor, with the lost of thy loved rest,
Bring'st home the ingot from the West.
No: thy ambition's master-piece
Flies no thought higher than a fleece;
Or how to pay thy hinds, and clear
All scores, and so to end the year;
But walk'st about thy own dear bounds,
Not envying others' larger grounds:
For well thou know'st 'tis not th' extent
Of land makes life, but sweet content.
When now the cock, the ploughman's horn,
Calls forth the lily-wristed morn,
Then to thy corn-fields thou dost go,
Which though well-soil'd, yet thou dost know
That the best compost for the lands

Is the wise master's feet and hands.

There at the plough thou find'st thy team,

With a hind whistling there to them;
And cheer'st them up by singing how
The kingdom's portion is the plough.
This done, then to th' enamell'd meads
Thou go'st; and as thy foot there treads,
Thou see'st a present godlike power
Imprinted in each herb and flower;
And smell'st the breath of great-eyed kine,
Sweet as the blossoms of the vine.
Here thou behold'st thy large sleek neat,
Unto the dewlaps up in meat;
And, as thou look'st, the wanton steer,
The heifer, cow, and ox, draw near,
To make a pleasing pastime there.

These seen, thou go'st to view thy flocks
Of sheep, safe from the wolf and fox;
And find'st their bellies there as full

Of short sweet grass, as backs with wool;
And leavest them as they feed and fill;
A shepherd piping on a hill.

For sports, for pageantry, and plays,
Thou hast thy eves and holidays;

On which the young men and maids meet,
To exercise their dancing feet;
Tripping the comely country round,
With daffodils and daisies crown'd.
Thy wakes, thy quintels, here thou hast;
Thy May-poles too, with garlands graced;
Thy morris-dance, thy Whitsun-ale,
Thy shearing feast, which never fail ;
Thy harvest-home, thy wassail-bowl,
That's tost up after fox i' th' hole;
Thy mummeries, thy Twelfth-night kings
And queens, thy Christmas revellings;
Thy nut-brown mirth, thy russet wit;
And no man pays too dear for it.
To these thou hast thy times to go,

And trace the hare in the treacherous snow;
Thy witty wiles to draw, and get
The lark into the trammel net;
Thou hast thy cockrood, and thy glade
To take the precious pheasant made;
Thy lime-twigs, snares, and pit-falls, then
To catch the pilfering birds, not men.
O happy life, if that their good
The husbandmen but understood!
Who all the days themselves do please,
And younglings, with such sports as these;
And, lying down, have nought to affright
Sweet sleep that makes more short the night.

LITANY TO THE HOLY SPIRIT.

IN the hour of my distress,
When temptations me oppress,
And when I my sins confess,

Sweet Spirit, comfort me.

When I lie within my bed,
Sick at heart, and sick at head,
And with doubts discomforted,

Sweet Spirit, comfort me.

When the house doth sigh and weep,
And the world is drowned in sleep,
Yet mine eyes the watch do keep;
Sweet Spirit, comfort me.

When the passing-bell doth toll,
And the furies in a shoal
Come to fright a parting soul,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me.

When God knows I'm tossed about,
Either with despair or doubt,
Yet before the glass be out,

Sweet Spirit, comfort me.

When the tapers now burn blue,
And the comforters are few,
And that number more than true,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me.

When the priest his last hath prayed,
And I nod to what is said,
'Cause my speech is now decayed,

Sweet Spirit, comfort me.

When the tempter me pursueth
With the sins of all my youth,
And half damns me with untruth,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me.

When the flames and hellish cries
Fright mine ears and fright mine eyes,
And all terrors me surprise,

Sweet Spirit, comfort me.

When the judgment is revealed,
And that opened which was sealed,
When to Thee I have appealed
Sweet Spirit, comfort me.

ABRAHAM COWLEY was the posthumous son of a grocer in London. His mother, though left a poor widow, found means to get him educated at Westminster School, and he obtained a scholarship at Cambridge. Before leaving the former seminary, he published his Poetical Blossoms. He wrote verses while yet a child; and amidst his best poetry as well as his worst, in his touching and tender as well as extravagant passages, there is always something that reminds us of childhood in Cowley. From Cambridge he was ejected in 1643, for his loyalty; after a short retirement, he was induced by his principles to follow the queen to Paris, as secretary to the

Earl of St. Albans, and during an absence of ten years from his native country, was employed in confidential journeys for his party, and in deciphering the royal correspondence. The object of his return to England, in 1656, I am disposed to think, is misrepresented by his biographers; they tell us that he came over under pretence of privacy, to give notice of the posture of affairs. Cowley came home indeed, and published an edition of his poems, in the preface to which he decidedly declares himself a quietist under the existing government, abjures the idea of all political hostility, and tells us that he had not only abstained from printing, but had burnt the very copies of

his verses that alluded to the civil wars. "The enmities of fellow-citizens," he continues, "should be like those of lovers, the redintegration of their amity." If Cowley employed this language to make his privacy the deeper pretence for giving secret intelligence, his office may be worthily named that of a spy; but the manliness and placidity of his character render it much more probable that he was sincere in those declarations; nor were his studious pursuits, which were chiefly botanical, well calculated for political intrigue. He took a doctor's degree, but never practised, and was one of the earliest members of the philosophical society. While Butler's satire was unworthily employed in ridiculing the infancy of that institution, Cowley's wit took a more than ordinary stretch of perversion in the good intention of commending it. Speaking of Bacon, he calls him the mighty man,

Whom a wise king and nature chose
To be the chancellor of both their laws.

At his first arrival in England he had been imprisoned, and obliged to find bail to a great amount. On the death of Cromwell, he considered himself at liberty, and went to France, where he stopped till the Restoration. At that event, when men who had fought under Cromwell were rewarded for coming over to Charles II., Cowley was denied the mastership of the Savoy on pretence of his disloyalty, and the Lord Chancellor told him that his pardon was his reward. The sum of his offence was, that

he had lived peaceably under the usurping government, though without having published a word, even in his amiable and pacific preface, that committed his principles. But an absurd idea prevailed that his Cutter of Coleman-street was a satire on his party, and he had published an ode to Brutus! It is impossible to contrast this injured honesty of Cowley with the successful profligacy of Waller and Dryden, and not to be struck with the all-prevailing power of impudence. In such circumstances, it is little to be wondered at that Cowley should have sighed for retirement, and been ready to accept of it even in the deserts of America. Misanthropy, as far as so gentle a nature could cherish it, naturally strengthened his love of retirement, and increased that passion for a country life which breathes in the fancy of his poetry, and in the eloquence of his prose. By the influence of Buckingham and St. Albans, he at last obtained a competence of about 300l. a year from a lease of the queen's lands, which enabled him to retire, first to Barnes Elms, and afterwards to Chertsey, on the Thames. But his health was now declining, and he did not long experience either the sweets or inconvenience of rustication. died, according to Dr. Sprat, in consequence of exposing himself to cold one evening that he stayed late among his labourers. Another account ascribes his death to being benighted in the fields, after having spent too convivial an evening with the same Dr. Sprat.*

He

THE CHRONICLE, A BALLAD.†
MARGARITA first possess'd,
If I remember well, my breast,
Margarita first of all;

But when a while the wanton maid
With my restless heart had play'd,
Martha took the flying ball.

Martha soon did it resign
To the beauteous Catharine:
Beauteous Catharine gave place
(Though loth and angry she to part
With the possession of my heart)
To Eliza's conquering face.
Eliza to this hour might reign,
Had she not evil counsels ta'en:
Fundamental laws she broke
And still new favourites she chose,
Till up in arms my passions rose,
And cast away her yoke.
Mary then, and gentle Anne,
Both to reign at once began;

["Cowley is a writer of great sense, ingenuity, and learning," says Hazlitt, "but as a poet his fancy is quaint, far-fetched and mechanical." The same critic, however, says of his Anacreontics, that they are perfect, breathing "the very spirit of love and wine."-G.]

ft"The Chronicle" is a composition unrivalled and alone: such gayety of fancy, such facility of expression,

Alternately they sway'd,

And sometimes Mary was the fair,

And sometimes Anne the crown did wear,
And sometimes both I obey'd.
Another Mary then arose,
And did rigorous laws impose;
A mighty tyrant she!
Long, alas! should I have been
Under that iron-sceptred queen,
Had not Rebecca set me free.
When fair Rebecca set me free,
"Twas then a golden time with me:
But soon those pleasures fled;
For the gracious princess died
In her youth and beauty's pride,
And Judith reignéd in her stead.

One month, three days, and half an hour,
Judith held the sovereign power:
Wondrous beautiful her face,

But so weak and small her wit,
That she to govern was unfit,
And so Susanna took her place.

such varied similitude, such a succession of images, and such a dance of words, it is in vain to expect except from Cowley. To such a performance, Suckling could have brought the gayety, but not the knowledge; Dryden could have supplied the knowledge, but not the gayety. -JOHNSON.]