creative power. His learning was as great as his intellect, and subject as freely to his will. His strong sense, his industry, and humour, were equally prodigious. The mind staggers at the amazing power with which he mined and worked his way under the surfaces of things, and brought up those weighty, yet common life, creations, Epicures Mammon, mine Hosts various, Bobadils, and Meercrafts. Here, however, we have little to do with these various characteristics. In his poems fancy has chief way-fancy, the most genial, and perhaps, after all, the most delightful of his attributes. Infinitely delicate and piquant it is, as our extracts prove-delicious in its tender sense of natural beauty, and playfully fantastic in expression. It is scarcely necessary to indicate in one or two of the poems we have given, an occasional throwing in of the mechanical with the fanciful-and a few pedantic touches which look as if designed merely to set off more strikingly the exquisite and natural delicacies around them. Sense and feeling, classical sentiment, and a fine taste for rural imagery, characterize his friendly epistles. In the lines to Beaumont, it is delightful to mark the involuntary yet manly fondness with which he confesses to his friend's praise. With this proof of a gentle and amiable mind, and of a disposition any thing but gross and overweening, we leave to the reader these thoughts of Rare Ben Jonson; adding merely, in the emphatic words of a friend and contemporary, "he writ all like a man."

It is no common cause, yee will conceive, My lovely Graces, makes your goddesse leave Her state in heaven, to night, to visit earth; Love late is fled away, my eldest birth, Cupid, whom I did joy to call my sonne; And, whom, long absent, Venus is undone.

Spie, if you can, his footsteps on the greene; For here, as I am told, he late hath beene, With divers of his breth'ren, lending light From their best flames to gild a glorious night; Which I not grudge at, being done for her Whose honours to mine own I still prefer;

But he not yet returning, I'm in feare
Some gentle Grace or innocent beautie here,
Be taken with him; or he hath surpris'd
A second PSYCHE, and lives here disguis'd.

And all his vertues told; that when they know What spright he is, shee soone may let him goe, That guards him now, and think herselfe right blest, To be so timely rid of such a guest.

Begin soft Graces, and proclaim reward

To her that brings him in. Speake to be heard.

Beauties, have yee seene this toy,

Called Love, a little boy,

Almost naked, wanton, blind,
Cruell now; and then as kind?

If he be amongst yee, say;
He is Venus run-away.

Shee that will but now discover
Where the winged wag doth hover,
Shall, to-night, receive a kisse,
How, or where her selfe would wish:
But who brings him to his mother,
Shall have that kisse, and another.

H' hath of markes about him plentie:
You shall know him, among twentie.
All his body is a fire,

And his breath a flame entire,

That being shot, like lightning, in,
Wounds the heart, but not the skin.

At his sight, the sunne hath turned,
Neptune in the waters burned;
Hell hath felt a greater heate;
Jove himselfe forsooke his seate:
From the center to the skie,

Are his trophæes reared hie.

Wings he hath, which though yee clip,
He will leape from lip to lip,

Over liver, lights, and heart,
But not stay in any part;

And, if chance his arrow misses,
He will shoot himselfe, in kisses.

He doth beare a golden bow
And a quiver, hanging low,
Full of arrowes, that out-brave
Dian's shafts: where, if he have
Any head more sharpe then other,
With that first he strikes his mother.

Still the fairest are his fuell,
When his daies are to be cruell,
Lovers hearts are all his food;

And his baths their warmest bloud:
Nought but wounds his hand doth season;
And he hates none like to Reason.

Trust him not: his words, though sweet,
Seldome with his heart doe meet.
All his practise is deceit;

Every gift it is a bait;

Not a kisse but poyson beares;

And most treason in his teares.

Idle minutes are his raigne;
Then the straggler makes his gaine,
By presenting maids with toyes,
And would have yee thinke 'hem joyes:
'Tis the ambition of the elfe,

To have all childish as himselfe.

If by these yee please to know him,
Beauties, be not nice, but show him.
Though yee had a will to hide him,
Now, we hope, yee'le not abide him,
Since yee heare his falser play,
And that he is Venus run-away.

TO PENSHURST.

THOU art not, Penshurst, built to envious show,
Of touch, or marble; nor canst boast a row
Of polish'd pillars, or a roofe of gold:

Thou hast no lantherne, whereof tales are told;
Or stayre, or courts; but stand'st an ancient pile,
And these grudg'd at, are reverenc'd the while.
Thou joy'st in better markes, of soyle, of ayre,
Of wood, of water: therein thou art faire.
Thou hast thy walkes for health, as well as sport:
Thy Mount, to which the Dryads doe resort,
Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made,
Beneath the broad beech, and the chestnut shade;
That taller tree, which of a nut was set,

At his great birth, where all the Muses met. There, in the writhed barke, are cut the names Of many a Sylvane, taken with his flames. And thence, the ruddy Satyres oft provoke

The lighter Faunes to reach thy Ladies oke. Thy copps, too, nam'd of Gamage, thou hast there, That never failes to serve thee season'd deere, When thou would'st feast or exercise thy friends. The lower land, that to the river bends, Thy sheepe, thy bullocks, kine, and calves doe feed: The middle grounds thy mares and horses breed. Each banke doth yeeld thee coneyes; and the topps Fertile of wood, Ashore, and Sydney's copps, To crowne thy open table, doth provide

The purpled pheasant, with the speckled side:
The painted partrich lyes in every field,

And, for thy messe, is willing to be kill'd.
And if the high swolne Medway faile thy dish,
Thou hast thy ponds, that pay thee tribute fish,
Fat, aged carps, that runne into thy net,

And pikes, now weary their owne kinde to eat,
As loth, the second draught, or cast to stay,
Officiously, at first, themselves betray.

Bright eeles, that emulate them, and leape on land,
Before the fisher, or into his hand.

Then hath thy orchard fruit, thy garden flowers,
Fresh as the ayre, and new as are the houres.

The earely cherry, with the later plum,

Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come: