Will, when speaking well can't win her,
Saying nothing doe't?

Prethee why so mute?

Quit, quit for shame! this will not move,
This cannot take her;

If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her :-
The divil take her.

THE CARELESS LOVER.

NEVER believe me if I love,
Or know what 'tis, or mean to prove;
And yet in faith I lye, I do,

And she's extreamly handsome too;

She's fair, she's wondrous fair,

But I care not who knows it,

E'er I'll die for love, I fairly will forego it.

This heat of hope, or cold of fear,
My foolish heart cou'd never bear:
One sigh imprison'd ruins more
Than earthquakes have done heretofore.
When I am hungry I do eat,
And cut no fingers 'stead of meat;
Nor with much gazing on her face,
Do e'er rise hungry from the place.
A gentle round fill'd to the brink,
To this and t'other friend I drink;
And if 'tis nam'd another's health,
I never make it her's by stealth.

Black fryars to me, and old Whitehall,
Is even as much as is the fall
Of fountains on a pathless grove,
And nourishes as much my love.

I visit, talk, do business, play,
And for a need laugh out a day :
Who does not thus in Cupid's school,
He makes not love, but plays the fool:
She's fair, &c.

H H

CONSTANCY.

Our upon it, I have lov'd
Three whole days together;
And am like to love three more,
If it prove fair weather.

Time shall moult away his wings
E'er he shall discover

In the whole wide world again
Such a constant lover.

But the spite on't is, no praise

Is due at all to me:

Love with me had made no staies,

Had it any been but she.

Had it any been but she,

And that very face,

There had been at least e'er this

A dozen dozen in her place.

LOVE TURN'D TO HATRED.

I WILL not love one minute more, I swear,

No not a minute; not a sigh or tear

Thou gett'st from me, or one kind look again,

Though thou should'st court me to't, and would'st begin, I will not think of thee, but as men do

Of debts and sins, and then I'll curse thee too:

For thy sake, woman shall be now to me

Less welcome, than at midnight ghosts shall be.
I'll hate so perfectly, that it shall be

Treason to love that man that loves a she;
Nay, I will hate the very good, I swear,
That's in thy sex, because it does lie there;
Their very virtue, grace, discourse, and wit,
And all for thee; what, wilt thou love me yet?

DETRACTION EXECRATED.

THOU vermin slander, bred in abject minds,
Of thoughts impure, by vile tongues animate,
Canker of conversation! could'st thou find
Nought but our love, whereon to shew thy hate?
Thou never wert, when we two were alone;
What canst thou witness then? thy base dull aid
Was useless in our conversation,

Where each meant more than could by both be said.
Whence hadst thou thy intelligence, from earth?
That part of us ne'er knew that we did love;
Or from the air? Our gentle sighs had birth
From such sweet raptures as to joy did move;
Our thoughts, as pure as the chaste morning's breath,
When from the night's cold arms it creeps away,
Were cloath'd in words; and maiden's blush that hath
More purity, more innocence than they.

Nor from the water could'st thou have this tale,
No briny tear has furrow'd her smooth cheek;
And I was pleas'd, I pray what should he ail
That had her love, for what else could he seek?
We short'ned days to moments by Love's art,
Whilst our two souls in am'rous ecstasy
Perceiv'd no passing time, as if a part
Our love had been of still eternity.

Much less couldst have it from the purer fire,
Our heat exhales no vapour from coarse sense,
Such as are hopes, or fears, or fond desire;
Our mutual love itself did recompense;
Thou hast no correspondence had in heav'n,
And th' elemental world, thou see'st, is free:

Whence hadst thou then, this talking monster? even
From hell, a harbour fit for it and thee.

Curst be th' officious tongue that did address
Thee to her ears, to ruin my content:
May it one minute taste such happiness,
Deserving loos'd unpitied it lament!

I must forbear the sight, and so repay
In grief, those hours joy short'ned to a dram :
Each minute I will lengthen to a day,
And in one year outlive Methusalem.

SAMUEL BUTLER was born in the parish of Stresham, Worcestershire, in the year 1612. His father was a small farmer. It appears that he received his education partly at Cambridge, but never became a member of any College. He was afterwards clerk to an eminent justice of the peace in his own county; and here, doubtless, he obtained that smattering of legal knowledge and acquaintance with legal terms of which in his writings he made frequent use. He was subsequently admitted into the family of the Countess of Kent, where he enjoyed advantages to which probably he is indebted for his fame-he had access to a noble library, and obtained literary occupation under the direction of the great Selden. After a time, from some cause of which we are ignorant, he was domiciled in a household far less to his taste-that of Sir Samuel Luke, a conspicuous officer of the Commonwealth; while in this service, he conceived the plan of, or at least gathered materials for, the work by which he is known to posterity. At.length hope came to Butler with the Restoration-it was but to be deferred until the heart grew sick. In 1663, was published the first part of Hudibras-the king quoted, the courtiers studied, and all applauded--but still "the Muse's fleece was dry." In 1664, the second part appeared,-and the author was again quoted, studied, and applauded. Other reward he had none. In 1678 he printed the third part, which still leaves the poem unfinished. It was doubtless his intention to have considerably extended it; but he has left us no outline of his plan. We may imagine the many interruptions which delayed its completion even so far during fifteen years of difficulties and disappointments-of waitings for results from hollow court promises, of unmeaning cheers from wealthier wits, and of praise from better sources - praise that was nothing worth to one who wanted bread. The proud soul of the Poet at length sunk in the unequal struggle against poverty, neglect, ill health, and old age. The author of Hudibras died in 1680-and owed the decency of interment to the charity of a friend, who vainly sought among the admirers of his genius a subscription to defray a more costly funeral than private means allowed.

Notwithstanding that the poem bears reference almost solely to times, characters, and customs long since forgotten, that it is written in an uninviting measure, is full of crudities and false rhymes, and is occasionally grossly indecent, Hudibras is still considered one of the most remarkable productions in the English language. Passages from it have become familiar as household words because of their general satire and biting applicability of wit.

Butler had studied human nature closely-had peered into the more secret recesses of the human heart. He was original-and therefore his remarks upon the whims, opinions, interests, and passions of mankind, astonish the reader by their exceeding point and accuracy. If the sour and sullen Covenanters of the day are no more remembered, human nature has yet varied little in a century and a half; and where the satire of Butler is general it tells upon us as if the subjects of it still lived and moved before us.

The Hero of the Poem, Sir Hudibras, is a Presbyterian Justice, who after the fashion of Don Quixote-but with objects very opposite-ranges high ways and bye ways, for the redress of grievances, accompanied by a clerk, Ralpho, who is converted into a squire. The knight is a compound of the pedant and the bully-an object for laughter and contempt without a single redeeming quality. His adventures, however, are but few;-those of the bear and fiddle-in which the bear is routed, and the fiddler taken prisoner-the subsequent thrashing which the knight receives at the hands of the Amazonian Trulla—the placing the knight and the squire in the stocks— his release from durance by the hands of his lady-the consultation and subsequent battle with Sydrophel, the astrologer-the wooing of the widow who treats the knight to "a masquerade made of furies and hobgoblins,"-the knight's application to the lawyer-and his resolve to "try a subtle artifice" and "bait a letter"-to which his lady inditeth a suitable reply:-these are the main incidents on which the descriptions hang.

We have selected passages from the "heroical epistle of Hudibras to his lady"-as preferable to giving part of a scene-and as affording a just idea of the general style and manner of the writer uninterrupted by those grossnesses which render unfit for transfer to our pages portions, perhaps more full of wit and character.

I WHO was once as great as Cæsar,
Am now reduc'd to Nebuchadnezzar;
And from as fam'd a conqueror
As ever took degree in war,
Or did his exercise in battle,

By you turn'd out to graze with cattle.
For since I am deny'd access

To all my earthly happiness,
Am fall'n from the paradise

Of your good graces, and fair eyes;
Lost to the world, and you, I'm sent
To everlasting banishment,