quoting one whole one, than by unraveling them. The Thirtythird reads thus: Full many a glorious morning have I seen The region cloud hath masked him from me now. Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth. The beautiful verse quoted below is from the poem of "Venus and Adonis: Lo here the gentle lark weary of rest, From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast The sun ariseth in his majesty, Who doth the world so gloriously behold, The cedar-tops and hills seem burnished gold. We now leave Shakspeare. This regal poet has taken pretentious apartments in our book. Entertaining a King beneath our roof, no common hospitality could be extended. The man who loves Shakspeare's poetry is apt to regard all subsequent bards as poaching too frequently on the royal preserves-a domain so vast as to often offer a promise of safely rewarding the forays of the needy in soul and the niggardly in honor. A PASSAGE from a play by Beaumont and Fletcher will show that the writers were worthy of the great esteem which fast forgetful Time once evinced for them. Cæsar addresses the crowned Egyptian who, thinking to please the dictator of the world, brings him the head of Pompey: Egyptians, dare ye think your highest pyramids, But the eternal substance of his greatness, To which I leave him. Othello hardly looked on War from this solemn yet philosophical point of view: O great corrector of enormous* times, Shaker of o'er-rank States, thou grand decider The earth when it is sick and curest the world O' the plurisyt of people. In faith, this lyrical co-partnership also gave to the world some sweet music. Hark you: Care-charming sleep, thou easer of all woes, The plays of Beaumont and Fletcher were more popular in their day than those of Shakspeare. The people were charmed with the graceful sentences spoken by the characters on the stage, and their ears were frequently rewarded with little songs, always good, though not often of as high merit as the following: A CERTAIN nobleman in the times of Cromwell made a great joke by saying that he was glad George Wither was not dead, because during the existence of that poet, there would be one worse in England than himself. It is not necessary to *Detestable. +Superabundance. name this nobleman. His name is now dead. But we are indebted to poor Wither, the butt of the nobleman's famous jest, for the following song of the sensible shepherd: Shall I, wasting in despair, Die because a woman's fair? Or make pale my cheeks with care, Be she fairer than the day, Or the flowery meads in May, If she be not fair to me, What care I how fair she be? HOLY GEORGE HERBERT, born nearly 300 years ago, the author of many odd sayings-such as: No sooner is a temple built to God, but the devil builds a chapel hard by "was a man of remarkable genius. He was, however, so eccentric in his fancies as to rarely leave a beautiful idea without the grating drawback of some unpleasant freak of genius. Here, however, are two little verses which escaped his rougher touch. There is no reason why they should not be thankfully treasured for 300 years more: THERE now comes before us another majestic poet, whose very soul was moulded in harmony. He was, however, in ordinary attributes, cold, severe, and what we would probably denominate "a hard man," if we were to judge him simply as a neighbor, across the street,- that is, he had little of the milk of human kindness in his nature. He was the sort of man which has frozen the word "Puritan" into the icy essence of uncharitableness now understood by that term. It would, therefore, be unprofitable to look for touches of nature in Milton. There are few. But it is equally unfortunate to throw down his poems in dissatisfaction, vowing that there is no poetry in them, or acknowledging that there is poetry, of course, but that it does Nobody who values his not suit you-is not to your taste. time should wade through "Paradise Lost" for the sake of the plot. But the words! If the reader be one of the many who have made up their minds against John Milton, the writer begs him to take a dose of Milton in a little different shape, and defer for a short time any conclusion whatever. Let him remember that those persons of considerable intelligence and of inquiring brains who experience in early life the most utter dislike of the violin as an instrument, are finally forced by their own spirit of investigation to humbly place it above all others; and it as frequently happens that a man of imaginative disposition, at first conceiving Milton to be even dryer than the antiquated translation of "Josephus," in the end becomes almost fanatical in his admiration of that same poet, feeling a shade of discontent at seeing his intellectual idol placed a notch below the all-saying Shakspeare. The blindness of Milton during the period of his noblest work furnishes a sad coincidence with the misfortune of the greatest bard of antiquity. For the poem called "Paradise Lost," Milton received $50, his wife also recovering about $40 more after his death. The great educational attainments of Milton frequently blemish his lines, for knowledge is not poetry-unless it be a very subtle and indefinable kind of knowledge. Proper names are enemies of poetry. The beginning of "Paradise Lost," furnishes an instance of remarkable simplicity of phrasing, and yet at the same time of a very difficult specimen of suspension. The invocation conveyed is: "Of man's first disobedience, sing, heavenly muse!" "Sing, heavenly muse," is kept suspended rather longer than it is really safe for people who are not Miltons to attempt. Although the opening passage, in a poetical sense, should never attract any extraordinary attention, yet there is that about it which is apt to run through the mind. The reader, in scanning passages of blank verse, should undoubtedly read with the idea of stamping with his foot at every other syllable, no matter how odd the pronunciation of the words sounds. He need not stamp his foot if he can keep the motion of the lines without doing so, but there is much bombast in poetry, and the writer fails to see that it does any harm, so long as the whole affair is confined to one brain, and does not offend an uninterested companion. "Paradise Lost” begins thus: Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, Restore us and regain the blissful seat, Sing, heavenly muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb or of Sinai didst inspire That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed, Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed And justify the ways of God to men. This quotation is made for one or two useful purposes. It was usual in early days for a poet, at the commencement of a task, to acknowledge allegiance to some abstract being, generally called his muse, who was supposed to breathe upon him her benign influence. Milton first addresses the spirit which inspired Moses and David, and then, becoming more explicit, beseeches aid from the Holy Ghost. The immense learning of Milton is hidden under every line he ever wrote, and where it is not conspicuous in addition to being thus hidden, is his greatest merit. A sample here printed affords a perfect and easy exposition of what is meant by admirably-masked erudition: Our Bible says, in the story of the creation, "The spirit of God moved on the face of the waters." The word "moved" is an alteration by the translators, the Hebrew reading "brooded" (like a bird upon her nest). Now the Holy Ghost descended |