charitable to suppose that these arbiters of taste had never met with their works. With the honourable exceptions of Thomas Warton and Bishop Percy, there is not a critic from Johnson downward who does not cite Waller as the first poet who smoothed our rugged tongue into harmonious verse. And the prejudice lingers still in places where one does not expect to find it. The parish clerk of Beaconsfield is by no means the only, although by far the most excusable authority who, standing bareheaded before his pyramidal tomb in the churchyard, assured me with the most honest conviction that Waller was the earliest and finest versifier in the language.

Herrick is one of the many whose lyrics might be called into court to overturn this verdict. Originally bred to the bar, he took orders at a comparatively late period, and obtained a living in Devonshire, from which he fled during the strict rule of the Lord Protector, concealing himself under a lay habit in London, and returning to his parsonage with the return of the monarch, whose birth had formed the subject of one of his earliest pastorals.

More than any eminent writer of that day Herrick's collection requires careful sifting; but there is so much fancy, so much delicacy, so much grace, that a good selection would well repay the publisher. Bits there are that are exquisite: as when

in enumerating the cates composing "Oberon's Feast" in his "Fairyland," he includes, amongst a strange farrago of unimaginable dishes,

"The broke heart of a nightingale
O'ercome in music."

Some of his pieces, too, contain curious illustrations of the customs, manners, and prejudices of our ancestors. I shall quote one or two from the division of the Hesperides that he calls "charms and ceremonies," beginning with the motto:

The adorning the houses with evergreens seems then to have been as common as our own habit of decking them with flowers.

CEREMONIES FOR CANDLEMAS EVE.

Down with rosemary and bays,

Down with the mistletoe,

Instead of holly now upraise

The greener box for show.

The holly hitherto did sway;

Let box now domineer,
Until the dancing Easter day

Or Easter's Eve appear,

Then youthful box, which now has grace

Your houses to renew,

Grown old, surrender must his place

Unto the crisped yew.

When yew is out, then birch comes in

And many flowers beside,

Both of a fresh and fragrant kin

To honour Whitsuntide.

Green rushes then and sweetest bents,

With cooler oaken boughs,

Come in for comely ornaments

To re-adorn the house.

Thus times do shift; each thing his turn does hold, New things succeed as former things grow old.

THE BELLMAN.

From noise of scare-fires rest ye free,

From murders Benedicite;

From all mischances that may fright
Your pleasing slumbers in the night,
Mercy secure ye all, and keep
The goblin from ye while ye sleep.
Past one o'clock, and almost two,

My masters all, good day to you!

The description of a steer in one of his "Bucolics" is graphic and life-like. The herdswoman is lamenting the loss of her favourite.

*

I have lost my lovely steer,

That to me was far more dear

Than these kine that I milk here;
Broad of forehead, large of eye,
Party-coloured like a pie,

Smooth in each limb as a die;
Clear of hoof, and clear of horn,

Sharply pointed as a thorn;

With a neck by yoke unworn,

From the which hung down by strings,

Balls of cowslip, daisy rings
Interlaced by ribbonings.
Faultless every way for shape,
Not a straw could him escape,

Ever gamesome as an ape,
But yet harmless as a sheep.

Pardon, Lacon, if I weep.

*

But his real delight was amongst flowers and bees, and nymphs and cupids; and certainly these graceful subjects were never handled more gracefully.

For some rich flower he took the lip
Of Julia and began to sip;

But when he felt he sucked from thence

Honey, and in the quintessence,

He drank so much he scarce could stir,

So Julia took the pilferer.

And thus surprised, as filchers use,
He thus began himself to excuse :
"Sweet lady-flower! I never brought
Hither the least one thieving thought;
But, taking those rose-lips of yours
For some fresh fragrant luscious flowers,
I thought I there might take a taste
Where so mucli syrup ran at waste.
Besides, know this, I never sting
The flower that gives me nourishing;
But with a kiss or thanks do pay
For honey that I bear away."
This said, he laid his little scrip
Of honey 'fore her ladyship;

And told her, as some tears did fall,
Thai that he took, and that was all.
At which she smiled, and bade him go
And take his bag; but thus much know,
When next he came a pilfering so,
He should from her full lips derive
Honey enough to fill his hive.

THE BAG OF THE BEE.

About the sweet bag of a bee
Two cupids fell at odds ;

And whose the pretty prize should be,
They vowed to ask the gods.