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The want in these graceful and delicate lyrics is thew and sinew. And yet they are what they pretend to be--airy petals of the cherry-blossom, hinting of fruit, bees fluttering and musical, giving token of honey.

The Muse fares ill in civil contentions. As Herrick fled before the Roundheads, so was George Wither opprest by the Cavaliers. The following noble praise of poetry was written in a prison; in a prison the poor poet passed many of his latter years, and it is still a question whether he actually died in confinement, or perished of want and misery after his release.

But alas! my muse is slow;
For thy pace she flags too low.
But though for her sake I'm curst,
Though my best hopes I have lost,
And knew she would make my trouble,
Ten times more than ten times double;
I would love and keep her too,
Spite of all the world could do.
For though banished from my flocks,
And confined within these rocks,
Here I waste away the light,
And consume the sullen night;
She doth for my comfort stay,
And keeps many cares away.
Though I miss the flowery fields,
And those sweets the spring-tide yields;

Though I may not see those groves,

Where the shepherds chaunt their loves,

And the lasses more excel
Than the sweet-voiced Philomel;

Though of all those pleasures past

Nothing now remains at last,

But remembrance, poor relief

That more makes than mends my grief;
She's my mind's companion still
Maugre Envy's evil will:

Whence she should be driven too,
Were't in mortal's power to do.

She doth tell me where to borrow
Comfort in the midst of sorrow;
Makes the desolatest place
In her presence be a grace;
And the blackest discontents
Be her fairest ornaments.

In

my former days of bliss
Her divine skill taught me this,
That from every thing I saw
I could some invention draw;
And raise Pleasure to her height
Through the meanest object's sight:
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least boughs rustling;
By a daisy, whose leaves spread
Shut when Titan goes to bed;
On a shady bush or tree

She could more infuse in me

Than all Nature's beauties can

In some other wiser man.

By her help I also now

Make this churlish place allow

Some things, that may sweeten gladness In the very gall of sadness :

The dull loneness, the black shade

That these hanging vaults have made,
The strange music of the waves
Beating on these hollow caves,

This black den, which rocks emboss
Overgrown with eldest moss;
The rude portals that give light
More to terror than delight;
This my chamber of neglect
Walled about with disrespect;
From all these, and this dull air
A fit object for despair,

She hath brought me by her might
To draw comfort and delight.

Therefore, thou best earthly bliss,
I will cherish thee for this!
Poetry, thou sweet'st content
That e'er Heaven to mortals lent;
Though they as a trifle leave thee
Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee;

Though thou be to them a scorn

That for nought but earth are born;

Let my life no longer be

Than I am in love with thee!

Though our wise ones call it madness,

Let me never taste of gladness
If I love not thy maddest fits

Above all their greatest wits!
And though some, too seeming holy,

Do account thy raptures folly,

Thou dost teach me to contemn

What makes knaves and fools of them!

"The praises of poetry have been often sung in

ancient and modern times; strange powers have been ascribed to it of influence over animate and inanimate auditors; its force over fascinated crowds has been acknowledged; but before Wither no one had celebrated its power at home; the wealth and the strength which this divine gift confers upon its possessor." This fine criticism, worthy of the poetry which it celebrates, is by Charles Lamb.

XIII.

FEMALE POETS.

JOANNA BAILLIE -CATHERINE FANSHAWE.

BELOVED, admired, appreciated by the best spirits of her time, it is with no little triumph that I, who plead guilty to some of that esprit de corps which may be translated into "pride of sex," write the name of our great female dramatist-of the first woman who won high and undisputed honours in the highest class of English poetry. The pleasure

* Since writing this paper this gifted authoress and admirable woman has passed from this world to the higher and happier state which was ever in her thoughts. A letter from her to a mutual friend, written a very few days before her death, expresses her satisfaction in having received the sacrament with her sister the Sunday previous. In this letter, for the first time during a long correspondence, she breaks off somewhat suddenly, complaining of bodily fatigue, although no one then thought her ill.

VOL. I.

M

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