SONG.

(A Translation from the Latin of Bonnefonius.)

STILL to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast ;
Still to be powdered, still perfumed :
Lady, it is to be presumed,

Though art's hid causes are not found.
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all the adulteries of art:

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

A FRAGMENT.

BOAST not these titles of your ancestors,

Brave youths, they're their possessions, none of yours.
When your own virtues equalled have their names,
'Twill be but fair to lean upon their fames;

For they are strong supporters; but, till then
The greatest are but growing gentlemen.

It is a wretched thing to trust to reeds;

Which all men do, that urge not their own deeds

Up to their ancestors'; the river's side

By which you're planted, shows your fruit shall bide. Hang all your rooms with one large pedigree;

'Tis virtue alone is true nobility:

Which virtue from your father, ripe, will fall;
Study illustrious him, and you have all.

ON THE PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE –1623.

THIS figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature, to outdo the life;
Oh, could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he has hit
His face, the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass ;
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.

LINES FROM CATILINE.

It is, methinks, a morning full of fate,

It riseth slowly, as her sullen car

Had all the weights of sleep and death hung at it!
She is not rosy-fingered, but swollen black,

Her face is like a water turned to blood,

And her sick head is bound about with clouds,
As if she threatened night ere noon of day!

It does not look as it would have a hail,

Or health wis'd in it, as on other morns.

JEALOUSY.

(From Every Man in His Humour.")

A NEW disease! I know not new or old,
But it may well be called poor mortal's plague;
For like a pestilence it doth infect

The houses of the brain. First it begins

Solely to work upon the phantasy,

Filling her seat with such pestiferous air

As soon corrupts the judgment; and from thence
Sends like contagion to the memory;
Still each to other giving the infection,
Which as a subtle vapour spreads itself
Confusedly through every sensitive part,
Till not a thought or motion in the mind
Be free from the black poison of suspect.

BEGGING EPISTLE TO THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER.

My woful cry

To Sir Robert Pye;

And that he will venture

To send my

debenture.

Tell him his Ben

Knew the time when
He loved the Muses:
Though now he refuses
To take apprehension
Of a year's pension,
And more is behind:

Put him in mind
Christmas is near,

And neither good cheer,
Mirth, fooling, or wit,
Nor any least fit
Of gambol or sport
Will come at the Court;
If there be no money,
No plover or coney
Will come to the table,

Or wine to enable

The Muse or the Poet

The Parish will know it.

Nor any quick warming pan help him to bed
If the chequer be empty, so will be his head.

STRAY THOUGHTS FROM JONSON.

Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace.

The Silent Woman.

Preserving the sweetness of proportion and expressing itself beyond expression.—The Masque of Hymen.

In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.

Good Life, Long Life.

That for which all virtue now is sold
And almost every vice, almighty gold.

Epistle to Elizabeth.

Get money, still get money, boy
No matter by what means.

Every Man in his Humour.

Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way.—Prose Notes.

Language most shows a man: speak that I may see thee: it springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us.-Ibid.

Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing, settled in the imagination, but never arriving at the understanding, there to obtain the tincture of reason.-Ibid.

SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT.

Born in Oxford in 1605. Made laureate in 1637. Died in 1668.

(Reigns of Charles I. and Charles II.)

SIR WILLIAM Davenant, whom Southey called that eminently thoughtful poet, passed his life as laureate in the stirring and exciting days which preceded and followed the rebellion which deprived Charles I. of his throne and his life. But Austin and Ralph remark that though Davenant's life spanned the mighty chasm which separates the ancient from the modern of English history, his character, unlike that of his great contemporary Milton, took no form or colour from the solemn events passing around him. Davenant's intellectual work was, however, notable. He contributed to found a new literature. Calling to his aid the music of Italy and the scenery of France, he undertook, at the Restoration, to also restore the stage, and though he readily debased or refined his material in deference to the depraved taste of the age, he certainly deserves praise for what he accomplished.

Colley Cibber says that to Davenant the English stage "stands more deeply indebted than to any other individual, so far as zealous application deserves to be considered in promoting those rational pleasures that are fittest for the entertainment of a civilised people. And Cibber said this with all due deference to the inestimable services of Shakespeare and Jonson.

The father of Davenant was an Oxford innkeeper, his mother very beautiful. Rumour busied itself with uniting the name of this beautiful woman with that of Shakespeare, and Davenant himself often seemed to wish to attribute his own poetical and dramatic instincts to the fact that his father was other than the staid and sober innkeeper.

The boy was bright and lively, with a handsome face, and he did well at the Oxford grammar school, and matriculated at Lincoln College at sixteen. But he never was graduated: his tastes all seemed to point to a life far different from one spent in secluded college walls. He seemed cut out to be a courtier, and towards the court his aspirations early converged.

Therefore, he went to London, and winning there the favour