slipperiness and running streams of our uncertain life? who, but one of distempered wits, would offer fraud to the Decipherer of all thoughts; with whom dissemble we may to our cost, but to deceive him is impossible?

Shall we esteem it cunning to rob the time from him, and bestow it on his enemies, who keepeth tale of the least minutes, and will examine in the end how every moment hath been employed? It is a preposterous kind of policy, in any wise conceit to fight against God till our weapons be blunted, our forces consumed, our limbs impotent, and our best time spent; and then when we fall for faintness, and have fought ourselves almost dead, to presume on his

mercy.

O! no, no; the wounds of his most sacred body, so often rubbed and renewed by our sins, and every part and parcel of our bodies so divers and sundry ways abused, will be then as so many whetstones and incentives to edge and exasperate his most just revenge against us.

It is a strange piece of art, and a very exorbitant course, when the ship is sound, the pilot well, the mariners strong, the gale favourable, and the sea calm, to lie idly in the road, during so seasonable weather: and when the ship leaketh, the pilot sick, the mariners faint, the storms boisterous, and the seas a turmoil of outrageous surges, then to launch forth, hoist up sail, and set out for a long voyage into a far country.

Yet such is the skill of these evening repenters, who though in the soundness of their health, and perfect use of their reason, they cannot resolve to cut the cables, and weigh the anchor that withholds them from God.

Nevertheless they feed themselves with a strong persuasion that when they are astonished, their wits distracted, the understanding dusked, and their bodies and souls racked and tormented with the throbs and gripes of a mortal sickness; then, forsooth, they will begin to think of their weightiest matters, and become sudden saints, when they are scarce able to behave themselves like reasonable creatures.

No, no; if neither the canon, civil, nor the common law will allow that man (perished in judgment) should make any testament of his temporal substance, how can he that is animated with inward garboils of an unsettled conscience, distrained with the wringing fits of his dying flesh, maimed in all his ability, and circled in on every side with many and strange encumbrances, be thought of due discretion to dispose of his chiefest jewel, which is his soul; and to despatch the whole manage of all eternity, and of the treasures of heaven, in so short a spurt !

No, no; they that will loiter in seed-time, and begin to sow when others reap; they that will riot out their health, and begin to cast their accounts when they are scarce able to speak; they that will slumber out the day, and enter upon their journey when the light doth fail them, let them blame their own folly if they die in debt, and be eternal beggars, and fall headlong into the lap of endless perdition.

Let such listen to St. Cyprian's lesson: "let," saith he, "the grievousness of our sore be the measure of our sor"row; let a deep wound have a deep and diligent cure; "let no man's contrition be less than his crime."

POEMS.

A Description of the Country's Recreations. QUIVERING fears, heart-tearing cares, Anxious sighs, untimely tears,

Fly, fly to courts;

Fly to fond worldlings' sports,

Where strain'd Sardonic smiles are glosing still,
And grief is forc'd to laugh against her will;
Where mirth's but mummery;

And sorrows only real be!

Fly from our country pastimes! fly,

Sad troop of human misery;

Come serene looks,

Clear as the crystal brooks,

Or the pure azur'd heaven, that smiles to see
The rich attendance of our poverty.

Peace and a secure mind,
Which all men seek, we only find.

Abused mortals! did you know

Where joy, heart's-ease, and comforts grow,

You'd scorn proud towers,

And seek them in these bowers,

Where winds sometimes our woods perhaps may shake, But blustering care could never tempest make;

Nor murmurs e'er come nigh us,

Saving of fountains that glide by us.

Here's no fantastic masque, nor dance,

But of our kids, that frisk and

Nor wars are seen,

prance:

Unless upon the green

Two harmless lambs are butting one the other,

Which done, both bleating run, each to his mother; And wounds are never found,

Save what the plough-share gives the ground.

Here are no false entrapping baits,

To hasten too too hasty fates;

Unless it be

The fond credulity

Of silly fish, which worldling-like, still look
Upon the bait, but never on the hook:
Nor envy, unless among

The birds, for prize of their sweet song.

Go! let the diving negro seek

For gems

hid in some forlorn creek;

We all pearls scorn,

Save what the dewy morn

Congeals upon each little spire of grass,
Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass;

And gold ne'er here appears,
Save what the yellow Ceres bears.

Blest silent groves! O may ye be

For ever mirth's best nursery!

May pure contents

For ever pitch their tents

Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these

mountains,

And peace still slumber by these purling fountains! Which we may every year

Find when we come a fishing here !

Dispraise of Love, and Lovers' Follies.

Ir love be life, I long to die,

Live they that list for me:

And he that gains the most thereby,

A fool at least shall be.

But he that feels the sorest fits,

'Scapes with no less than loss of wits.
Unhappy life they gain,

Which love do entertain.

In day by feigned looks they live,
By lying dreams in night;

Each frown a deadly wound doth give,
Each smile a false delight.

If't hap their lady pleasant seem,
It is for others' love they deem:
If void she seem of joy,

Disdain doth make her coy.

Such is the peace that lovers find,

Such is the life they lead,

Blown here and there with every wind,

Like flowers in the mead.

Now war, now peace, now war again,
Desire, despair, delight; disdain,
Though dead in midst of life,
In peace and yet at strife.

Phillida's Love-call to her Coridon, and his Replying. Phil. CORIDON, arise my Coridon;

Titan shineth clear.

Cor. Who is it that calleth Coridon?

Who is it that I hear?

Phil. Phillida, thy true love, calleth thee;

Arise then, arise then;

Arise, and keep thy flock with me.