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GILES FLETCHER.

GILES FLETCHER was the younger brother of Phineas, and died twenty-three years before him. He was a cousin of Fletcher the dramatist, and the son of Dr Giles Fletcher, who was employed in many important missions in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and, among others, negotiated a commercial treaty with Russia greatly in the favour of his own country. Giles is supposed to have been born in 1588. He studied at Cambridge; published his noble poem, 'Christ's Victory and Triumph,' in 1610, when he was twenty-three years of age; was appointed to the living of Alderston, in Suffolk, where he died, in 1623, at the early age of thirty-five, 'equally loved,' says old Wood, 'of the Muses and the Graces.'

The poem, in four cantos, entitled 'Christ's Victory and Triumph,' is one of almost Miltonic magnificence. With a wing as easy as it is strong, he soars to heaven, and fills the austere mouth of Justice and the golden lips of Mercy with language worthy of both. He then stoops down on the Wilderness of the Temptation, and paints the Saviour and Satan in colours admirably contrasted, and which in their brightness and blackness can never decay. Nor does he fear, in fine, to pierce the gloom of Calvary, and to mingle his note with the harps of angels, saluting the Redeemer, as He sprang from the grave, with the song, 'He is risen, He is risen-and shall die no more.' The style is steeped in Spenserequally mellifluous, figurative, and majestic. In allegory the author of the 'Fairy Queen' is hardly superior, and in the enthusiasm of devotion Fletcher surpasses him far. the great light, thus early kindled and early quenched, Milton did not disdain to draw with his 'golden urn.' 'Paradise Regained' owes much more than the suggestion of its subject to Christ's Victory;' and is it too much to say that, had Fletcher lived, he might have shone in the same constellation with the bard of the 'Paradise Lost?' The plan of our 'Specimens' permits only a few extracts. Let those who wish more, along with a lengthened and glowing tribute to the author's

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From

genius, consult Blackwood for November 1835. The reading of a single sentence will convince them that the author of the paper was Christopher North.

THE NATIVITY.

I.

Who can forget, never to be forgot,

The time, that all the world in slumber lies:
When, like the stars, the singing angels shot
To earth, and heaven awaked all his eyes,
To see another sun at midnight rise

On earth? was never sight of pareil fame:
For God before, man like himself did frame,
But God himself now like a mortal man became.

II.

A child he was, and had not learned to speak,
That with his word the world before did make:
His mother's arms him bore, he was so weak,

That with one hand the vaults of heaven could shake.
See how small room my infant Lord doth take,
Whom all the world is not enough to hold.
Who of his years, or of his age hath told?
Never such age so young, never a child so old.

III.

And yet but newly he was infanted,

And yet already he was sought to die;.
Yet scarcely born, already banished;
Not able yet to go, and forced to fly:

But scarcely fled away, when by and by,

The tyrant's sword with blood is all defiled,
And Rachel, for her sons with fury wild,

Cries, O thou cruel king, and O my sweetest child!

IV.

Egypt his nurse became, where Nilus springs,
Who straight, to entertain the rising sun,

The hasty harvest in his bosom brings;
But now for drought the fields were all undone,
And now with waters all is overrun:

So fast the Cynthian mountains poured their snow, When once they felt the sun so near them glow, That Nilus Egypt lost, and to a sea did grow.

V.

The angels carolled loud their song of peace,
The cursed oracles were stricken dumb,
To see their shepherd, the poor shepherds press,
To see their king, the kingly sophies come,
And them to guide unto his Master's home,
A star comes dancing up the orient,

That springs for joy over the strawy tent,

Where gold, to make their prince a crown, they all present.

VI.

Young John, glad child, before he could be born,
Leapt in the womb, his joy to prophesy:

Old Anna, though with age all spent and worn,
Proclaims her Saviour to posterity:

And Simeon fast his dying notes doth ply.

Oh, how the blessed souls about him trace! It is the fire of heaven thou dost embrace: Sing, Simeon, sing; sing, Simeon, sing apace.

VII.

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With that the mighty thunder dropt away
From God's unwary arm, now milder grown,
And melted into tears; as if to pray

For pardon, and for pity, it had known,

That should have been for sacred vengeance thrown:
There too the armies angelic devowed

Their former rage, and all to mercy bowed,

Their broken weapons at her feet they gladly strowed.

VIII.

Bring, bring, ye Graces, all your silver flaskets,
Painted with every choicest flower that grows,
That I may soon unflower your fragrant baskets,
To strow the fields with odours where he goes,
Let whatsoe'er he treads on be a rose.

So down she let her eyelids fall, to shine
Upon the rivers of bright Palestine,

Whose woods drop honey, and her rivers skip with wine.

SONG OF SORCERESS SEEKING TO TEMPT CHRIST.

Love is the blossom where there blows

Everything that lives or grows:

Love doth make the heavens to move,
And the sun doth burn in love:

Love the strong and weak doth yoke,
And makes the ivy climb the oak;
Under whose shadows lions wild,
Softened by love, grow tame and mild:
Love no medicine can appease,
He burns the fishes in the seas;

VOL. I.

Not all the skill his wounds can stench,
Not all the sea his fire can quench:
Love did make the bloody spear

Once a leafy coat to wear,

While in his leaves there shrouded lay

Sweet birds, for love, that sing and play:

And of all love's joyful flame,

I the bud, and blossom am.

Only bend thy knee to me,

The wooing shall thy winning be.

See, see the flowers that below,
Now as fresh as morning blow,

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And of all, the virgin rose,
That as bright Aurora shows:
How they all unleaved die,
Losing their virginity;

Like unto a summer-shade,

But now born, and now they fade.
Everything doth pass away,
There is danger in delay:

Come, come gather then the rose,
Gather it, ere it you lose.
All the sand of Tagus' shore
Into my bosom casts his ore;
All the valley's swimming corn
To my house is yearly borne:
Every grape of every vine

Is gladly bruised to make me wine.
While ten thousand kings, as proud,
To carry up my train have bowed,
And a world of ladies send me
In my chambers to attend me.
All the stars in heaven that shine,
And ten thousand more, are mine:
Only bend thy knee to me,

Thy wooing shall thy winning be.

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Here let my Lord hang up his conquering lance,
And bloody armour with late slaughter warm,
And looking down on his weak militants,
Behold his saints, midst of their hot alarm,
Hang all their golden hopes upon his arm.

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