prehend them ignobly. We must not suppose, that in any of the ordinary courses of her operations Nature intends us evil.

I do not insert this sonnet for anything otherwise very good in it, but that we may feel ourselves a little longer in the company of the high mind from which it emanated. It is preceded in the Arcadia by a noble passage respecting the nature and condition of the soul after death; and for the reason just mentioned, and because it introduces the Sonnet itself, and the Arcadia is not often met with, we think the reader will not be sorry to have it here repeated.

"Take the pre-eminence in all things but in true loving,' answered Musidorus; 'for the confession of that no death shall get of me.'

"Of that,' answered Pyrocles, soberly smiling, 'I perceive we shall have a debate in the other world; if at least there remain anything of remembrance in that place.'

"I do not think the contrary,' said Musidorus; 'although you know it is greatly held, that with the death of body and senses, which are not only the beginning, but dwelling and nourishing of passions, thoughts, and imaginations, — they failing, memory likewise fails, which riseth only out of them: and then is there left nothing but the intellectual part or intelligence, which, void of all moral virtues, which stand in the mean of perturbations, — doth only live in the contemplative virtue and power of the omnipotent good, the soul of souls, and universal life of this great work; and therefore is utterly void from the possibility of drawing to itself these sensible considerations.'

""Certainly,' answered Pyrocles, 'I easily yield that we shall not know one another, and much less these past things, with a sensible or passionate knowledge; for, the cause being taken away, the effects follow. Neither do I think we shall have such a memory as we now have, which is but a relic of the senses, or rather a print the senses have left of things past in our thoughts; but it shall be a vital power of that very intelligence; which, as while it was here it held the chief seat of our life, and was, as it were, the last resort to which, of all our knowledges, the highest appeal came; and so, by that means, was never ignorant of our actions, though many times rebelliously resisted, -—always, with this prison, dark

ened so much more being free of that prison, and returning to the life of all things, where all infinite knowledge is, it cannot but be a right intelligence—which is both his name and being-of things both present and past, though void of imagining to itself anything, but even grown like to his Creator, hath all things, with a spiritual knowledge, before it. The difference of which is as hard for us to conceive, as it was for us when we were in our mothers' wombs, to comprehend—if anybody would have told us—what kind of light we now in this life see, what kind of knowledge we now have. Yet now we do not only feel our present being, but we conceive what we were before we were born, though remembrance make us not do it, but knowledge, and though we are utterly without any remorse * of any misery we might then suffer. Even such and much more odds ↑ shall there be at that second delivery of ours; when, void of sensible memory, or memorative passion, we shall not see the colors, but lives, of all things that have been or can be; and shall, as I hope, know our friendship, though exempt from the earthly cares of friendship, having both united it and ourselves in that high and heavenly love of the unquenchable light.'

"As he had ended his speech, Musidorus, looking with a heavenly joy upon him, sang this song unto him he had made, before love turned his muse to another subject." - The Arcadia, now the fifth time published. Dublin, 1621, fol.

* Reperception.

Appearances, as distinguished from essences.

† Advantage.

VOL. I.

ΙΟ

III.

SONNET TO THE MOON.

WITH how sad steps, O Moon! thou climb'st the skies,
How silently, and with how wan a face!

What! may it be, that even in heavenly place
That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long with love acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks, thy languished grace
To me that feel the like thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon! tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet

Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?

Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

IV.

SONNET TO SLEEP.

COME Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
The indifferent judge between the high and low.
With shield of proof shield me from out the

prease

Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw;
O make in me those civil wars to cease:

I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.

Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,
A rosy garland, and a weary head;
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me
Livelier than elsewhere STELLA's image see.

press, throng.

*

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

ON SPENSER'S "FAERY QUEEN."*

METHOUGHT I saw the grave where Laura lay,
Within that temple where the vestal flame
Was wont to burn; and passing by that way,
To see that buried dust of living fame
Whose tomb fair Love and fairer Virtue kept,
All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen:

At whose approach the soul of Petrarke wept,
And from thenceforth those Graces were not seen
(For they this Queen attended); in whose stead
Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse.
Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed,

And groans

of buried ghosts the heavens did perse; Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief,

And curst the access of that celestial thief.†

* Headed by the author, "A Vision upon this conceipt of the Faery Queen"; for it was published among the prefatory verses.

† Two persons, I have no doubt, were included in the magnificent flattery of this sonnet, - Queen Elizabeth as well as Spenser ; for she it was whom the poet expressly imaged in his Queen of Fairyland; and Sir Walter was not the man to let the occasion pass for extolling the great woman, their joint mistress. The Italics in the sonnet are copied from Todd's edition of Spenser, and I