And when we mean

To taste of Bacchus' blessings now and then,
And drink by stealth

A cup or two to noble Barkley's health,
I'll take my pipe and try
The Phrygian melody;

Which he that hears,

Lets through his ears

A madness to distemper all the brain.
Then I another pipe will take

And Doric music make,

To civilise with graver notes our wits again.

FROM THE 'COTSWOLD ECLOGUE.'

Colin. Early in May up got the jolly rout,
Call'd by the lark, and spread the fields about :
One, for to breathe himself, would coursing be
From this same beech to yonder mulberry,
A second leap'd his supple nerves to try;
A third was practising his melody;
This a new jig was footing, others were
Busied at wrestling, or to throw the bar,
Ambitious which should bear the bell away,
And kiss the nut-brown lady of the May.
This stirr'd 'em up; a jolly swain was he,
Whom Peg and Susan after victory

Crown'd with a garland they had made, beset
With daisies, pinks, and many a violet,
Cowslip, and gilliflower. Rewards, though small,
Encourage virtue, but if none at all

Meet her, she languisheth, and dies, as now
Where worth's deni'd the honour of a bough.
And, Thenot, this the cause I read to be

Of such a dull and general lethargy.

Thenot. Ill thrive the lout that did their mirth gainsay! Wolves haunt his flocks that took those sports away!

Colin. Some melancholy swains about have gone
To teach all zeal their own complexion:
Choler they will admit sometimes, I see,
But phlegm and sanguine no religions be.
These teach that dancing is a Jezebel,
And barley-break the ready way to hell;
The morrice-idols, Whitsun-ales, can be
But profane relics of a jubilee !

These, in a zeal t'express how much they do
The organs hate, have silenc'd bagpipes, too,
And harmless Maypoles, all are rail'd upon,
As if they were the towers of Babylon.
Some think not fit there should be any sport
I' th' country, 'tis a dish proper to th' Court.
Mirth not becomes 'em; let the saucy swain
Eat beef and bacon, and go sweat again.
Besides, what sport can in the pastimes be,
When all is but ridiculous foppery?

FROM 'A PASTORAL COURTSHIP.'

Behold these woods, and mark, my sweet,
How all the boughs together meet?
The cedar his fair arms displays,
And mixes branches with the bays!
The lofty pine deigns to descend,
And sturdy oaks do gently bend.
One with another subtly weaves
Into one loom their various leaves,
As all ambitious were to be
Mine and my Phyllis' canopy.
Let's enter and discourse our loves;
These are, my dear, no tell-tale groves!
There dwell no pies nor parrots there,
To prate again the words they hear,
Nor babbling echo, that will tell
The neighbouring hills one syllable.

Now let me sit, and fix mine eyes
On thee, that art my paradise.
Thou art my all; my spring remains
In the fair violets of thy veins ;
And that you are my summer's day,
Ripe cherries in thy lips display.
And when for autumn I would seek,
'Tis in the apples of thy cheek.
But that which only moves my smart,
Is to see winter in thy heart.
Strange, when at once in one appear
All the four seasons of the year!

I'll clasp that neck, where should be set
A rich and orient carcanet.

But swains are poor; admit of, then,
More natural chains-the arms of men.

TO BEN JONSON.

I was not born to Helicon, nor dare
Presume to think myself a Muse's heir.
I have no title to Parnassus Hill
Nor any acre of it by the will

Of a dead ancestor, nor could I be
Ought but a tenant unto poetry.

But thy adoption quits me of all fear,

And makes me challenge a child's portion there. I am akin to heroes, being thine,

And part of my alliance is divine,

Orpheus, Musæus, Homer too, beside

Thy brothers by the Roman mother's side;
As Ovid, Virgil, and the Latin lyre

That is so like thee, Horace; the whole quire
Of poets are, by thy adoption, all

My uncles; thou hast given me power to call Phoebus himself my grandsire; by this grant Each sister of the Nine is made my aunt.

Go, you that reckon from a large descent
Your lineal honours, and are well content
To glory in the age of your great name,
Though on a herald's faith you build the same
I do not envy you, nor think you blest
Though you may bear a Gorgon on your crest
By direct line from Perseus; I will boast
No further than my father; that's the most
I can, or should be proud of; and I were
Unworthy his adoption, if that here.

I should be dully modest.

WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT.

[BORN, according to one authority, at Burford in Oxfordshire, August 16th, 1615; according to another, at Northway in Gloucestershire, in September 1611. From 1628 he chiefly resided at Oxford, where he died of the 'camp disease' November 29th, 1643. His plays and poems were collected and published in 1651.]

Cartwright, whom his academical and literary contemporaries regarded as a phenomenon, is to us chiefly interesting as a type. If it be allowable to regard as extravagant the tendencies represented by him in both his life and his poetry, he may justly be remembered by a sufficiently prominent title among English poets -that of the typically extravagant Oxford resident of his period. He was a most enthusiastic royalist in the most royalist city and community of the kingdom; and, in a sense, he died a martyr to his political sentiment. In an age of 'florid and seraphical preachers,' this designation was attached distinctively to the youthful succentor of Salisbury Cathedral and junior proctor of the University. It is therefore but natural that among the panegyrical poets of an age given to panegyric, Cartwright's efforts in this direction should have remained unsurpassed. His muse devoted herself with that unshrinking courtliness which has often characterised our old Universities to singing the praises of the King, the Queen, their 'fourth child,' their 'sixth child,' and all the royal family, as occasion might demand, invite or suggest. When 'our happy Charles' recovered from the terrible epidemic of his times, Cartwright, in the first of the poems given here, was at hand with an exercise of flattery, which in its central conceit was afterwards imitated, but hardly equalled, by the youthful Dryden. Other events belonging to the sphere of the Court chronicler prompted longer and loftier strains: returns from journeys across the border or abroad, marriages, and above all occasions sacred to Lucina, the favourite deity, and indeed the