harmonious measures. Ruiz appears to have been a native of Alcala de Henares, and to have flourished about the middle of the fourteenth century. He was imprisoned by the command of the celebrated Cardinal Gil Albornoz, archbishop of Toledo, probably for some of the many indiscretions recorded in his poems, and which are certainly little consonant with the ecclesiastical functions. He indeed proclaims his innocence, though he does not state what were the accusations against him, and implores the Virgin to turn upon his slanderers the weapons they had used but the indecorous and licentious character of many of his compositions, give but too much reason to believe that his life was most impure. He throws the blame upon the stars, and says he was born under the influence of Venus, and was but the child of destiny-a melancholy apology at best, and one which, if seriously preferred, was never seriously attended to by the judges of error, or the arbiters of punishment.

He proposed to himself to exhibit not only the varied metres of which his language was susceptible, but to introduce that poetical spirit which, if it was sometimes exhibited before, often slept through long and weary pages, so that it is impossible to master the works of his predecessors, but for some object of criticism or historical research. By them, sympathy is seldom excited, and that curiosity must be of the most eager character which will toil through the prosaic labours of those who aspired after nothing sublime or glorious. It was enough for them to give the form of verse to the subject of their thoughts. A rhymer and a poet were almost synonymous and transferable terms. Ruiz had a higher ambition; his gay and festive imagination played alike with the weapons of wit and irony, jested and moralized in turn, wandered from the house of mourning to the house of feasting; while he availed himself, as it pleased him, of the low gibe, the vulgar proverb, or the sublime and sententious eloquence of holy writ. The archpriest is, in a word, a very ardent and amorous gentleman-rather gross at times for a divine-a great admirer of Ovid, and especially his De Arte Amandi-but with many redeeming virtues, and a constantly returning sense of shame and duty. To his works he has made a variety of saints and sages contribute-he has blended a number of ingenious fictions, apposite illustrations, and moral deductions. The representations of the profligacy of the clergy of his day, are as just as disgraceful.The agent of his intrigues, he calls Dona Trota Conventos, (Dame Convent-haunter): the very title is a volume of satire. He is most liberal in the latitude allowed to others, especially to those of his own profession, and he quiets his own conscience by the lessons of wisdom that his pen conveys. He is an advocate for the divine right of kings and popes to

break laws as well as to make them, and he proclaims any demur to this principle to be open rebellion against God himself. Perhaps the most curious of his productions, is the battle of Mr. Carnal (Carnival) with Mrs. Lent, the idea of which he seems to have taken from the Batrachomyomachia: beasts and fishes are drawn out in mortal combat, which ends in the total discomfiture of the former. The holy cause triumphs-Mr. Carnal is condemned to fast-to be shut up in solitude, unless in case of illness or repentance, upon one spare meal of fish a day. The poem is full of humour and sprightliness. The work which Ruiz has principally consulted, is a Latin poem on Love, in hexameters and pentameters, by Pamphilus Mauritianus: it is a drama in five acts. The arch-priest has interwoven most of its sentiments, and introduced all its characters. He has, however, changed their names; but he owns his debt to the monkish libertine, and puts upon him the burthen of his own licentiousness:

"And if I have been gross, unfurl your kind forgiveness o'er me, For Pamphilus and Ovid told what's most impure before me.'

We must not be understood as admiring the specimens of the arch-priest's poetry, with which we shall conclude. We have endeavoured to preserve the characteristics of the different styles of composition, and think their variety will interest our readers. The moral sentences, which we have chosen without much attention, possess considerable merit in our eyes.

"This is man's duty, this is wisdom's test,

To know both good and ill, and choose the best."+

"Deserve your recompense, exact it not,

Safety and freedom ne'er with gold were bought."

'Judgement and wisdom crown the hoary head,
Knowledge and science on time's footsteps tread."§

"Si villania hé dicho, haya de vos perdon
Que lo feo del estena dis Panfilo e Nason."

"Probar omen las cosas non es por ende peor

E saber bien è mal è usar lo mejor."

"El que non toviere premia non quiera ser apremiado
Libertad è soltura non es por oro complado.'

§"Esta en los antiguos seso è sabíencia

Es en el mucho tiempo el saber e la ciencia."

"The wise man murmurs not, when murmuring,
Nor consolation nor repose can bring:
That which our plaints remove not nor repair,
In prudent silence let us learn to bear."*

"Take heed to trifles, words are dangerous things,
From a small corn the proudest oak-tree springs;
The mass ferments with one small grain of leaven,
Thorns grow from down, driven by the winds of heaven."†

As a curious elucidation of the habits of the fourteenth century, we give a pastoral adventure. It has the air of truth, and a little too much of the ruggedness of simplicity..

"I never, never, shall forget

The mountain-maid, that once I met
By the cold river's side.

I met her on the mountain side,
She watch'd her herds unnotic'd there:
'Trim-bodied maiden, hail!' I cried;
She answered, Whither, wanderer?
For thou hast lost thy way.'

Yes! in this thicket; sometimes woe
And sometimes bliss doth fortune bring;
I'll not complain of fortune now,
Since I have found thee, wandering
Where these green branches play.

I smiled; the mountain-maiden brave,
As born 'midst mountains, soon descended:
She said, 'A secret art we have

For brutes, and idle tongues intended.'
She seiz'd a shepherd's crook,

* "El sabio gravemente non se debe quejar
Quando el quexamiento non le puede en pro tonnar
Lo que nunca se puede reparar ni enmendar
Debelo cuerdamente sofrir è endurar."

+"De fabla chica dañosa guardose muger falaguera
Que de un grano de agras se faso mucha dentera
De una nues chica nasce grand arber de noguera
E muchas Espigas nasien de un grano de cibera."

The effects of love are strongly and well pourtrayed.

"Love to the slowest, subtilty can teach,
And to the dumb give fair and flowing speech;
It makes the coward daring, and the dull
And idle diligent, and promptness full.

It makes youth ever youthful, takes from age.
The heavy burthen of time's pilgrimage;
Gives beauty to deformity-is seen
To value what is valueless and mean.

Enamour'd once, however vile and rude,
Each seems to each all wise, all fair, all good,
Brightest of nature's works, and loveliest-
Desire, ambition, covet not the rest.

Estrella del mar, puerto de fulgura
De dolor complido et de tristura
Venme librar et confortar

Señora del altura.

Nunca fallece la tu merced complida

Siempre quaresces de coytas et das vida

Nunca peresce nin entristece

Quien à ti non olvida.

Sufro grand mal sin merescer, à tuerto
Escribo tal porque pienso ser muerto
Mas tu me val que non vio al
Que me saque à puerto."

* "El amor fas sotil al ome que es rudo
Fasele fabra fermoso al que antes era mudo
Al omen que es cobarde fáselo muy atrevudo
Al peresoso fase ser presto et agudo.

Al mancebo mantiene mucho en macebés

E al viejo fas perder mucho la vejés
Fase blanco è fermoso del negro como pés
Ho que non vale una nues amor le da grand prés.

El que es enamorada, por muy feo que sea
Otro si su amiga maguer que sea muy fea
El uno et el otro non ha cosa que vea
Que tan bien le parezca, nin que tanto desea.

Love spreads its misty veil o'er all, and when
One sun is fled, another dawns again,
But valour may 'gainst adverse fate contend,

As th' hardest fruit is ripened in the end."

Probably the verses on death, which are, however, too long for quotation, are one of the finest specimens of the archpriest's powers.

"Thou art abandon'd now, proud man! by all,
But the hoarse raven, croaking o'er thy pall."

ART. III.—The true Intellectual System of the Universe, wherein all the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is confuted, and its Impossibility demonstrated, &c. By Ralph Cudworth, D. D.

2 vols. 4to. 1743.

How seldom does it happen, that the actual productions of the pen are answerable to the conceptions and intentions of an author's mind! Either the style displeases, or the argument is felt unsound; or some inadvertencies in statement, some frustrations of beauty, some sinkings from the heights of his aspirations, make him wish some parts unsaid, and all said better, and some things introduced which have been passed by forgotten. But if there be nothing to displease in quality, there is oft times a sad deficiency in quantity. Ars longa, vita brevis, weigheth down the mind that museth on many things. The sighings of the author are, not for more worlds to conquer, but for a longer period of being to gather the abundance which nature hath spread for him, to enlarge the basis of his fame, and to fill up the measure of his thoughts. So that besides the legacy of his works, which the writer leaves to posterity, there is also left an inventory of intentions, and a catalogue of projected labours. Thus it has been with Ralph Cudworth. The ponderous work, of which we propose to give an analysis for the benefit of those who, before they undertake the task of journeying through it, may wish to have some directions con

Mas noble que los otros por ende todo cubre
Como un amor pierde, luego otro cobre
Que buen afuerzo vence ala mala ventura

El atoda pera dura grand tiempo la madura."

VOL. VI. PART I.

E