THE king (who never time nor power misspent

In subject's bashfulness, whiling great deeds Like coward councils, who too late consent) Thus to his secret will aloud proceeds:

If to thy fame, brave youth, I could add wings,
Or make her trumpet louder by my voice,
I would (as an example drawn for kings)
Proclaim the cause, why thou art now my choice.

For she is yours, as your adoption free;

And in that gift my remnant life I give ; But 'tis to you, brave youth! who now are she; And she that heaven where secondly I live.

And richer than that crown (which shall be thine When life's long progress I have gone with fame) Take all her love; which scarce forbears to shine And own thee, through her virgin-curtain, shame.

Thus spake the king; and Rhodalind appear'd

Through publish'd love,with so much bashfulness, As young kings show, when by surprise o'erheard, Moaning to fav'rite ears a deep distress.

For love is a distress, and would be hid

Like monarch's griefs, by which they bashful And in that shame beholders they forbid; [grow; Since those blush most, who most their blushes show.

And Gondibert, with dying eyes, did grieve

At her vail'd love (a wound he cannot heal), As great minds mourn, who cannot then relieve The virtuous, when through shame they want conceal.

And now cold Birtha's rosy looks decay;

Who in fear's frost had like her beauty died, But that attendant hope persuades her stay

A while, to hear her duke; who thus replied.

Victorious king! abroad your subjects are

Like legates, safe; at home like altars free! Even by your fame they conquer, as by war; And by your laws safe from each other be.

A king you are o'er subjects so, as wise

And noble husbands seem o'er loyal wives; Who claim not, yet confess their liberties,

And brag to strangers of their happy lives. To foes a winter storm; whilst your friends bow, Like summer trees, beneath your bounty's load; To me (next him whom your great self, with low And cheerful duty serves) a giving God.

Since this is you, and Rhodalind (the light

By which her sex fled virtue find) is yours; Your diamond, which tests of jealous sight, The stroke, and fire, and Oisel's juice endures; Since she so precious is, I shall appear

All counterfeit, of art's disguises made; And never dare approach her lustre near, Who scarce can hold my value in the shade. Forgive me that I am not what I seem;

But falsely have dissembled an excess
Of all such virtues as you most esteem;
But now grow good but as I ills confess.
Far in ambition's fever am I gone

!

Like raging flame aspiring is my love; Like flame destructive too, and, like the sun, Does round the world tow'rds change of objects

move.

Nor is this now through virtuous shame confess'd;
But Rhodalind does force my conjured fear,
As men whom evil spirits have possess'd,

Tell all when saintly votaries appear.

When she will grace the bridal dignity,

It will be soon to all young monarchs known; Who then by posting through the world will try

Who first can at her feet present his crown.

Then will Verona seem the inn of kings;

And Rhodalind shall at her palace gate Smile, when great love these royal suitors brings;

Who for that smile would as for empire wait.

Amongst this ruling race she choice may take For warmth of valour, coolness of the mind, Eyes that in empire's drowsy calms can wake, In storms look out, in darkness dangers find;

A prince who more enlarges power than lands, Whose greatness is not what his map contains; But thinks that his where he at full commands, Not where his coin does pass, but power remains. Who knows that power can never be too high

When by the good possest, for 'tis in them The swelling Nile, from which though people fly, They prosper most by rising of the stream. Thus, princes, you should choose; and you will find,

Even he, since men are wolves, must civilize (As light does tame some beasts of savage kind) Himself yet more, by dwelling in your eyes.

Such was the duke's reply; which did produce Thoughts of a diverse shape through sev'ral ears: His jealous rivals mourn at his excuse;

But Astragon it cures of all his fears.

Birtha his praise of Rhodalind bewails;

And now her hope a weak physician seems; For hope, the common comforter, prevails Like common med'cines, slowly in extremes.

The king (secure in offer'd empire) takes

This forced excuse as troubled bashfulness, And a disguise which sudden passion makes, To hide more joy than prudence should express.

And Rhodalind (who never loved before,

Nor could suspect his love was giv'n away) Thought not the treasure of his breast so poor, But that it might his debts of honour pay.

To hasten the rewards of his desert,

The king does to Verona him command; And, kindness so imposed, not all his art Can now instruct his duty to withstand.

Yet whilst the king does now his time dispose
In seeing wonders, in this palace shown,
He would a parting kindness pay to those
Who of their wounds are yet not perfect grown.

And by this fair pretence, whilst on the king Lord Astragon through all the house attends, Young Orgo does the duke to Birtha bring,

Who thus her sorrows to his bosom sends :

Why should my storm your life's calm voyage vex? Destroying wholly virtue's race in one;

So by the first to my unlucky sex,

All in a single ruin were undone.

Make heav'nly Rhodalind your bride! whilst I, Your once loved maid, excuse you, since I know That virtuous men forsake so willingly

Long cherish'd life, because to heav'n they go.

Let me her servant be: a dignity,

Which if your pity in my fall procures, I still shall value the advancement high,

Not as the crown is hers, but she is yours.

Ere this high sorrow up to dying grew,

The duke the casket open'd, and from thence (Form'd like a heart) a cheerful em'rald drew; Cheerful, as if the lively stone had sense.

The thirtieth carract it had doubled twice;
Not ta'en from the Attic silver mine,
Nor from the brass, though such (of nobler price)
Did on the necks of Parthian ladies shine:

Nor yet of those which make the Ethiop proud; Nor taken from those rocks where Bactrians But from the Scythian, and without a cloud; [climb: Not sick at fire, nor languishing with time.

Then thus he spake: "This, Birtha, from my Progenitors, was to the loyal she

[male On whose kind heart they did in love prevail, The nuptial pledge, and this I give to thee:

Seven centuries have pass'd, since it from bride

To bride did first succeed; and though 'tis known From ancient lore, that gems much virtue hide, And that the em'rald is the bridal stone:

Though much renown'd because it chastens loves,
And will, when worn by the neglected wife,
Show when her absent lord disloyal proves,
By faintness, and a pale decay of life.

Though em'ralds serve as spies to jealous brides,
Yet each compared to this does counsel keep;
Like a false stone, the husband's falsehood hides,
Or seems born blind, or feigns a dying sleep.
With this take Orgo, as a better spy,
Who may in all your kinder fears be sent
To watch at court, if I deserve to die
By making this to fade, and you lament."

Had now an artful pencil Birtha drawn,

(With grief all dark, then straight with joy all He must have fancied first, in early dawn, [light) A sudden break of beauty out of night.

Or first he must have mark'd what paleness fear,
Like nipping frost, did to her visage bring;
Then think he sees, in a cold backward year,
A rosy morn begin a sudden spring.

Her joys (too vast to be contain'd in speech)
Thus she a little spake : "Why stoop you down,
My plighted lord, to lowly Birtha's reach,
Since Rhodalind would lift you to a crown?
Or why do I, when I this plight embrace,
Boldly aspire to take what you have given?
But that your virtue has with angels place,
And 'tis a virtue to aspire to heav'n.

And as tow'rds heav'n all travel on their knees,
So I tow'rds you, though love aspire, will move :
And were you crown'd, what could you better
Than awed obedience led by bolder love? [please

If I forget the depth from whence I rise,
Far from your bosom banish'd be my heart;
Or claim a right by beauty to your eyes;
Or proudly think my chastity desert.

But thus ascending from your humble maid
To be your plighted bride, and then your wife,
Will be a debt that shall be hourly paid,

Till time my duty cancel with my life.

And fruitfully if heav'n e'er make me bring,

Your image to the world, you then my pride No more shall blame, than you can tax the spring For boasting of those flowers she cannot hide.

R

SIR JOHN DENHAM was born in Dublin, where his father was chief-baron of the Irish Exchequer. On his father's accession to the same office in the English Exchequer, our poet was brought to London, and there received the elements of his learning. At Oxford he was accounted a slow, dreaming young man, and chiefly noted for his attachment to cards and dice. The same propensity followed him to Lincoln's Inn, to such a degree, that his father threatened to disinherit him. To avert this, he wrote a penitentiary Essay on Gaming; but after the death of his father he returned to the vice that most easily beset him, and irrecoverably injured his patrimony. In 1641, when his tragedy of The Sophy appeared, it was regarded as a burst of unpromised genius. In the better and bygone days of the drama, so

tame a production would not perhaps have been regarded as astonishing, even from a dreaming young man. He was soon after appointed highsheriff of Surrey, and made governor of Farnham Castle for the king: but being unskilled in military affairs, he resigned his command, and joined his majesty at Oxford, where he published his Cooper's Hill*. In the civil wars he served the royal family, by conveying their correspondence; but was at length obliged to quit the kingdom, and was sent as ambassador, by Charles II. in his exile, to the king of Poland. At the Restoration he was made surveyor of the king's buildings, and knighted, with the order of the Bath; but his latter days were embittered by a second marriage, that led to a temporary derangement of mind.

SURE there are poets which did never dream
Upon Parnassus, nor did taste the stream
Of Helicon; we therefore may suppose
Those made not poets, but the poets those,
And as courts make not kings, but kings the court,

So where the Muses and their train resort,
Parnassus stands; if I can be to thee

A poet, thou Parnassus art to me.
Nor wonder if (advantaged in my flight,
By taking wing from thy auspicious height)
Through untraced ways and airy paths I fly,
More boundless in my fancy than my eye;
My eye, which swift as thought contracts the space
That lies between, and first salutes the place

Crown'd with that sacred pile, so vast, so high,
That whether 'tis a part of earth or sky

[* The earliest edition known was printed at London in 1642.]

[† Denham has been frequently imitated in this kind of local poetry as Johnson calls it, and since Cooper's Hill appeared we have had Waller's St. James's Park; Pope's Windsor Forest; Garth's Claremont; Tickell's Kensington Garden: Dyer's Grongar Hill; Jago's Edge-Hill: Scott's Amwell; Michael Bruce's Lochleven, and Kirke White's Clifton Grove. There are others, but these alone merit notice. Beaumont's Bosworth Field, though prior in date to Cooper's Hill, is local more in its title than its treatment. Drayton's panoramic plan in his Poly-olbion would have included Cooper's Hill and indeed every corner of the island.]

Uncertain seems, and may be thought a proud
Aspiring mountain, or descending cloud; [flight
Paul's, the late theme of such a Muse*, whose
Has bravely reach'd and soar'd above thy height;
Now shalt thou stand, though sword, or time, or
fire,

Or zeal, more fierce than they, thy fall conspire,
Secure, whilst thee the best of poets sings,
Preserved from ruin by the best of kings.
Under his proud survey the city lies,
And like a mist beneath a hill doth rise,
Whose state and wealth, the business and the crowd,
Seems at this distance but a darker cloud,
And is, to him who rightly things esteems,
No other in effect than what it seems;
Where, with like haste, though several ways they
Some to undo, and some to be undone ; [run,
While luxury and wealth, like war and peace,
Are each the other's ruin and increase;
As rivers lost in seas, some secret vein
Thence reconveys, there to be lost again.
Oh! happiness of sweet retired content!
To be at once secure and innocent.
Windsor the next (where Mars with Venus dwells,
Beauty with strength) above the valley swells
Into my eye, and doth itself present
With such an easy and unforced ascent,
That no stupendous precipice denies
Access, no horror turns away our eyes;
But such a rise as doth at once invite
A pleasure and a reverence from the sight:
Thy mighty master's emblem, in whose face
Sat meekness, heighten'd with majestic grace;
Such seems thy gentle height, made only proud
To be the basis of that pompous load,
Than which a nobler weight no mountain bears,
But Atlas only, which supports the spheres.
When Nature's hand this ground did thus advance,
'Twas guided by a wiser power than Chance ;
Mark'd out for such an use, as if 'twere meant
T' invite the builder, and his choice prevent.
Nor can we call it choice, when what we choose
Folly or blindness only could refuse.

A crown of such majestic towers doth grace
The gods' great mother, when her heav'nly race
Do homage to her; yet she cannot boast,
Among that num'rous and celestial host,
More heroes than can Windsor ; nor doth Fame's
Immortal book record more noble names.
Not to look back so far, to whom this isle
Owes the first glory of so brave a pile,
Whether to Cæsar, Albanact, or Brute,
The British Arthur, or the Danish C'nute;
(Though this of old no less contèst did move
Than when for Homer's birth seven cities strove)
(Like him in birth, thou should'st be like in fame,
As thine his fate, if mine had been his flame)
But whosoe'er it was, Nature design'd
First a brave place, and then as brave a mind.
Not to recount those sev'ral kings to whom
It gave a cradle, or to whom a tomb;

* Waller.

But thee, great Edward! and thy greater son,
(The lilies which his father wore he won)
And thy Bellona, who the consort came
Not only to thy bed but to thy fame,
She to thy triumph led one captive king,
And brought that son which did the second bring;
Then didst thou found that Order (whether love
Or victory thy royal thoughts did move :)
Each was a noble cause, and nothing less
Than the design has been the great success,
Which foreign kings and emperors esteem
The second honour to their diadem.
Had thy great destiny but given thee skill
To know, as well as pow'r to act her will,
That from those kings, who then thy captives were,
In after-times should spring a royal pair
Who should possess all that thy mighty pow'r,
Or thy desires more mighty, did devour ;
To whom their better fate reserves whate'er
The victor hopes for or the vanquish'd fear :
That blood which thou and thy great grandsire
And all that since these sister nations bled, [shed,
Had been unspilt, and happy Edward known
That all the blood he spilt had been his own.
When he that patron chose in whom are join'd
Soldier and martyr, and his arms confined
Within the azure circle, he did seem

But to foretel and prophecy of him

[more;

Who to his realms that azure round hath join'd,
Which nature for their bound at first design'd;
That bound which to the world's extremest ends,
Endless itself, its liquid arms extends.
Nor doth he need those emblems which we paint,
But is himself the soldier and the saint.
Here should my wonder dwell, and here my praise;
But my fix'd thoughts my wand'ring eye betrays,
Viewing a neighb'ring hill, whose top of late
A chapel crown'd, till in the common fate
Th' adjoining abbey fell. (May no such storm
Fall on our times, where ruin must reform !)
Tell me, my Muse! what monstrous dire offence,
What crime, could any Christian king incense
To such a rage? Was't luxury or lust?
Was he so temperate, so chaste, so just?
Were these their crimes? they were his own much
But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor,
Who having spent the treasures of his crown,
Condemns their luxury to feed his own;
And yet this act, to varnish o'er the shame
Of sacrilege, must bear devotion's name.
No crime so bold but would be understood
A real, or at least a seeming good.
Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name,
And, free from conscience, is a slave to fame.
Thus he the church at once protects and spoils ;
But princes' swords are sharper than their styles:
And thus to th' ages past he makes amends,
Their charity destroys, their faith defends.
Then did Religion in a lazy cell,

In empty airy contemplations dwell,

And like the block unmoved lay; but ours,
As much too active, like the stork devours.

Is there no temp'rate region can be known
Betwixt their frigid and our torrid zone?
Could we not wake from that lethargic dream,
But to be restless in a worse extreme ?
And for that lethargy was there no cure
But to be cast into a calenture?

Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance
So far, to make us wish for ignorance,
And rather in the dark to grope our way,
Than led by a false guide to err by day?
Who sees these dismal heaps but would demand
What barbarous invader sack'd the land?
But when he hears no Goth, no Turk, did bring
This desolation, but a Christian king ;
When nothing but the name of zeal appears
"Twixt our best actions and the worst of theirs ;
What does he think our sacrilege would spare,
When such th' effects of our devotions are?
Parting from thence 'twixt anger, shame, and
fear,

Those for what's past, and this for what's too near,
My eye, descending from the Hill, surveys
Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays.
Thames the most loved of all the Ocean's sons,
By his old sire, to his embraces runs,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity;

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,

Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold*:
His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring;
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay ;
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil;

But godlike his unwearied bounty flows;
First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,
But free and common as the sea or wind;
When he, to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying tow'rs
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities, plants.
So that to us no thing, no place, is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's Exchange.
O, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!

[* Originally :

And though his clearer sand no golden veins
Like Tagus or Pactolus stream contains-

which we quote to make good the couplet in Waller:

Poets lose half the praise they should have got,
Could it be known what they discreetly blot.]

Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull ;
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full *.
Heav'n her Eridanus no more shall boast,
Whose fame in thine, like lesser current, 's lost :
Thy nobler streams shall visit Jove's abodes,
To shine among the stars, and bathe the gods.
Here Nature, whether more intent to please
Us for herself with strange varieties,

(For things of wonder give no less delight
To the wise Maker's than beholder's sight;
Though these delights from several causes move,
For so our children, thus our friends, we love)
Wisely she knew the harmony of things,
As well as that of sounds, from discord springs.
Such was the discord which did first disperse
Form, order, beauty, through the universe;
While dryness moisture, coldness heat resists,
All that we have, and that we are, subsists;
While the steep horrid roughness of the wood
Strives with the gentle calmness of the flood,
Such huge extremes when Nature doth unite,
Wonder from thence results, from thence delight.
The stream is so transparent, pure, and clear,
That had the self-enamour'd youth gazed here,
So fatally deceived he had not been,
While he the bottom, not his face had seen.
But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes; his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows,
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat ;
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is placed,
Between the mountain and the stream embraced,
Which shade and shelter from the Hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives,
And in the mixture of all these appears
Variety, which all the rest endears.

This scene had some bold Greek or British bard
Beheld of old, what stories had we heard
Of fairies, satyrs, and the nymphs their dames,
Their feasts, their revels, and their am'rous flames?
'Tis still the same, although their airy shape
All but a quick poetic sight escape.
There Faunus and Sylvanus keep their courts,
And thither all the horned host resorts

[* Swift has ridiculed the herd of imitators of these noble lines:

"If Anna's happy reign you praise,
Pray not a word of halcyon days!
Nor let my votaries show their skill
In'aping lines from Cooper's Hill;
For, know I cannot bear to hear

The mimicry of deep yet clear.'"-Apollo's Edict. In this, one of the earliest of our descriptive poems, Denham from time to time made great alterations and additions, and every insertion and every change was made with admirable judgment. Pope collated his copy with an early edition, and marked the variations; thinking it, as he said in a note at the end of the volume, “a very useful lesson for a poet to compare the editions, and consider at each alteration how and why it was altered."

The four famous lines on the Thames were an after insertion, and in Mr. Moore's opinion one of the happiest of recorded instances.-Life of Byron, vol. ii. p. 193.]