With princes, since their will and acts must be Accounted one day to a Judge supreme.

Wife. I ha' done. If the devotion to my lord, Or pity to his innocence, have led me Beyond the awful limits to be observed By one so much beneath your sacred person, I thus low crave your royal pardon, madam;

[Kneels.

I know you will remember, in your goodness,
My life-blood is concern'd while his least vein
Shall run black and polluted, my heart fed
With what keeps him alive; nor can there be
A greater wound than that which strikes the life
Of our good name, so much above the bleeding
Of this rude pile we carry, as the soul
Hath excellence above this earth-born frailty.
My lord, by the king's will, is led already
To a severe arraignment, and to judges
Will make no tender search into his tract
Of life and state; stay but a little while,
And France shall echo to his shame or innocence.
This suit I beg with tears, I shall have sorrow
Enough to hear him censured foul and monstrous
Should you forbear to antedate my sufferings.
Queen. Your conscience comes about, and you
incline

To fear he may be worth the law's condemning. Wife [rising.] I sooner will suspect the stars may lose

Their way, and crystal heaven return to chaos;
Truth sits not on her square more firm than he;
Yet let me tell you, madam, were his life
And action so foul as you have character'd
And the bad world expects, though as a wife
'Twere duty I should weep myself to death

FROM "SELECT AYRES AND DIALOGUES," BY
LAWES. 1659.

I DO confess thou 'rt smooth and fair,
And I might have gone near to love thee,
Had I not found the slightest prayer

That lip could move had power to move thee; But I can let thee now alone,

As worthy to be loved by none.

I do confess thou 'rt sweet, yet find
Thee such an unthrift of thy sweets,
Thy favours are but like the wind,

Which kisseth every thing it meets;
And since thou canst with more than one,
Thou'rt worthy to be loved by none.

The morning-rose, that untouch'd stands

Arm'd with her briers, how sweetly smells! But pluck'd and strain'd through ruder hands, Her sweet no longer with her dwells; But scent and beauty both are gone, And leaves fall from her one by one.

Such fate ere long will thee betide,
When thou hast handled been awhile;
With sear flowers to be thrown aside,
And I will sigh when some will smile
To see thy love for more than one
Hath brought thee to be loved by none.*

SONG.

From p. 11 of "Cromwell's Conspiracy, a tragi-comedy, relating to our latter Times; beginning at the death of King Charles the First, and ending with the happy Restauration of King Charles the Second. Written by a Person of Quality." 4to, Lond. 1660.

How happy 's the pris'ner that conquers his fate With silence, and ne'er on bad fortune complains, But carelessly plays with his keys on the grate, And makes a sweet concert with them and his

chains! [oppress'd, He drowns care with sack, while his thoughts are And makes his heart float like a cork in his breast.

[* To this song, which was written by Sir Robert Ayton, Burns gave a Scots dress, but failed to improve.]

Then since w' are all slaves who islanders be, And the world's a large prison enclosed with the sea,

We will drink up the ocean, and set ourselves free, For man is the world's epitome.

Let tyrants wear purple, deep dyed in the blood

Of them they have slain, their sceptres to sway: If our conscience be clear, and our title be good To the rags that hang on us, w' are richer than they:

We'll drink down at night what we beg or can
borrow,
[morrow.
And sleep without plotting for more the next
Then since w' are all slaves, &c.

Come, drawer, and fill us a peck of Canary,
One brimmer shall bid all our senses good night.
When old Aristotle was frolic and merry,

By the juice of the grape he turn'd Stagyrite; Copernicus once in a drunken fit found [round. By the course of his brains that the world turned Then since w' are all slaves, &c.

"Tis sack makes our faces like comets to shine, And gives beauty beyond a complexion mask; Diogenes fell so in love with his wine,

That when 'twas all out he still lived in the cask; And he so loved the scent of the wainscotted room, That dying he desired a tub for his tomb.

Then since w'are all slaves, &c.

LOYALTY CONFINED.

FROM THE SAME.

Ascribed to Sir Roger L'Estrange.

BEAT on, proud billows; Boreas, blow;
Swell, curled waves, high as Jove's roof;
Your incivility doth show

That innocence is tempest-proof:

Though surly Nereus frown, my thoughts are calm; Then strike, Affliction, for thy wounds are balm.

That which the world miscalls a jail,

A private closet is to me;
Whilst a good conscience is my bail,
And innocence my liberty:

Locks, bars, and solitude, together met,
Makes me no prisoner, but an anchoret.

I, whilst I wish'd to be retired,

Into this private room was turn'd, As if their wisdoms had conspired

The salamander should be burn'd;

Or like a sophy, that would drown a fish,

I am constrained to suffer what I wish.

Thy cynic hugs his poverty,

The pelican her wilderness;
And 'tis the Indian's pride to be
Naked on frozen Caucasus :

Contentment cannot smart, stoics we see
Make torments easy to their apathy.
These manacles upon my arm

I as my mistress' favours wear;
And for to keep my ankles warm,

I have some iron shackles there.

These walls are but my garrison; this cell,
Which men call jail, doth prove my citadel.
I'm in this cabinet lock'd up,

Like some high-prized Margaret;
Or, like some Great Mogul, or Pope,
Am cloister'd up from public sight:
Retirement is a piece of majesty,

And thus, proud sultan, I'm as great as thee.
Here sin for want of food must starve,
Where tempting objects are not seen;
And these strong walls do only serve

To keep vice out, and keep me in:
Malice of late's grown charitable sure,
I'm not committed, but I'm kept secure. ....
Have you not seen the nightingale,

A pilgrim coop'd into a cage,
How doth she chant her wonted tale

In that her narrow hermitage?
Even there her charming melody doth prove
That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove.
My soul is free as th' ambient air,

Although my baser part's immured, Whilst loyal thoughts do still repair, T'accompany my solitude:

And though immured, yet I can chirp and sing,
Disgrace to rebels, glory to my king.

What though I cannot see my king,
Neither in his person or his coin?
Yet contemplation is a thing,

That renders what I have not mine.
My king from me what adamant can part,
Whom I do wear engraven on my heart?

I am that bird whom they combine
Thus to deprive of liberty;
But though they do my corpse confine,
Yet, maugre hate, my soul is free.
Although rebellion do my body bind,
My king can only captivate my mind.

UPON AMBITION.

OCCASIONED ON THE ACCUSATION OF THE EARL OF STRAFFORD, IN 1640.

From the "Rump," a collection of poems and songs relating to the times from 1639 to 1661. Lond. 1662.

How uncertain is the state

Of that greatness we adore;

When ambitiously we soar,

And have ta'en the glorious height,

"Tis but ruin gilded o'er,

To enslave us to our fate,

Whose false delight is easier got than kept,
Content ne'er on its gaudy pillow slept.

Then how fondly do we try,

With such superstitious care,
To build fabrics in the air;

Or seek safety in that sky,

Where no stars but meteors are

That portend a ruin nigh:

And having reach'd the object of our aim,
We find it but a pyramid of flame.

ALEXANDER BROME was an attorney in the Lord Mayor's Court. From a verse in one of his poems, it would seem that he had been sent once in the civil war, (by compulsion no doubt,) on the parliament side, but had stayed only three days, and never fought against the king and the cavaliers. He was in truth a strenuous loyalist, and the bacchanalian songster of his party. Most of the songs and epigrams that were published against the Rump have been ascribed to him. He had, besides, a share in the translation of Horace, with Fanshawe, Holiday, Cowley, and others, and published a single comedy, the Cun

ning Lovers, which was acted in 1651, at the private house in Drury. There is a playful variety in his metre, that probably had a better effect in song than in reading. His thoughts on love and the bottle have at least the merit of being decently jovial, though he arrays the trite arguments of convivial invitation in few original images. In studying the traits and complexion of a past age, amusement, if not illustration, will often be found from the ordinary effusions of party ridicule. In this view, the Diurnal, and other political satires of Brome, have an extrinsic value as contemporary caricatures.

THE RESOLVE.

TELL me not of a face that's fair,
Nor lip and cheek that's red,
Nor of the tresses of her hair,
Nor curls in order laid;
Nor of a rare seraphic voice,

That like an angel sings;
Though if I were to take my choice,
I would have all these things.
But if that thou wilt have me love,
And it must be a she;
The only argument can move
Is, that she will love me.

The glories of your ladies be
But metaphors of things,
And but resemble what we see

Each common object brings. Roses out-red their lips and cheeks,

Lilies their whiteness stain: What fool is he that shadows seeks, And may the substance gain! Then if thou 'It have me love a lass,

Let it be one that's kind, Else I'm a servant to the glass That's with Canary lined.

ON CANARY.

Or all the rare juices

That Bacchus or Ceres produces,
There's none that I can, nor dare I
Compare with the princely Canary.
For this is the thing

That a fancy infuses;
This first got a king,

And next the nine Muses:

'Twas this made old poets so sprightly to sing, And fill all the world with the glory and fame on't; They Helicon call'd it, and the Thespian spring, But this was the drink, though they knew not the name on't.

Our cider and perry

May make a man mad, but not merry;
It makes people windmill-pated,
And with crackers sophisticated;

And your hops, yeast, and malt,
When they're mingled together,
Make our fancies to halt,
Or reel any whither;

It stuffs up our brains with froth and with yest,
That if one would write but a verse for a bellman,
He must study till Christmas for an eight-shilling
jest;

These liquors won't raise, but drown, and o'erwhelm man.

Our drowsy metheglin

Was only ordained to inveigle in

The novice that knows not to drink yet,
But is fuddled before he can think it;
And your claret and white

Have a gunpowder fury;
They're of the French spright,

But they won't long endure you.
And your holiday muscadine, Alicant and tent,
Have only this property and virtue that's fit in't,
They'll make a man sleep till a preachment be spent,
But we neither can warm our blood nor wit in't.

The bagrag and Rhenish

You must with ingredients replenish;

'Tis a wine to please ladies and toys with;
But not for a man to rejoice with.

But 'tis sack makes the sport,

And who gains but that flavour,
Though an abbess he court,

In his high-shoes he'll have her;

"Tis this that advances the drinker and drawer: Though the father came to town in his hobnails

and leather,

He turns it to velvet, and brings up an heir, In the town in his chain, in the field with his feather.

[ What is "Divine" has much of the essence of poetry; that which is human, of the frailty of the flesh. Some are playfully pastoral, some sweetly Anacreontic, some in the higher key of religion, others lasciviously wanton and unclean. The whole collection seems to have passed into oblivion till about the year 1796, and since then we have had a separate volume of selections, and two complete reprints. His several excellences have preserved his many indecencies, the divinity of his verse (poetically speaking) the dunghill of his obscener moods. Southey,

Each virgin like a Spring
With honeysuckles crowned.
But now we see none here,

Whose silvery feet did tread, And, with dishevell❜d hair, Adorn'd this smoother mead.

Like unthrifts, having spent Your stock, and needy grown, Ye're left here to lament

Your poor estates alone.

admitting the perennial beauty of many of his poems, has styled him, not with too much severity, "a coarseminded and beastly writer." Jones' Attempts in Verse, p. 85; see also Quar. Rev. vol. iv. p. 171.-C.]

[The last and best edition of Herrick was published by H. G. Clarke, London, 1844. in two volumes. The life of Herrick, we are inclined to think, was as licentious as his verse, and both disgraced the church and served well to round the periods of Puritan lamentations and anathemas.-G.]

SONG.

GATHER ye rose-buds, while ye may,
Old Time is still a flying;

And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

The age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse and worst Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And, whilst ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

FAIR pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do you fall so fast?
Your date is not so past;
But you may stay yet here awhile,
To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.

What, were ye born to be

An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good-night?
"Twas pity Nature brought ye forth
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne'er so brave :
And after they have shown their pride,
Like you, awhile, they glide
Into the grave.

THE COUNTRY LIFE.

SWEET Country life, to such unknown
Whose lives are others', not their own!
But, serving courts and cities, be
Less happy, less enjoying thee!
Thou never plough'st the ocean's foam
To seek and bring rough pepper home;
Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove,

To bring from thence the scorched clove:
Nor, with the lost of thy loved rest,
Bring'st home the ingot from the West.
No: thy ambition's master-piece
Flies no thought higher than a fleece;
Or how to pay thy hinds, and clear
All scores, and so to end the year;
But walk'st about thy own dear bounds,
Not envying others' larger grounds:
For well thou know'st 'tis not th' extent
Of land makes life, but sweet content.
When now the cock, the ploughman's horn,
Calls forth the lily-wristed morn,
Then to thy corn-fields thou dost go,
Which though well-soil'd, yet thou dost know
That the best compost for the lands

Is the wise master's feet and hands.

There at the plough thou find'st thy team,
With a hind whistling there to them;
And cheer'st them up by singing how
The kingdom's portion is the plough.
This done, then to th' enamell'd meads
Thou go'st; and as thy foot there treads,
Thou see'st a present godlike power
Imprinted in each herb and flower;
And smell'st the breath of great-eyed kine,
Sweet as the blossoms of the vine.
Here thou behold'st thy large sleek neat,
Unto the dewlaps up in meat;
And, as thou look'st, the wanton steer,
The heifer, cow, and ox, draw near,
To make a pleasing pastime there.