WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT. BORN 1611; DIED 1643. THE early death of this brilliant young man put a period to a career of the highest promise. His diligence was equal to the vivacity of his parts; he was thought equally admirable as a poet and a preacher : the wits, the courtiers, and the divines of his time joined in his praise while living; and all who could feel, or desired to be thought to feel, for the departure of learning and genius, were emulous to hang a garland upon his tomb. The writings of CARTWRIGHT possess ease, sweetness, and playfulness of fancy; but, judging them with the impartial coolness of posthumous criticism, it is impossible not to ascribe a considerable portion of their effect upon his contemporaries to the prejudice raised in favour of the poet, by the fascinating temper and conversation which were universally acknowledged in the man. Like most of the wits of those times, Cartwright wrote for the stage. WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT. CONSIDERATION. FOOL that I was, that little of my span Mine age like to the eagle's, and endow My breast with innocence; that he whom thou CONFESSION. I DO confess, O God! my wandering fires And that turn fervour which was brutish rage; So shall my sighs not be as clouds to invest My sins with might, but winds to purge my breast. ALEXANDER ROSSE A NAME which the well-known ludicrous rhyme in Hudibras has made a familiar by-word to many who little suspect that he who bore it was a learned and estimable divine, and a most acute metaphysician. ROSSE was one of King Charles the First's Chaplains. He wrote many books, in Latin and in English-in prose and verse. The two little poems which follow are taken from his "Mel Heliconium; or poetical Honey gathered out of the Weeds of Parnassus"'--a well-intended and ingeniously executed attempt to spiritualize, and impart a Christian sense and application to the Greek and Roman Mythology. |