SIN OF CUSTOME

Is a long showre, beginning with the Light,
Oft-times continuing to the dead of Night.

SIN OF IGNORANCE.

IT is a hideous Mist that wets amain,
Though it appear not in the form of Rain.

CRYING SINNES.

IT is a sudden showre that tears in sunder
The Cope of Heaven and always comes with Thunder.

SIN OF DELIGHT.

IT is a feathered showre of Snow, not felt,
But soaks to th' very skin whenere it melt.

SIN OF PRESUMPTION

DOES like a showre of Haile both wet and Wound,
With sudden Death; or strikes us to the Ground.

THE SIN OF SINNES.

It is a sudden showre, such as fell

On Sodom; strikes, and strikes to th' Pit of Hell.

Our author then proceeds to consider these Severall Sinnes' together. We quote a few lines, as an exemplification of the style which afterward grew into the rants of the fifth monarchy men, and stern Independants:

GOOD GOD! what Weather's here! These Soules of our

Have still the luck to travell in a showre;

LORD, we are cold and pitifully drencht;

Not a dry thread; and all our Fire 's quencht.

Our very Bloud is cold; our trembling knees

Are mutuall Anvils; LORD, we stand and freeze, etc.

Here, again, is an image carried out to the utmost extremity, even beyond some of Cowley's:

MAN is a Tenise-Court; His Flesh the Wall;

The Gamesters, GOD and SATAN; Th' Heart's the Ball;

The higher and the lower Hazzards are,

Too bold Presumption, and too base Despaire ;

The Rackets which our restlesse Balls make fly,
Adversity and sweet Prosperity;

The Angels keep the Count, and mark the place
Where the Ball flies, and chaulk out every Chase;
The Line 's a Civill Life we often crosse,

Ore which the Ball not flying makes a Losse ;
Detractors are like Standers-by and bet
With Charitable men; Our Life's the Set.
LORD, in this Conflict, in these fierce Assaults,
Laborious Satan makes a world of Faults;
Forgive them, LORD, although he ne'er implore,
For Favor. They 'l be set upon our Score;
O, take the Ball before it come to th' Ground,
For this base Court has many a false Rebound:
Strike, and strike hard, but strike above the Line:
Strike where thou please, so as the Sett be thine.

He has many examples of this ingenuity; some of them are fantastic enough:

ON MAN'S HEART,

NATURE presents my heart in ore;
Fair civill carriage gilds it ore;

Which when the ALMIGHTY shall behold,
With a pleased eye he brings to gold;

Thus changed, the Temple Ballance weighs it;

If drosse remain, the Touch bewrays it;

Affliction's Furnace then refines it;

GOD's Holy Spirit stamps and coynes it;
No coyn so current, it will goe

For the best wares that Heaven can show.

Here, too, is a well imagined one:

ON THE HYPOCRITE.

HE's like a Bul-rush, seems so smooth that not
The eye of Cato can descry a knot.
Pill but the bark, and strip his smoother skin,
And thou shalt find him spungie all within.
His browes are alwayes ponderous as lead,
He ever droops and hangs his velvet head:
He washes often, but if thou enquire,

Into his depth, his roots are fixed in mire.

The following is perhaps the original of FRANKLIN's celebrated epitaph:

THE world's a printing-house; our words, our thoughts,

Our deeds are characters of sev'rall sizes:

Each soul is a compostor, of whose faults

The Levites are correctors; Heav'n revises;

Death is the common Presse, from whence being driven,
We 're gathered sheet by sheet, and bound for Heaven.

And here is a happy image, which, though not clearly expressed, is pregnant with meaning:

ON THE POURING OUT OF OUR HEARTS.

"T is easie to pour in: but few, I doubt,
Attain that curious Art of pouring out;

Some pour their hearts like Oyle, that there resides
An unctuous substance still about the sides:
Others like wine, which, though the substance passe,
Does leave a kinde of savor in the glass.

Some pour their hearts like milk, whose hiew distains,
Though neither substance nor the scent remains :
How shall we pour out them that smell nor matter
Nor color stay? Pour out your hearts like water.

The following is as true now as in the age of old Francis Quarles. Time's manners may change, but man is the same:

SERVIO Would thrive, and therefore does obey

GoD's law, and shuts up shop o' the Sabbath day:

Servio would prosper in his home-affairs
And therefore dares not miss his diet prayers.
Servio would put to sea, and does implore
To the end that he may safely come ashore:
Servio's in suit, and therefore must be tyed
To morning prayer, until his cause be tried:
Servio begins to loathe a single life,

And therefore prayes for a high portioned wife.

Servio would fain be thought religious too,
And therefore prayes as the religious doe.
Servio still prayes for profit or applause;
Servio will seldom pray without a cause.

There is many a portly cit, well to do in the world, and easy as to his conscience, who might take a lesson from the above. This halfreligion is a frequent subject of satire and rebuke with our author. He agrees with the stern spirits of those times who could bear no dallying with evil one hand for the world and the other for heaven. another Divine Fancy' in the same spirit and with the same perennial application:

PLAUSUS of late hath raised a hospitall,
Repaired a church, founded a colledge-hall;
Plausus hath built a holy temple; vowed it,
To GOD; erects a school and hath endowed it:
Plausus hath given, in his abundant pittie,
A spittle to the blind and lame o' the citie:
Plausus allows a table for the poor

O' the parish, besides those he feeds at door;
Plausus relieves the prisons; mends the wayes,
Maintains a lecture on the market-dayes;
Plausus, in brief, for bountie bears the bell;
Plausus hath done much good, but nothing well.

Here is

Quarles was evidently no believer in the efficacy of works without faith. Here is another distich, in which he well rebukes the follies of the ultra self-abasing religionists:

It is an error even as foul to call

Our sinnes too great for pardon as too small.

It is a good proverb that says, 'Humility is the dress-coat of Pride,' a fact which those just alluded to would do well to remember. Our author has also a fling at this, which he terms

THE DEVIL'S MASTER-PIECE.

THIS is the height the Devil's art can show;

To make man proud because he is not so.*

We like the following; there is much truth in it, and truth well expressed:

LORD if my Griefs were not opposed with Joy,

They would destroy:

And, if my Mirth were not allayed with Sadnesse,
It would be Madnesse.

While this with that, or that with this contends,

They're both my friends;

But when these happy Wars doe chance to cease,

I have no peace.

The more my earthly passions doe contest,
The more my heavenly affections are at rest.

* Is not this the original of a stanza in COLERIDGE's 'Devil's Walk?'

He saw a small cot with a large coach-house,

A cottage of gentility.

And the Devil laughed, for his favorite sin

Is the pride that apes humility."

The similarity is, to say the least, remarkable.

And here is another, that has only too much application among us. Though not very savory, it has salt enough to keep it from offending:

THEY that in life oppresse, and then bequeath
Their goods to pious uses at their Death,
Are like those Drunkards, being laid to sleep
They belch and vomit what they cannot keep:
To GoD's and Man's acceptance I presume

Their severall actions send the like perfume.

When this was written there was less false delicacy than at present, and an author cared more to be forcible than elegant. The following is in somewhat the same style. Quarles has no mercy for any but those entirely devoted to Religion, and he handles the flail without much

ceremony:

ON FORMALL DEVOTION.

MEN doe GOD service with the same devotion,

As the foul body takes his loathed potion.

They stay, and stay, then gulp it down in hast,

Not for the pleasure, but to have it past:

Whose druggie Taste goes so against their minde,
That oft the better part is left behinde;
And what is taken 's taken but in vain,
It either works not, or comes up again.

We also like the following. There is much in it that is pleasing:

Look up; and there I see the fair abode
And glorious mansion of my gracious GOD;
Look down; In every garnisht corner lies
Favours objected to my wondering eyes;
Look on my right hand; There the sweet increase
Of Joyes present me with a joyfull Peace;
Look on my left hand; There my FATHER's rod
Sublimes my knowledge from myself to God;
Look forward; There I see the lively storie
Of Faith's improvement, and of future Glory;
Look backward; There my thankful eye is cast
On Sinnes remitted, and on dangers past;
Look inward; And mine eye is made partaker
Of the fair image of my glorious MAKER;
Look up, or down, about, above, or under,
Nothing but objects of true love and wonder.

It was the fault of the age to admire quibbles and antitheses, and Quarles indulges in them to the utmost; for example:

HE that wants Faith, and apprehends a grief,
Because he wants it, hath a true belief.
And he that grieves because his grief's so small,
Has a true grief, and the best Faith of all.

The following are pleasing:

A GOOD-MORROW.

'Tis day; Unfold thine Arms; Arise and rouze
Thy leaden spirits, and pay thy morning vows.
Send up thy Incense; Let her early smoke
Renew that league thy very dreams have broke.
Then mayst thou work or play. Nothing shall be
Displeasing to thy God that pleases thee.

Here is an hackneyed :

A GOOD-NIGHT.

CLOSE now thine eyes, and sleep secure;
Thy soul is safe enough, thy body sure:
He that loves thee, he that keeps,

And guards thee, never slumbers, never sleeps.
The smiling Conscience in a peacefull breast
Has onely peace, has onely rest:
The music and the mirth of Kings
Are all but very Discord when she sings:
Then close thine eyes, and rest secure ;
No sleep so sweet as thine, no rest so sure.

epigram which is well imagined, though the subject is

NERE think, Mundano, that one Rome will hold

Thy GoD, and all thy Gold.

If ere they chance to meet within a heart,
They 'l either fight or part;

So long as Earth seems glorious in thine eyes,

Thy thoughts can never rise:

Beleev 't, Mundano, by how much more near

Thou get'st to Heaven, the lesse will Earth appear.

Alas for poor human nature! Quarles lost some property and MSS. in the Irish Rebellion of 1642, and his death is supposed to have been caused by his immoderate grief at his reverse. It is much easier to

counsel than to practice.

Even among his religious meditations, he could find time to flatter. The following is almost sacreligious:

ON MARY.

FOUR MARIES are eternized for their worth;

Our SAVIOUR found out three, our CHARLES the fourth.

There are few things more disgusting than Flattery when she decks herself with the words of Religion.

It is truly refreshing, after the smooth and flowing inanities of the present day, to lay hold of an author like Quarles, who has both thought and felt, and who records his experiences briefly and strongly. His numbers are not melodious, and he has few of the ornaments and elegancies of poetry, but we are willing to pass over these for the sake of his ideas. There are, it is true, too many turns, and endeavors to surprise by peculiarities of diction, but this was the fault of all the writers of that day. He is not always clear, but the reader will ever be rewarded for the study of making out an occult sentence, by the wheat which he will thresh from the chaff. At the present time, when a writer is obscure, it is usually because he is all chaff; with Quarles it is because the husk is strong and hides the grain. Indeed, we are surprised to see how rarely he writes without some fixed meaning. In this little work there are upward of four hundred divine fancies,' but very few of them will be found unworthy the trouble of reading, while most of them may furnish ample food for reflection. In general style, they strike us as bearing no inconsiderable resemblance to the Latin and later Greek serious epigram, though they usually have more striving after point, and affectation of expression. Though his images and simi