1 1 THE CHARACTER OF AN ANTI-COVENANTER, OR MALIGNANT. WOULD you know these royal knaves With rebellion's wicked name; Read these verses, and ye will spring them. Then on gibbets ftraight caufe hing them. They complain of fin and folly, In these times, fo paffing holy They their substance will not give Libertines that we may live. Hold thofe fubjects too too wanton, Under an old king dare canton. Neglect they do our circular tables, Scorn our acts and laws as fables, Of our battles talk but meekly, With four fermons pleas'd are weekly, Swear King Charles is neither Papist, Armenian, Lutheran or Atheist: But that in his chamber-prayers, Which are pour'd 'midst sighs and tears To avert God's fearful wrath, Threat'ning us with blood and death; Persuade they would the multitude, This king too holy is and good. They avouch we'll weep and groan, When hundred kings we serve for one, That each fhire but blood affords, To ferve the ambition of young lords, Whofe debts ere now had been redoubled If the state had not been troubled. Slow they are our oath to swear, Slower for its arms to bear, They do concord love and peace, Would our enemies embrace: Turn men profelytes by the word, Not by musket, pike and fword. They fwear that for religion's fake Doth force men firft to fwear, then fight. Not the Apoftolic Creed, Which of negations we contrive, Which Turk and Jew may both fubfcrive. That monies should men's daughters marry, That debts are paid with bold stern looks, They tell by devils and fome fad chance He who says that night is night, To fuch Sirens stop your car, Ye may be toffed like a wave, Verity may you deceive; Juft fools they may make of you, Then hate them worse than Turk or Jew. Were it not a dangerous thing, Should we again obey the king; A PASTORAL SONG: Phyllis and Damon. Pb. SHEPHERD doft thon love me well? To fay thou lov'd me as thine een. Da. Woe is me, these I love not, For by them love entrance got, SONNET TO THE EARL OF STIRLING, On his “Doomsday," 1637.—Not inferted in any former Edition. LIKE Sophocles (the hearers in a trance) Thy phoenix-mufe still wing'd with wonders flies Praise of our brooks, ftain to oid l'indus fprings, And who thee follow would. fcarce with their eyes Can reach the 1phere where thou moft fweetly fings Though ftring'd with stars, heavens, Orpheur *harp enrol, More worthy thine to blaze about the pole. Poet and faint! to thee alone are given The two most facred names of earth and heaven; The hard and rareft union that can be Next that of Godhead and humanity. Ah, wretched we, poets of earth! but thou Wert living the fame poet which thou'rt now. Thou needst not make new fongs, but say the old; COWLEY'S VERSES ON THE DEATH OF CRASHAW, EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY MUNDELL AND SON, ROYAL BANK CLOSE. Or the personal history of RICHARD CRASHAW, very few particulars have defcended to posterity. Most of the facts which have been tranfmitted concerning him, were originally told by the Oxford biographer; to whom every lover of literary history has very great obligations. As the researches which have been made in the societies at Cambridge to which he belonged, have furnished no new memorials of his person or his genius, his biographers have contented themselves with repeating the few melancholy incidents which originally formed the flender history of his life. According to Wood, he was the son of William Crashaw, an eminent divine; but the time and place of his birth are not certainly known. He was educated at the Charter-House, after previously sharing the beneficence of Sir Henry Yelverton and Sir Randolph Crewe; and afterwards became a scholar of Pembroke-Hall; and from thence a fellow of Peter-Houfe, Cambridge; where he was diftinguished for his poetical talents, in 1637; as appears from his Latin Perfes on the Birth of a Princess, the fifth Child of Charles I. printed in the "Cambridge Congratulations" of that year. + He was afterwards admitted to the degree of Master of Arts; in which it is fuppofed he was incorporated at Oxford; in 1641; "not that it appears fo in the public register," fays Wood, "but in the private observations of a certain Master of Arts, that was this year living in the university.** In 1634, he published, at Cambridge, a collection of Sacred Epigrams, in Latin, with a dedication to Benjamin Lany, master of Pembroke-Hall, “ the fruits (as he calls them) of a tender age." During his refidence at Cambridge, he displayed the extreme tenderness and enthusiasm of his character, in writing the poems," which were intituled Steps to the Temple,” says the editor, “because in the Temple of God, under his wing, he led his life in St. Mary's Church, near to Peter-House. There he lodged under Tertullian's roof of angels. There he made his neft more gladly than David's swallow, near the house of God; where, like a primitive faint, he offered more prayers in the night, than others ufually offer in the day." In 1644, when the Earl of Manchester, under the authority of the Parliament, new-modelled the University of Cambridge, by expelling fuch members as refused the Covenant, he was ejected from his fellowship, and reduced to great indigence. Being driven from Cambridge, he repaired to London, and lingered there fome time, without any plan of a livelihood. At length, for reasons best known to himself, and which it would at all times have been impertinent, and is now useless to inquire after, he embraced the Roman Catholic religion, and fought a refuge in France. His converfion has been attributed to motives of intereft; but he feems rather to have been converted by his paffionate admiration for that fair canonized enthusiast, St. Teresa of Spain; whose pious compofitions appear to have been his favourite study. If he changed his religion from worldly motives, he obtained no advantage from it; as in 1646, he was difcovered at Paris in a miserable condition, by Cowley, his generous admirer; who recommended him to the patronage of the exiled Queen, Henrietta Maria. The Queen, who wanted rather ability than inclination to reward English Catholics, procured him letters of recommendation to several perfons in Italy; whither he foon went. On his arrival at |