By scaly Triton's winding shell,
And old sooth-saying Glaucus' spell,
By Leucothea's lovely hands,
And her son that rules the strands,
By Thetis' tinsel-slipper'd feet,
And the songs of Syrens sweet,
By dead Parthenope's dear tomb,
And fair Ligea's golden comb,
Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks,
Sleeking her soft alluring locks;
By all the nymphs that nightly dance
Upon thy streams with wily glance,
Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head,
From thy coral-paven bed,

And bridle in thy headlong wave,

Till thou our summons answer'd have.

EXTRACT FROM LYCIDAS.

YET Once more, O ye laurels, and once more, Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude:
And, with forc'd fingers rude,

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year:
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due :
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier

Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,

That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse:
So may some gentle Muse

With lucky words favour my destin'd urn;
And, as he passes, turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill. Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, We drove afield, and both together heard What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, Oft till the star that rose at evening bright,

Toward Heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel.

Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Temper'd to the oaten flute;

Rough Satyrs 'danced, and Fauns with cloven heel

From the glad sound would not be absent long; And old Damotas loved to hear our song.

But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,
And all their echoes mourn :

The willows, and the hazel copses green,
Shall now no more be seen

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,

Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, When first the white-thorn blows;

Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherds' ear.

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep

Clos'd o'er the head of your loved Lycidas ? For neither were ye playing on the steep, Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.

*

*

WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT.

BORN 1611-DIED 1643.

LESBIA ON HER SPARROW.

TELL me not of joy! there's none
Now my little sparrow's gone;
He, just as you,

Would sigh and woo,

He would chirp and flatter me;

He would hang the wing a while,

Till at length he saw me smile, Lord! how sullen he would be!

He would catch a crumb, and then
Sporting let it go again;

He from my lip

Would moisture sip,

He would from my trencher feed;

Then would hop, and then would run,
And cry philip when he'd done;

Oh! whose heart can choose but bleed ?

Oh! how eager would he fight,
And ne'er hurt tho' he did bite;
No morn did pass,

But on my glass

He would sit, and mark, and do
What I did; now ruffle all

His feathers o'er, now let them fall,

And then straightway sleek them too.

Whence will Cupid get his darts
Feather'd now, to pierce our hearts?
A wound he may,

Not love, convey,
Now this faithful bird is gone.

Oh! let mournful turtles join

With loving red breasts, and combine

To sing dirges o'er his stone.

SAMUEL BUTLER.

BORN 1612-DIED 1680.

THE witty and learned author of Hudibras was the son of a small farmer in Worcestershire. Butler attended Cambridge for a short time. He afterwards appears to have

earned a precarious living, first as clerk to a country. justice, and afterwards in the family of the Countess of Kent, where he was occasionally employed by the learned. Selden, her ladyship's steward. He afterwards went into the employment of Sir Samuel Luke, a commonwealth's man, where he saw so much of the worst side of the character of the Puritans, that it is presumed Hudibras may be dated from this residence. The first part of this. remarkable poem was published after the Restoration; the other parts at long intervals. It was quoted, recited, and constantly perused at court; but admiration was the poet's sole reward, though he was from time to time buoyed up with expectation. Butler died in Lon. don, and was buried at the expense of a friend.

As a poem, Hudibras is unique in European literature. It possesses an excess of wit, rhymes the most original and ingenious, and the most apt and burlesque metaphors, couched in an easy, gossiping, colloquial metre; yet it would be as impossible to read Hudibras to an end at once as to dine on cayenne or pickles. It administers no food to the higher and more permanent feelings of the human mind. The moral comes to be felt to be without dignity-the wit without gaiety or relief-the story lagging and flat. Even the rhymes, amusing as they are, become, after a time, like the repetitions of a mimic, tiresome and stale. Dryden regrets that Hudibras was not written in the heroic measure, instead of the slipshod rhymes adopted. It is amusing to conceive of a Hudibras thus stilted; but the metre might perhaps have been occasionally varied with good effect, and certainly with welcome relief to the reader.

L