THE affinity and genius of these two poets naturally associate their names. They were the cousins of Fletcher the dramatist, and the sons of a Doctor Giles Fletcher, who, among several important missions in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, negotiated a commercial treaty with Russia, greatly to the advantage of England, in spite of many obstacles that were presented by a capricious czar and a barbarous court. His remarks on Russia were suppressed on their first appearance, but were afterwards republished in 1643, and incorporated with Hakluyt's Voyages.

Mr. A. Chalmers, in his British Poets, mentions Giles as the elder son of this Dr. Fletcher, evidently by mistake, as Giles, in his poetry, speaks of his own "green muse hiding her younger head," with reference to his senior brother. Giles was bred at Cambridge, and died at his living of Alderston, in Suffolk, in 1623. Phineas was educated at the same university, and wrote an account of its founders and learned men. He was also a clergyman, and held the living of Hilgay in Norfolk, for twenty-nine years. They were both the disciples of Spenser, and, with his diction gently modernized, retained much of his melody and luxuriant expression. Giles, inferior as he is to Spenser and Milton, might be figured, in his happiest moments, as a link of connection in our poetry between those congenial spirits, for he reminds us of both, and evidently gave hints to the latter in a poem on the same subject with Paradise Regained.

Giles's "Temptation and Victory of Christ" has a tone of enthusiasm peculiarly solemn. Phineas, with a livelier fancy, had a worse taste. He lavished on a bad subject the graces and ingenuity that would have made a fine poem on a good design. Through five cantos of his " Purple Island," he tries to sweeten the language of anatomy by the flowers of poetry, and to support the wings of allegory by bodily instead of spiritual phenomena. Unfortunately in the remaining cantos he only quits the dissecting-table to launch into the subtlety of the schools, and describes Intellect, the Prince of the Isle of Man, with his eight counsellors, Fancy, Memory, the Common Sense, and the five external Senses, as holding out in the Human Fortress against the Evil Powers

MERCY DWELLING IN HEAVEN AND PLEADING FOR THE GUILTY, WITH JUSTICE DESCRIBED BY HER QUALITIES.

FROM GILES FLETCHER'S "CHRIST'S VICTORY IN HEAVEN." BUT Justice had no sooner Mercy seen Smoothing the wrinkles of her father's brow, But up she starts, and throws herself between: As when a vapour from a moory slough, Meeting with fresh Eöus, that but now Open'd the world, which all in darkness lay,

that besiege it. Here he strongly resembles the old Scottish poet Gawain Douglas, in his poem of King Heart. But he outstrips all allegorists in conceit, when he exhibits Voletta, or the Will, the wife of Intellect, propped in her fainting-fits by Repentance, who administers restorative waters to the Queen, made with lip's confession and with "pickled sighs," stilled in the alembic of a broken spirit. At the approach of the combat between the good and evil powers, the interest of the narration is somewhat quickened, and the parting of the sovereign and the queen, with their champions, is not unfeelingly portrayed.

Long at the gate the thoughtful Intellect
Stay'd with his fearful queen and daughter fair;
But when the knights were past their dim aspect,
They follow them with vows and many a prayer.
At last they climb up to the castle's height,
From which they view'd the deeds of every knight,
And mark'd the doubtful end of this intestine fight.
As when a youth bound for the Belgie war,
Takes leave of friends upon the Kentish shore,
Now are they parted; and he sail'd so far,
They see not now, and now are seen no more;
Yet, far off, viewing the white trembling sails,
The tender mother soon plucks off her vails,
And, shaking them aloft, unto her son she hails.

But the conclusion of the Purple Island sinks into such absurdity and adulation, that we could gladly wish the poet back again to allegorizing the bladder and kidneys. In a contest about the eternal salvation of the human soul, the event is decided by King James the First (at that time a sinner upon earth) descending from heaven with his treatise on the Revelation under his arm, in the form of an angel, and preceding the Omnipotent, who puts the forces of the dragon to the rout.

These incongruous conceptions are clothed in harmony, and interspersed with beautiful thoughts: but natural sentiments and agreeable imagery will not incorporate with the shapeless features of such a design; they stand apart from it like things of a different element, and, when they occur, only expose its deformity. On the contrary, in the brother's poem of Christ's Triumph, its main effect, though somewhat sombrous, is not marred by such repulsive contrasts; its beauties, therefore, all tell in relieving tedium, and reconciling us to defects.

Doth heaven's bright face of his rays disarray,
And sads the smiling orient of the springing day.

She was a virgin of austere regard :
Not as the world esteems her, deaf and blind;
But as the eagle, that hath oft compared
Her eye with heaven's, so, and more brightly shined
Her lamping sight: for she the same could wind
Into the solid heart, and, with her ears,
The silence of the thought loud speaking hears,
And in one hand a pair of even scales she wears.

No riot of affection revel kept
Within her breast, but a still apathy
Possessed all her soul, which softly slept
Securely without tempest; no sad cry
Awakes her pity, but wrong'd Poverty,
Sending his eyes to heaven swimming in tears,
With hideous clamours ever struck her ears,
Whetting the blazing sword that in her hand she
bears.

The winged lightning is her Mercury,

And round about her mighty thunders sound:
Impatient of himself lies pining by

Pale Sickness, with his kercher'd head upwound,
And thousand noisome plagues attend her round.
But if her cloudy brow but once grow foul,
The flints do melt, and rocks to water roll,
And airy mountains shake, and frighted shadows
howl.

Famine, and bloodless Care, and bloody War:
Want, and the want of knowledge how to use
Abundance; Age, and Fear, that runs afar
Before his fellow Grief, that aye pursues
His winged steps; for who would not refuse
Grief's company, a dull and raw-boned spright,
That lanks the cheeks, and pales the freshest sight,
Unbosoming the cheerful breast of all delight?

JUSTICE ADDRESSING THE CREATOR.

UPON two stony tables, spread before her,
She leant her bosom, more than stony hard;
There slept th' impartial judge and strict restorer
Of wrong or right, with pain or with reward;
There hung the score of all our debts-the card
Where good, and bad, and life, and death, were
painted;

Was never heart of mortal so untainted,
But, when that scroll was read, with thousand
terrors fainted.

Witness the thunder that Mount Sinai heard,
When all the hill with fiery clouds did flame,
And wand'ring Israel, with the sight afear'd,
Blinded with seeing, durst not touch the same,
But like a wood of shaking leaves became.
On this dead Justice, she, the living law,
Bowing herself with a majestic awe,

All heaven, to hear her speech, did into silence draw.

MERCY BRIGHTENING THE RAINBOW.
HIGH in the airy element there hung
Another cloudy sea, that did disdain,

As though his purer waves from heaven sprung,
To crawl on earth, as doth the sluggish main!
But it the earth would water with his rain,
That ebb'd and flow'd as wind and season would;
And oft the sun would cleave the limber mould
To alabaster rocks, that in the liquid roll'd.
Beneath those sunny banks a darker cloud,
Dropping with thicker dew, did melt apace,
And bent itself into a hollow shroud,
On which, if Mercy did but cast her face,

A thousand colours did the bow enchase,
That wonder was to see the silk distain'd
With the resplendence from her beauty gain'd,
And Iris paint her locks with beams so lively feign'd.

About her head a cypress heav'n she wore,
Spread like a veil upheld with silver wire,
In which the stars so burnt in golden ore,
As seem'd the azure web was all on fire:
But hastily, to quench their sparkling ire,
A flood of milk came rolling up the shore,
That on his curded wave swift Argus wore,
And the immortal swan, that did her life deplore.

Yet strange it was so many stars to see,
Without a sun to give their tapers light:
Yet strange it was not that it so should be;
For, where the sun centres himself by right,
Her face and locks did flame, that at the sight
The heavenly veil, that else should nimbly move,
Forget his flight, and all incensed with love,
With wonder,and amazement, did her beauty prove.
Over her hung a canopy of state,
Not of rich tissue, nor of spangled gold,
But of a substance, though not animate,
Yet of a heavenly and spiritual mould,
That only eyes of spirits might behold:
Such light as from main rocks of diamond,
Shooting their sparks at Phoebus, would rebound,
And little angels, holding hands, danced all around..

THE PALACE OF PRESUMPTION. HERE did Presumption her pavilion spread Over the temple, the bright stars among, (Ah that her foot should trample on the head Of that most reverend place!) and a lewd throng Of wanton boys sung her a pleasant song Of love, long life, of mercy, and of grace, And every one her dearly did embrace, And she herself enamour'd was of her own face. A painted face, belied with vermeil store, Which light Euëlpis every day did trim, That in one hand a gilded anchor wore, Not fixed on the rock, but on the brim Of the wide air, she let it loosely swim! Her other hand a sprinkle carried, And ever when her lady wavered, Court-holy water all upon her sprinkled.. Her tent with sunny clouds was ciel'd aloft, And so exceeding shone with a false light, That Heav'n itself to her it seemed oft, Heaven without clouds to her deluded sight; But clouds withouten Heaven it was aright: And as her house was built so did her brain Build castles in the air, with idle pain, But heart she never had in all her body vain. Like as a ship, in which no balance lies, Without a pilot on the sleeping waves, Fairly along with wind and water flies, And painted masts with silken sails embraves, That Neptune's self the bragging vessel saves, To laugh awhile at her so proud array; Her waving streamers loosely she lets play, And flagging colours shine as bright as smiling day..

But all so soon as Heav'n his brows doth bend,
She veils her banners, and pulls in her beams,
The empty bark the raging billows send
Up to the Olympic waves, and Argus seems
Again to ride upon our lower streams:
Right so Presumption did herself behave,
Tossed about with every stormy wave, [brave.
And in white lawn she went, most like an angel

All suddenly the hill his snow devours,
In lieu whereof a goodly garden grew,
As if the snow had melted into flow'rs,
Which their sweet breath in subtle vapours threw,
That all about perfumed spirits flew.
For whatsoever might aggrate the sense,
In all the world, or please the appetence,
Here it was poured out in lavish affluence.
The garden like a lady fair was cut,
That lay as if she slumber'd in delight,
And to the open skies her eyes did shut;
The azure fields of Heav'n were 'sembled right
In a large round, set with the flow'rs of light:
The flowers-de-luce, and the round sparks of dew
That hung upon their azure leaves, did shew
Like twinkling stars, that sparkle in the evening
blue.

Upon a hilly bank her head she cast,

On which the bower of Vain-delight was built.
White and red roses for her face were placed,
And for her tresses marigolds were spilt;
Them broadly she display'd, like flaming gilt,
Till in the ocean the glad day were drown'd:
Then up again her yellow locks she wound,
And with green fillets in their pretty cauls them
bound.

Over the edge depends the graping elm,
Whose greener head empurpuled in wine,
Seemed to wonder at his bloody helm,
And half suspect the bunches of the vine,
Lest they, perhaps, his wit should undermine,
For well he knew such fruit he never bore:
But her weak arms embraced him the more,
And her with ruby grapes laugh'd at her para-

The font of silver was, and so his showers
In silver fell, only the gilded bowls,
(Like to a furnace, that the min'ral powers)
Seem'd to have molt it in their shining holes :
And on the water, like to burning coals,
On liquid silver leaves of roses lay:
But when Panglory here did list to play,
Rose-water then it ran, and milk it rain'd they say.
The roof thick clouds did paint, from which three
boys

Three gaping mermaids with their ewers did feed,
Whose breasts let fall the streams, with sleepy noise,
To lions' mouths, from whence it leapt with speed,
And in the rosy laver seem'd to bleed;
The naked boys unto the waters fall,
Their stony nightingales had taught to call,
When zephyrs breathed into their watʼry interail.

And all about, embayed in soft sleep,

A herd of charmed beasts aground were spread,
Which the fair witch in golden chains did keep,
And them in willing bondage fettered:

Once men they lived, but now the men were dead,
And turn'd to beasts, so fabled Homer old,
That Circe with her potion, charm'd in gold,
Used manly souls in beastly bodies to immould.

INSTABILITY OF HUMAN GREATNESS.
FROM PHINEAS FLETCHER'S "PURPLE ISLAND." CANTO VII.
FOND man, that looks on earth for happiness,
And here long seeks what here is never found!
For all our good we hold from Heav'n by lease,
With many forfeits and conditions bound;
Nor can we pay the fine and rentage due:
Though now but writ and seal'd, and giv'n anew,
Yet daily we it break, then daily must renew.
Why should'st thou here look for perpetual good,
At every loss against Heav'n's face repining?
Do but behold where glorious cities stood,
With gilded tops, and silver turrets shining;
Where now the hart fearless of greyhound feeds,
And loving pelican in safety breeds;
Where screeching satyrs fill the people's empty
steads.

Where is the Assyrian lion's golden hide,
That all the east once grasp'd in lordly paw?
Where that great Persian bear, whose swelling

pride

The lion's self tore out with ravenous jaw?

Or he which, 'twixt a lion and a pard,

Through all the world with nimble pinions fared, And to his greedy whelps his conquer'd kingdoms shared?

Hardly the place of such antiquity,

Or note of these great monarchies we find
Only a fading verbal memory,

An empty name in writ is left behind:
But when this second life and glory fades,
And sinks at length in time's obscurer shades,
A second fall succeeds, and double death invades.

That monstrous Beast, which nursed in Tiber's fen,
Did all the world with hideous shape affray;
That fill'd with costly spoil his gaping den,
And trode down all the rest to dust and clay:
His battering horns pull'd out by civil hands,
And iron teeth lie scatter'd on the sands;
Back'd, bridled by a monk, with seven heads yoked
stands.

And that black Vulture," which with deathful wing
O'ershadows half the earth, whose dismal sight
Frighten'd the Muses from their native spring,
Already stoops, and flags with weary flight:
Who then shall look for happiness beneath?
Where each new day proclaims chance, change,
and death,

And life itself's as flit as is the air we breathe.

a The Turk.

HAPPINESS OF THE SHEPHERD'S LIFE.

FROM THE SAME. CANTO XII.

THRICE, oh, thrice happy, shepherd's life and state!
When courts are happiness, unhappy pawns!
His cottage low and safely humble gate
Shuts out proud Fortune,with her scorns and fawns:
No feared treason breaks his quiet sleep:
Singing all day, his flocks he learns to keep;
Himself as innocent as are his simple sheep.
No Serian worms he knows, that with their thread
Draw out their silken lives: nor silken pride:
His lambs' warm fleece well fits his little need,
Not in that proud Sidonian tincture dyed:
No empty hopes, no courtly fears him fright;
Nor begging wants his middle fortune bite:
But sweet content exiles both misery and spite.
Instead of music, and base flattering tongues,
Which wait to first salute my lord's uprise;
The cheerful lark wakes him with early songs,
And birds' sweet whistling notes unlock his eyes:

In country plays is all the strife he uses;
Or sing, or dance unto the rural Muses;
And but in music's sports all difference refuses.
His certain life, that never can deceive him,
Is full of thousand sweets, and rich content:
The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive

him

With coolest shades, till noon-tide rage is spent:
His life is neither toss'd in boist'rous seas
Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease;
Pleased, and full blest he lives, when he his God

can please.

His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps,
While by his side his faithful spouse hath place;
His little son into his bosom creeps,
The lively picture of his father's face:
Never his humble house nor state torment him;
Less he could like, if less his God had sent him;
And when he dies, green turfs, with grassy tomb,
content him.

Doth now,
alas! not once afford
Recording of a note.

The flowers have had a frost,
Each herb hath lost her savour,
And Phillida the fair hath lost
The comfort of her favour.
Now all these careful sights
So kill me in conceit,

That how to hope upon delights,
Is but a mere deceit.

And, therefore, my sweet Muse,
Thou know'st what help is best,
Do now thy heavenly cunning use,
To set my heart at rest.

And in a dream bewray
What fate shall be my friend,
Whether my life shall still decay,
Or when my sorrow end.

A PASTORAL OF PHILLIS AND CORIDON.
FROM THE SAME.

ON a hill there grows a flower,
Fair befall the dainty sweet;
By that flower there is a bower,
Where the heavenly Muses meet.

In that bower there is a chair,
Fringed all about with gold,
Where doth sit the fairest fair
That ever eye did yet behold.

It is Phillis fair and bright,
She that is the shepherd's joy,
She that Venus did despite,
And did blind her little boy.

This is she, the wise, the rich,
That the world desires to see;
This is ipsa qua, the which
There is none but only she.

Who would not this face admire?
Who would not this saint adore?
Who would not this sight desire,
Though he thought to see no more?

O fair eyes, yet let me see

One good look, and I am gone;
Look on me, for I am he,

Thy poor silly Coridon.

Thou that art the shepherd's queen,
Look upon thy silly swain;
By thy comfort have been seen
Dead men brought to life again.

WAS of a family in Lincolnshire, and was educated at Oxford. He practised as a physician in London, and is supposed to have fallen a martyr to the memorable plague of 1625. He wrote

several plays and other poetical works of considerable merit, and translated the works of Josephus into English.

ROSADER'S SONETTO.

FROM LODGE'S ROMANCE, CALLED "EUPHUES'S GOLDEN LEGACY."

TURN I my looks unto the skies,
Love with his arrows wounds mine eyes;
If so I look upon the ground,
Love then in every flower is found;
Search I the shade to flee my pain,
Love meets me in the shades again;
Want I to walk in secret grove,
E'en there I meet with sacred love;
If so I bathe me in the spring,
E'en on the brink I hear him sing;
If so I meditate alone,

He will be partner of my moan;
If so I mourn, he weeps with me,
And where I am there will he be;
When as I talk of Rosalind,
The god from coyness waxeth kind,
And seems in self-same frame to fly,
Because he loves as well as I.
Sweet Rosalind, for pity rue,
For why, than love I am more true:
He, if he speed, will quickly fly,
But in thy love I live and die.

ANOTHER.

FROM THE SAME.

FIRST shall the heavens want stary light,
The seas be robbed of their waves,
The day want sun, and sun want bright,
The night want shade, the dead men graves,
The April flowers, and leaves, and tree,
Before I false my faith to thee.

First shall the top of highest hill
By humble plains be overpry'd,
And poets scorn the Muses' quill,
And fish forsake the water glide,
And Iris lose her colour'd weed,
Before I false thee at thy need.

First direful Hate shall turn to peace,
And Love relent in deep disdain,
And Death his fatal stroke shall cease,
And Envy pity every pain,

And Pleasure mourn, and Sorrow smile,
Before I talk of any guile.

First Time shall stay his stayless race,
And Winter bless his brows with corn,