Did he love simple virtue for the thing?
The King for no respect but for the King?
But above all, did his religion wait
Upon God's throne, or on the chair of state?
He that is guilty of no query here,
Outlasts his epitaph, outlives his heir.
But there is none such, none so little bad,
Who but this negative goodness ever had ?
Of such a lord we may expect the birth,
He's rather in the womb than on the earth.
And 'twere a crime in such a public fate
For one to live well and degenerate;
And therefore I am angry when a name
Comes to upbraid the world like Effingham.
Nor was it modest in thee to depart
To thy eternal home, where now thou art,
Ere thy reproach was ready; or to die,
Ere custom had prepar'd thy calumny.

Now, for those other piddling complaints
Breath'd out in bitterness; as when they call me
Extortioner, tyrant, cormorant, or intruder
On my poor neighbour's right; or grand incloser
Of what was common, to my private use:
Nay, when my ears are pierc'd with widows' cries,
And undone orphans wash with tears my threshold,
I only think what 'tis to have my daughter
Right honourable; and 'tis a powerful charm
Makes me insensible of remorse or pity,

Or the least sting of conscience.

New Way to pay Old Debts, Act IV. Sc. i.

In the last scene of the same play, the distresses that he had occasioned take fast hold of his conscience, and give rise to the following terribly sublime exclamation:

I'll fall to execution-ha! I am feeble:

Some undone widow sits upon mine arm,

And takes away the use of't; and my sword,

Glued to my scabbard with wrong'd orphans' tears,
Will not be drawn, &c.

Eight days have past since thou hast paid thy debt
To sin, and not a libel stirring yet;

Courtiers, that scoff by patent, silent sit,
And have no use of slander or of wit;
But (which is monstrous) though against the tide,
The watermen have neither rail'd nor ly'd.
Of good and bad there's no distinction known,
For in thy praise the good and bad are one.
It seems we all are covetous of Fame,
And hearing what a purchase of good name
Thou lately mad'st, are careful to increase
Our title, by the holding of some lease

From thee our landlord, and for that th' whole crew
Speak now like tenants ready to renew.

It were too sad to tell thy pedigree,
Death hath disorder'd all, misplacing thee;
Whilst now thy herald in his line of heirs

Blots out thy name, and fills the space with tears.
And thus hath conq'ring death, or nature, rather,
Made thee, prepost'rous, ancient to thy father,
Who grieves th' art so, and like a glorious light
Shines o'er thy hearse: he therefore that would write
And blaze thee thoroughly, may at once say all,
'Here lies the Anchor of our Admiral!'

Let others write for glory or reward,

Truth is well paid when she is

sung

and heard.

Bp. Corbet's Poems, p. 22.

ELEGY ON DR. AILMER.

No, no, he is not dead; the mouth of Fame,
Honour's shrill herald, would preserve his name,
And make it live, in spite of death and dust,
Were there no other heaven, no other trust.
He is not dead: the sacred Nine deny
The soul that merits fame should ever die :
He lives; and when the latest breath of fame
Shall want her trump to glorify a name,
He shall survive, and these self-closed eyes
That now lie slumb'ring in the dust shall rise;
And, fill'd with endless glory, shall enjoy

The perfect vision of eternal joy.

By F. Quarles, El. xiii, subjoined to Sion's
Elegies, Edit. 1630.

ON THE

SCOTCH

DEATH OF A SCOTCH NOBLEMAN.

FAME, register of Time,

Write in thy scroll, that I,

Of wisdom lover, and sweet poesy,

Was cropped in my prime :

And ripe in worth, though green in years, did die*.

Drummond's Poems, 8vo. p. 203.

* In this little piece, of five lines only, there is a certain Greekness (if I may be allowed the expression) that will not fail of capti

MORS TUA.

METHINKS I see the nimble aged sire
Pass swiftly by, with feet unapt to tire;
Upon his head an hour-glass he wears,

And in his wrinkled hand* a scythe he bears,
(Both instruments, to take the lives from men)
Th' one shows with what, the other showeth when.
Methinks I hear the doleful passing-bell,

Setting an onset on his louder knell ;
(This moody music of impartial Death
Who dances after, dances out of breath).
Methinks I see my dearest friends lament,
With sighs and tears, and woeful dryriment,
My tender wife and children standing by,
Dewing the death-bed whereupon I lie :

vating every reader of true taste. We may justly apply on this occasion a sentence of Dryden, who says, "The sweetest essences are always confined in the smallest glasses." Dedication to his Æneid.

* And in his wrinkled hand.] What a degree of animation and life is often thrown into a line by a single picturesque and natural epithet! In this respect, Shakspeare leaves all other poets far behind. To instance only in a single passage. Henry the Fifth, in his prayer before the battle of Agincourt, says,

Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,

Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood.

Act IV. Sc. v.

Alter the epithet withered to almost any other, and you instantly destroy the picture. For an epithet equally striking, see Vol. XVIII, , applied to old age:

p.

His wither'd fist still knocking at Death's door.

Methinks I hear a voice (in secret) say,

'Thy glass is run, and thou must die to-day*!

Pentelogia, by F. Quarles, Edit. 1630.

UPON THE

DEATH OF CHARLES THE FIRST.

WRITTEN WITH THE POINT OF HIS SWORD.

GREAT, good, and just! could I but rate

My grief to thy too rigid fate,

I'd weep the world to such a strain,

As it should deluge once again.

But since thy loud-tongu'd blood demands supplies,
More from Briareus' hands, than Argus' eyes,
I'll sing thee obsequies with trumpet sounds,
And write thy epitaph in blood and wounds.

MONTROSE.

Printed amongst Poems by J. Cleaveland,
Edit. 1665. See likewise A Choice Col-
lection of Comic and Serious Scots
Poems. Edinb. 1713.

* Methinks I hear a voice, &c.] There is an alarming solemnity in the conclusion of these lines, that reminds us of Tickell's justly popular ballad:

I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says I must not stay, &c.

Lucy and Colin.