For Cumberland and it, both kingdoms' borders,
Were ever ordered by their own disorders,

Some sharking, shifting, cutting throats, and thieving,
Each taking pleasure in the other's grieving;
And many times he that had wealth to-night,
Was by the morrow morning beggared quite.
Too many years this pell-mell fury lasted,
That all these Borders were quite spoiled and wasted;
Confusion, hurly-burly, reigned and revelled ;
The churches with the lowly ground were levelled;
All memorable monuments defaced,

All places of defence o'erthrown and razed;
That whoso then did in the Borders dwell,
Lived little happier than those in hell.
But since the all-disposing God of heaven
Hath these two kingdoms to one monarch given,
Blest peace and plenty on them both have showered;
Exile and hanging hath the thieves devoured,
That now each subject may securely sleep,
His sheep and neat, the black, the white, doth keep.
For now these crowns are both in one combined,
Those former Borders that each one confined,
Appears to me, as I do understand,

To be almost the centre of the land;

This was a blessed Heaven-expounded riddle,

To thrust great kingdoms' skirts into the middle.
Long may the instrumental cause survive!
From him and his succession still derive
True heirs unto his virtues and his throne,
That these two kingdoms ever may be one!

Of Taylor's prose narrative, the most interesting portion is an account of a great deer-hunt which he witnessed at the 'Brae of Mar,' at which were

present the Earls of Mar, Moray, Buchan, Enzie, with their countesses, Lord Erskine, Sir William

Murray of Abercairney, and hundreds of others, knights, esquires, and their followers :'

A Deer-hunt in Braemar,

Once in the year, which is the whole month of August, and sometimes part of September, many of the nobility and gentry of the kingdom, for their pleasure, do come into these Highland countries to hunt, when they do conform themselves to the habit of the Highlandmen, who for the most part speak nothing but Irish, and in former times were those people which were called 'the Red-shanks.' Their habit is shoes with but one sole apiece, stockings (which they call short hose) made of a warm stuff of divers colours, which they call tartan. As for breeches, many of them, nor their forefathers, never wore any, but a jerkin of the same stuff that their hose is of, their garters being bands or wreaths of hay or straw, with a plaid about their shoulders, which is a mantle of divers colours, of much finer and lighter stuff than their hose, with blue flat caps on their head, a handkerchief knit with two knots about their neck, and thus are they attired. Now, their weapons are long bows and forked arrows, swords and targets, harquebusses, muskets, dirks, and Lochaber axes.

My good lord of Mar having put me into that shape [dressed him in the Highland costume], I rode with him from his house, where I saw the ruins of an old castle, called the castle of Kindroghit [now Castletown]. It was built by king Malcolm Canmore for a huntinghouse: it was the last house I saw in those parts; for I was the space of twelve days after before I saw either house, corn-field, or habitation for any creature but deer,

wild horses, wolves, and such-like creatures.

Thus the first day we travelled eight miles, where there were small cottages built on purpose to lodge in, which they call lonchards. I thank my good Lord Erskine, he commanded that I should always be lodged in his lodging, the kitchen being always on the side of a bank, many kettles and pots boiling, and many spits

turning and winding, with a great variety of cheer-as venison; baked, sodden, roast and stewed beef; mutton, goats, kid, hares, fresh salmon, pigeons, hens, capons,. chickens, partridge, moor-coots, heath-cocks, capercailzies, and termagants [ptarmigans]; good ale, sack, white and claret, tent [Alicant], with most potent aquavitæ. . . ...

Our camp consisted of fourteen or fifteen hundred men and horses. The manner of the hunting is this: five or six hundred men do rise early in the morning, and do disperse themselves divers ways, and seven or eight miles' compass; they do bring or chase in the deer in many herds-two, three, or four hundred in a herd -to such or such a place as the noblemen shall appoint them; then when day is come, the lords and gentlemen of their companies do ride or go to the said places, sometimes wading up to their middles through bournes and rivers; and then, they being come to the place, do lie down on the ground, till those foresaid scouts, which are called the tinchel, do bring down the deer. . . Then, after we had stayed three hours or thereabouts, we might perceive the deer appear on the hills round about us (their heads making a show like a wood), which, being followed close by the tinchel, are chased down into the valley where we lay. Then all the valley on each side being waylaid with a hundred couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they are let loose as the occasion serves upon the herd of deer, so that, with dogs, guns, arrows, dirks, and daggers, in the space of two hours, fourscore fat deer were slain, which after are disposed of some one way and some another, twenty and thirty withal at our rendezvous.

miles, and more than enough left for us to make merry

sional tracts.

Taylor, and duly described by him in short occaVarious journeys and voyages were made by these pieces: All the Workes of John Taylor, the In 1630, he made a collection of Water Poet; being Sixty and Three in Number. He continued, however, to write during more than twenty years after this period, and ultimately his works consisted of not less than 138 separate publications. Taylor was a staunch royalist and orthodox churchman, abjuring all sectaries and schismatics. There is nothing in his works, as Southey remarks, which deserves preservation for its intrinsic merit alone, but there is a great deal to illustrate the manners of his age.

GEORGE HERBERT.

GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1633) was of noble birth, though chiefly known as a pious country clergyman-'holy George Herbert,' who

The lowliest duties on himself did lay.

His father was descended from the earls of Pembroke, and lived in Montgomery Castle, Wales, where the poet was born. His elder brother was the celebrated Lord Herbert of Cherbury. George was educated at Cambridge, and in the year 1619 was chosen orator for the university. Herbert was the intimate friend of Sir Henry Wotton and Dr Donne; and Lord Bacon is said to have entertained such a high regard for his learning and judgment, that he submitted his works to him before publication. The poet was also in favour with King James, who gave him a sinecure office worth £120 per annum, which Queen Elizabeth had formerly given to Sir Philip Sidney. With this,' says Izaak Walton, 'and his annuity, and the advantages of his college, and of his oratorship, he enjoyed his genteel humour for clothes

and court-like company, and seldom looked towards Cambridge unless the king were there; but then, he never failed.' The death of the king and of two powerful friends, the Duke of Richmond and Marquis of Hamilton, destroyed Herbert's court hopes, and he entered into sacred orders. In 1626, he was appointed prebendary of Layton Ecclesia, county of Huntingdon (the church of which he repaired and decorated), and in 1630 he was made rector of Bemerton, in Wiltshire, where he passed the remainder of his life. After describing the poet's marriage on the third day after his first interview with the lady, old Izaak Walton relates, with characteristic simplicity and minuteness, a matrimonial scene preparatory to their removal to Bemerton: The third day after he was made rector of Bemerton, and had changed his sword and silk clothes into a canonical habit [he had probably never done duty regularly at Layton Ecclesia], he returned so habited with his friend Mr Woodnot to Bainton; and immediately after he had seen and saluted his wife, he said to her: "You are now a minister's wife, and must now so far forget your father's house as not to claim a precedence of any of your parishioners; for you are to know that a priest's wife can challenge no precedence or place but that which she purchases by her obliging humility; and I am sure places so purchased do best become them. And let me tell you, I am so good a herald as to assure you that this is truth." And she was so meek a wife as to assure him it was no vexing news to her, and that he should see her observe it with a cheerful willingness.'

Herbert discharged his clerical duties with saintlike zeal and purity, but his strength was not equal to his self-imposed tasks, and he died in February 1632-3. His principal production is entitled The Temple, or Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations. It was not printed till the year after his death, but was so well received, that Walton says twenty thousand copies were sold in a few years after the first impression. The lines on Virtue

Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright—

are the best in the collection; but even in them we find, what mars all the poetry of Herbert, ridiculous conceits or coarse unpleasant similes. His taste was very inferior to his genius. The most sacred subject could not repress his love of fantastic imagery, or keep him for half-a-dozen verses in a serious and natural strain. Herbert was a musician, and sang his own hymns to the lute or viol; and indications of this may be found in his poems, which have sometimes a musical flow and harmonious cadence. It may be safely said, however, that Herbert's poetry alone would not have preserved his name, and that he is indebted for the reputation he enjoys to his excellent and amiable character, embalmed in the pages of good old Walton; to his prose work, the Country Parson; and to the warm and fervent piety which gave a charm to his life, and breathes through all his writings.

Virtue.

Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright—
The bridal of the earth and sky;
The dews shall weep thy fall to-night;
For thou must die.

Sweet rose! whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye;
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.

Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses;
A box where sweets compacted lie;
Thy music shews ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But, though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

Religion.

All may of thee partake;
Nothing can be so mean,
Which, with this tincture, for thy sake,
Will not grow bright and clean.

This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold,
For that which God doth touch and own,
Cannot for less be told.

Stanzas.-Called by Herbert 'The Pulley?
When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
'Let us,' said He, 'pour on him all we can;
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.'

So strength first made a way;

Then beauty flowed; then wisdom, honour, pleasure;
When almost all was out, God made a stay;
Perceiving that alone, of all His treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.

'For if I should,' said He,
'Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in nature, not the God of nature-
So both should losers be.

'Yet let him keep the rest-
But keep them, with repining restlessness-
Let him be rich and weary; that, at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.'

Matin Hymn.

I cannot ope mine eyes

But Thou art ready there to catch,

My mourning soul and sacrifice,

Then we must needs for that day make a match.

My God, what is a heart?

Silver, or gold, or precious stone,

Or star, or rainbow, or a part

Of all these things, or all of them in one?

My God, what is a heart,

That Thou shouldst it so eye and woo,
Pouring upon it all Thy art,

As if that Thou hadst nothing else to do?

Indeed, man's whole estate

Amounts-and richly-to serve Thee;
He did not heaven and earth create,

Yet studies them, not Him by whom they be.

Teach me Thy love to know;

That this new light which now I see
May both the work and workman shew;
Then by a sunbeam I will climb to Thee.

Sunday.

O day most calm, most bright,
The fruit of this, the next world's bud,
The indorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a Friend, and with His blood;
The couch of Time, care's balm and bay:
The week were dark, but for thy light;
Thy torch doth shew the way.

The other days and thou

Make up one man; whose face thou art,
Knocking at heaven with thy brow:
The workydays are the back-part;
The burden of the week lies there,
Making the whole to stoop and bow,
Till thy release appear.

Man had straight forward gone

To endless death: but thou dost pull
And turn us round, to look on One,
Whom, if we were not very dull,
We could not choose but look on still;
Since there is no place so alone,

The which he doth not fill.

Sundays the pillars are

On which heaven's palace arched lies:
The other days fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities.
They are the fruitful beds and borders
In God's rich garden: that is bare

Which parts their ranks and orders.

The Sundays of man's life
Threaded together on Time's string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal glorious King.

On Sunday, heaven's gate stands ope;
Blessings are plentiful and rife-

More plentiful than hope.

This day my Saviour rose,

And did inclose this light for his;
That, as each beast his manger knows,
Man might not of his fodder miss.
Christ hath took in this piece of ground,
And made a garden there for those

Who want herbs for their wound.

The rest of our creation

Our great Redeemer did remove
With the same shake, which at his passion
Did the earth and all things with it move.
As Samson bore the doors away,

Christ's hands, though nailed, wrought our salvation
And did unhinge that day.

The brightness of that day

We sullied by our foul offence:

Wherefore that robe we cast away,
Having a new at his expense,

Whose drops of blood paid the full price,
That was required to make us gay,
And fit for paradise.

Thou art a day of mirth :

And where the week-days trail on ground,
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth:
O let me take thee at the bound,
Leaping with thee from seven to seven,
Till that we both, being tossed from earth,
Fly hand in hand to heaven!

Mortification.

How soon doth Man decay!

When clothes are taken from a chest of sweets
To swaddle infants, whose young breath
Scarce knows the way;

They are like little winding-sheets,
Which do consign and send them unto death.

When boys go first to bed,

They step into their voluntary graves;
Sleep binds them fast; only their breath
Makes them not dead:

Successive nights, like rolling waves,
Convey them quickly, who are bound for death.

When Youth is frank and free,

And calls for music, while his veins do swell,
All day exchanging mirth and breath
In company;

That music summons to the knell,

Which shall befriend him at the house of Death.

and

The writings of FRANCIS QUARLES (1592-1644) are more like those of a divine, or contemplative recluse, than of a busy man of the world, who held various public situations, and died at the age of fifty-two. Quarles was a native of Essex, educated at Cambridge, and afterwards a student of Lincoln's Inn. He was successively cupbearer to Elizabeth, the queen of Bohemia, secretary to Archbishop Usher, and chronologer to the city of London. He espoused the cause of Charles I.; was so harassed by the opposite party, who injured his property, and plundered him of his books and rare manuscripts, that his death was attributed to the affliction and ill-health caused by these disasters. Notwithstanding his loyalty, the works of Quarles have a tinge of Puritanism and ascetic piety that might have mollified the rage of his persecutors. His poems consist of various pieces -Fob Militant, Sion's Elegies, the History of Queen Esther, Argalus and Parthenia, the Morning Muse, the Feast of Worms, and the Divine Emblems. The last were published in 1645, and were so popular that Phillips, Milton's nephew, styles Quarles 'the darling of our plebeian judgments.' The eulogium still holds good to some extent, for the Divine Emblems, with their quaint and grotesque illustrations, are still found

in the cottages of our peasants. After the Restoration, when everything sacred and serious was either neglected or made the subject of ribald jests, Quarles seems to have been entirely lost to the public. Even Pope, who, had he read him, must have relished his lively fancy and poetical expression, notices only his bathos and absurdity. The better and more tolerant taste of modern times has admitted the divine emblemist into the 'laurelled fraternity of poets,' where, if he does not occupy a conspicuous place, he is at least sure of his due measure of homage and attention. Emblems, or the union of the graphic and poetic arts, to inculcate lessons of morality and religion, had been tried with success by Peacham and Wither. Quarles, however, made Herman Hugo, a Jesuit, his model, and from the Pia Desideria of this author copied a great part of his prints and mottoes. His style is that of his agestudded with conceits, often extravagant in conception, and presenting the most outré and ridiculous combinations. There is strength, however, amidst his contortions, and true wit mixed up with the false. His epigrammatic point, uniting wit and devotion, has been considered the precursor of Young's Night Thoughts.

Stanzas.

As when a lady, walking Flora's bower,
Picks here a pink, and there a gillyflower,
Now plucks a violet from her purple bed,
And then a primrose, the year's maidenhead,
There nips the briar, here the lover's pansy,
Shifting her dainty pleasures with her fancy,
This on her arms, and that she lists to wear
Upon the borders of her curious hair;
At length a rose-bud-passing all the rest-
She plucks, and bosoms in her lily breast.

The Shortness of Life.

And what's a life?—a weary pilgrimage,
Whose glory in one day doth fill the stage
With childhood, manhood, and decrepit age.

And what's a life-the flourishing array
Of the proud summer meadow, which to-day
Wears her green plush, and is to-morrow hay.
Read on this dial, how the shades devour
My short-lived winter's day! hour eats up hour;
Alas! the total's but from eight to four.

Behold these lilies, which thy hands have made,
Fair copies of my life, and open laid

To view, how soon they droop, how soon they fade!

Shade not that dial, night will blind too soon;
My non-aged day already points to noon;
How simple is my suit !-how small my boon!

Nor do I beg this slender inch to wile
The time away, or falsely to beguile

My thoughts with joy: here's nothing worth a smile.

Mors Tua.

Can he be fair, that withers at a blast?
Or he be strong, that airy breath can cast?
Can he be wise, that knows not how to live?
Or he be rich, that nothing hath to give?
Can he be young, that's feeble, weak, and wan?
So fair, strong, wise, so rich, so young is man.

So fair is man, that death-a parting blast-
Blasts his fair flower, and makes him earth at last;
So strong is man, that with a gasping breath
He totters, and bequeaths his strength to death;
So wise is man, that if with death he strive,
His wisdom cannot teach him how to live;
So rich is man, that-all his debts being paid-
His wealth's the winding-sheet wherein he 's laid;
So young is man, that, broke with care and sorrow,
He's old enough to-day to die to-morrow:
Why bragg'st thou, then, thou worm of five feet long?
Thou 'rt neither fair, nor strong, nor wise, nor rich,
nor young.

I love and have some cause to love-the earth:
She is my Maker's creature; therefore good:
She is my mother, for she gave me birth;
She is my tender nurse-she gives me food;
But what's a creature, Lord, compared with Thee?
Or what's my mother or my nurse to me?

I love the air: her dainty sweets refresh
My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me ;
Her shrill-mouthed quire sustains me with their flesh,
And with their polyphonian notes delight me :

But what's the air or all the sweets that she
Can bless my soul withal, compared to Thee?

I love the sea she is my fellow-creature,
My careful purveyor; she provides me store :
She walls me round; she makes my diet greater;
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore:

But, Lord of oceans, when compared with Thee,
What is the ocean or her wealth to me?

To heaven's high city I direct my journey,
Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,
Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky:

But what is heaven, great God, compared to Thee?
Without thy presence, heaven's no heaven to me.

Without thy presence, earth gives no refection;
Without thy presence, sea affords no treasure;
Without thy presence, air's a rank infection;
Without thy presence, heaven itself no pleasure:
If not possessed, if not enjoyed in Thee,
What's earth, or sea, or air, or heaven to me?

The highest honours that the world can boast,
Are subjects far too low for my desire ;
The brightest beams of glory are at most-
But dying sparkles of thy living fire:

The loudest flames that earth can kindle, be
But nightly glowworms, if compared to Thee.

Without thy presence, wealth is bags of cares;
Wisdom, but folly; joy, disquiet-sadness :
Friendship is treason, and delights are snares;
Pleasures but pain, and mirth but pleasing madness;
Without thee, Lord, things be not what they be,
Nor have they being, when compared with Thee.
In having all things, and not Thee, what have I?
Not having Thee, what have my labours got?
Let me enjoy but Thee, what further crave I?
And having Thee alone, what have I not?

I wish nor sea nor land; nor would I be
Possessed of heaven, heaven unpossessed of Thee.

Decay of Life.

The day grows old, the low-pitched lamp hath made
No less than treble shade,

And the descending damp doth now prepare
To uncurl bright Titan's hair;

Whose western wardrobe now begins to unfold
Her purples, fringed with gold,

To clothe his evening glory, when the alarms
Of rest shall call to rest in restless Thetis' arms.

Nature now calls to supper, to refresh
The spirits of all flesh;

The toiling ploughman drives his thirsty teams,
To taste the slippery streams :

The droiling swineherd knocks away, and feasts His hungry whining guests:

The boxbill ousel, and the dappled thrush, Like hungry rivals meet at their beloved bush.

DR HENRY KING.

DR HENRY KING (1592-1669), who was chaplain to James I. and did honour to the church preferment which was bestowed upon him, was best known as a religious poet. He was the author of Sermons, 1621-65; and of poems, elegies,

&c. 1657. His language and imagery are chaste and refined. Of his lighter verse, the following song may suffice:

Song.

Dry those fair, those crystal eyes,
Which, like growing fountains, rise

To drown their banks: grief's sullen brooks
Would better flow in furrowed looks;
Thy lovely face was never meant
To be the shore of discontent.

Then clear those waterish stars again,
Which else portend a lasting rain;
Lest the clouds which settle there,
Prolong my winter all the year,
And thy example others make
In love with sorrow for thy sake.

Sic Vita.

Like to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are;
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew;
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood :
Even such is man, whose borrowed light
Is straight called in, and paid to-night.
The wind blows out, the bubble dies;
The spring entombed in autumn lies;
The dew dries up, the star is shot;
The flight is past-and man forgot.

The Dirge.

What is the existence of man's life,
But open war, or slumbered strife;
Where sickness to his sense presents
The combat of the elements;
And never feels a perfect peace
Till Death's cold hand signs his release.
It is a storm-where the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood;
And each loose passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,
Which beats his bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.

It is a flower-which buds, and grows,
And withers as the leaves disclose;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep;

Then shrinks into that fatal mould
Where its first being was enrolled.

It is a dream-whose seeming truth
Is moralised in age and youth;
Where all the comforts he can share,
As wandering as his fancies are;
Till in a mist of dark decay,
The dreamer vanish quite away.

It is a dial-which points out
The sunset, as it moves about;
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtle stages of Time's flight;
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
His body in perpetual shade.

It is a weary interlude

Which doth short joys, long woes, include;
The world the stage, the prologue tears,
The acts vain hopes and varied fears;
The scene shuts up with loss of breath,
And leaves no epilogue but death,