When to Mount Olivet he took his way,

And saw, as round about his eyes he twined,

Night's shadows hence, from thence the morning's shine, This bright, that dark; that earthly, this divine.

XIII.

Thus to himself he thought: how many bright

And 'splendent lamps shine in heaven's temple high! Day hath his golden sun, her moon the night,

Her fix'd and wand'ring stars the azure sky;

So framed all by their Creator's might,

That still they live and shine, and ne'er will die,
Till in a moment, with the last day's brand
They burn, and with them burn sca, air, and land.

XIV.

Thus as he mused, to the top he went,

And there kneel'd down with reverence and fear;
His eyes upon heaven's eastern face he bent;
His thoughts above all heavens uplifted were--
The sins and errors which I now repent,
Of my unbridled youth, O Father dear,
Remember not, but let thy mercy fall
And purge my faults and my offenses all.

XV.

Thus prayed he; with purple wings up-flew,
In golden weed, the morning's lusty queen,
Begilding with the radiant beams she threw,
His helm, the harness, and the mountain green:
Upon his breast and forehead gently blew
The air, that balm and nardus breath'd unseen;
And o'er his head, let down from clearest skies,
A cloud of pure and precious dew there flies.

XVI.

The heavenly dew was on his garments spread,
To which compar'd, his clothes pale ashes seem,
And sprinkled so that all that paleness fled,
And thence of purest white bright rays outstream:

So cheered are the flowers, late withered,

With the sweet comfort of the morning beams;

And so return'd to youth, a serpent old

Adorns herself in new and native gold.

XVII.

The lovely whiteness of his changed weed
The prince perceived well and long admired;
Toward the forest march'd he on with speed,

Resolv'd, as such adventures great required:
Thither he came, whence, shrinking back for dread

Of that strange desert's sight, the first retired;

But not to him fearful or loathsome made

That forest was, but sweet with pleasant shade.

XVIII.

Forward he pass'd, and in the grove before,

He heard a sound, that strange, sweet, pleasing was;
There roll'd a crystal brook with gentle roar,

There sigh'd the winds, as through the leaves they pass ;
There sang the swan, and singing died, alas!
There lute, harp, cittern, human voice he heard,
And all these sounds one sound right well declared.

XIX.

A dreadful thunder-clap at last he heard,
The aged trees and plants well nigh, that rent,
Yet heard the nymphs and syrens afterward,
Birds, winds, and waters sing with sweet consent;
Whereat amazed, he stay'd and well prepar'd
For his defense, heedful and slow forth-went,
Nor in his way his passage aught withstood,
Except a quiet, still, transparent flood.

XX.

On the green banks, which that fair stream inbound,
Flowers and odours sweetly smil'd and smell'd,

Which reaching out his stretched arms around,

All the large desert in his bosom held,

And through the grove one channel passage found;

This in the wood, that in the forest dwell'd:

Trees clad the streams, streams green those trees aye made,

And so exchang'd their moisture and their shade.

SIR JOHN HARRINGTON, the first translator of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso into English, though a writer of greatly inferior genius to Fairfax, deserves to be noticed in connection with him. He was the son of that John Harrington who was imprisoned in the Tower by Mary, and was born at Kelston, near Bath, in 1561. He prepared for college at Eton Grammar School, and thence removed to the university of Cambridge, where he remained until he had taken his master's degree. Harrington was knighted by James the First, and after having passed a number of years as a successful courtier, he died in 1612, in his fifty-second year.

The translation of the 'Orlando Furioso' was an early performance, having been published before the author was thirty years of age. As a version of the original, the work is literally correct, but as a poetical performance, it is cold and prosaic. Besides the translation of the ‘Orlando Furioso,' Harrington published a volume of Epigrams, many of which, such as the following, exhibit much talent for that department of writing :

OF A PRECISE TAILOR.

A tailor, thought a man of upright dealing-
True, but for lying--honest but for stealing,
Did fall one day extremely sick by chance,
And on the sudden was in wondrous trance;
The fiends of hell mustering in fearful manner,
Of sundry colour'd silks displayed a banner
Which he had stolen, and wish'd, as they did tell.
That he might find it all one day in hell,
The man, affrighted with this apparition,
Upon recovery grew a great precisian:
He bought a bible of the best translation,
And in his life he show'd great reformation;

He walked mannerly, he talked meekly,

He heard three lectures and two sermons weekly;
He vow'd to shun all company unruly,

And in his speech he used no oath but truly;

And zealously to keep the Sabbath's rest,
His meat for that day on the eve was drest;
And lest the custom which he had to steal,
Might cause him sometimes to forget his zeal,
He gives his journeyman a special charge,
That if the stuff, allowance being large
He found his fingers were to filch inclined,
Bid him to have the banner in his mind.

This done (I scant can tell the rest for laughter)

A captain of a ship came three days after,

And brought three yards of velvet and three quarters,

To make Venetians down below the garters.

He, that precisely knew what was enough,
Soon slipt aside three quarters of the stuff;
His man, espying it, said in derision,
Master, remember how you saw the vision!
Peace, knave! quoth he, I did not see one rag
Of such a color'd silk in all the flag.

SIR HENRY WOTTON, the miscellaneous poet who follows Fairfax and Harrington, was born at Bocton Hall, in Kent, on the thirtieth of March, 1568. His early education was conducted by private tutors at home, after which he was sent to Winchester school, whence he passed, in 1584, to New College, Oxford. He did not, however, long remain there, but soon entered Queen's College, where he became well versed in logic and rhetoric; and being also distinguished for various other learning, and for his wit, he was selected to write a tragedy for the private use of his college. The name of the tragedy was Tancredo, and Walton, Sir Henry's biographer, remarks that 'it was interwoven with sentences, and for the method and exact personating those humors, passions, and dispositions, which he proposed to represent, so performed, that the gravest of the society declared, he had in a slight employment, given an early and solid testimony of his future abili

ties.'

Wotton having, in the twentieth year of his age, taken his master's degree, left the university, and after travelling a number of years on the continent, returned to England, and attached himself to the service of the Earl of Essex, the chief favorite of Queen Elizabeth. Having afterward gained the friendship of king James, by communicating the secret of a conspiracy formed against him, while yet only king of Scotland, he was employed by that monarch, when he ascended the English throne, as ambassador to Venice. A versatile and lively disposition qualified Sir Henry, in an eminent degree, for this situation, of the duties of which we have his own idea in the wellknown punning expression, in which he defines an ambassador to be an honest gentleman, sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.' Late in life Wotton took orders to qualify himself to be provost of Eton, and in

that situation he died, in 1639, in the seventy-second year of his age. The poems of this author are generally brief unstudied effusions, of very consid erable merit, and from them we select the following:

A FAREWELL TO THE VANITIES OF THE WORLD.

Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles ;
Farewell, ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles!
Fame 's but a hollow echo; gold, pure clay;
Honour, the darling but of one short day;
Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask'd skin;
State, but a golden prison to live in,

And torture free-born minds; embroider'd trains
Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins;
And blood allied to greatness, is alone

Inherited, not purchased, nor our own:

Fame, honour, beauty, state, train, blood, and birth,
Are but the fading blossoms of the earth.

Welcome pure thoughts, welcome ye silent groves,
These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves:
Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing
My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring :
A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adorn sweet Virtue's face.
Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears:
Then here I'll sigh, and sigh my hot love's folly,
And learn t' affect an holy melancholy;

And if Contentment be a stranger then,
I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven again.

THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE.

How happy is he born and taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill.

Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the worldly care

Of public fame or private breath;

Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Or vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good:
Who hath his life from rumours freed,
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great.

Who God doth late and early pray,
More of his grace than gifts to lend

And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend;

This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;

And having nothing yet hath all.

SIR JOHN DAVIES, the poet to whom our attention is next directed, was of low origin, being the son of a tanner. He was born at Chisgrove in Wiltshire in 1570, and after careful preparation, became, in 1585, a commoner of Queen's College, Oxford. He remained at the university until he had taken his bachelor's degree, immediately after which he repaired to London, and entered the Middle Temple, where he applied himself so closely to the study of the common law, that he was soon called to the bar. An unfortunate quarrel, however, the cause of which is not known, with a gentleman of the society to which he belonged, resulted in his expulsion thence, and he returned to Oxford and continued the prosecution of his studies there; but being eventually reinstated in the Temple, he returned thither and practiced, for some time, as a counsellor; and in 1601, he became a member of parliament. Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth, he accompanied lord Hunsdon into Scotland to congratulate king James upon his accession to the crown of England; and being introduced into his majesty's presence, he was particularly noticed by him; and when the king was informed by lord Hunsdon that Davies was the author of Nosce tiepsum, his majesty graciously embraced him, and assured him of his favor. The 'Nosce tiepsum,' a poem on the origin, nature, and immortality of the soul, was published in 1599, and dedicated to queen Elizabeth, by whom it was very favorably received.

Davies, soon after the accession of James, published a small volume of poems containing Hymns of Astrea, in acrostic verse; Orchestra, or a poem expressing the antiquity and excellency of dancing, and other pieces, which not only placed him in a high rank among his contemporary poets, but so far increased the favor of the king toward him, that he appointed him, first, his solicitor, and then his attorney-general, in Ireland; where, in 1606, he became one of his majesty's sergeants at law; and was afterward speaker in the House of Commons in that kingdom. In 1607, Davies received the honor of knighthood from the king at Whitehall; and in 1612, he quitted the post of attorney-general in Ireland, and was made one of the king's English sergeants at law; and, soon after he settled in England, one of the judges of assize on the circuit. In 1626, he was appointed by Charles the First, lord chief-justice of the King's Bench; but, before his installation, he died suddenly of apoplexy in the fifty-seventh year of his age.

Sir John Davies was a man of bold spirit, sharp and ready wit, and of most thorough and extensive learning; and among the minor poets of this period, he holds a very high rank. His philosophical poem, On the Soul of Man, and the Immortality thereof, is one of the earliest poems of that kind in the language. The author shows that he was a profound thinker, and close reasoner. In the happier parts of his poem,' says Campbell, ‘we come to logical truths so well illustrated by ingenious similes, that we know not