I'm sure my language to her was as sweet,
And every close did meet

In sentence of as subtle feet,
As hath the youngest he

That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree.
O, but my conscious fears,
That fly my thoughts between,
Tell me that she hath seen
My hundreds of grey hairs,
Told seven and forty years,

Read so much waist as she cannot embrace,

My mountain belly, and my rocky face ;

And all these, through her eyes, have stopt her ears.

INVITING A FRIEND TO SUPPER.

To-night, grave sir, both my poor house and I

Do equally desire your company:

Not that we think us worthy such a guest,

But that your worth will dignify our feast

With those that come; whose grace may make that seem Something which else would hope for no esteem.

It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates

The entertainment perfect, not the cates.
Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate,
An olive, capers, or some better salad,

Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen,
If we can get her full of eggs, and then

Lemons and wine for sauce; to these, a coney1
Is not to be despaired of for our money;

And, though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks,2
The sky not falling, think we may have larks.

I'll tell you of more (and lie, so you will come),

Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some
May yet be there, and god-wit if we can ;
Knat, rail, and ruff, too. Howsoe'er, my man
Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus,

Livy, or of some better book, to us,

Of which we'll speak our minds amidst our meat:
And I'll profess no verses to repeat.

To this if aught appear which I not know of,
That will the pastry, not my paper, show of.
Digestive cheese and fruit there sure will be;
But that which most doth take my muse and me
2 Learned persons.

1 A rabbit.

Is a pure cup of rich canary wine,

Which is the Mermaid's1 now, but shall be mine;
Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted,
Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted.
Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring,
Are all but Luther's beer to this I sing.2
Of this we will sup free, but moderately;
And we will have no Pooly or Parrot by,
Nor shall our cups make any guilty men ;
But, at our parting, we will be as when
We innocently met. No simple word
That shall be uttered at our mirthful board
Shall make us sad next morning, or affright
The liberty that we'll enjoy to-night.

AN EPITAPH ON SALATHIEL PAVY, A CHILD OF QUEEN
ELIZABETH'S CHAPEL.3

Weep with me, all you that read

This little story:

And know, for whom a tear you shed
Death's self is sorry.

'Twas a child that so did thrive

In grace and feature,

As heaven and nature seemed to strive
Which owned the creature.

Years he numbered scarce thirteen
When fates turned cruel ;

Yet three filled zodiacs had he been
The stage's jewel,

And did act, what now we moan,

Old men so duly

As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one,

He played so truly!

So, by error, to his fate

They all consented;

But, viewing him since, alas, too late

They have repented;

And have sought, to give new birth,

In baths to steep him;

But, being so much too good for earth,
Heaven vows to keep him.

1 The famous Mermaid Tavern.

2 Are no better than Luther's beer in comparison with this canary which I sing. 3 A little actor, otherwise than in these lines quite unremembered, who excelled in performing the parts of old men, and died at twelve years of age.

AN EPIGRAM TO THE HOUSEHOLD OF CHARLES I., 1630.
What can the cause be, when the King hath given
His poet sack,1 the Household will not pay?
Are they so scanted in their store? or driven,
For want of knowing the poet, to say him nay?
Well, they should know him, would the King but grant
His poet leave to sing his Household true:
He'd frame such ditties of their store and want
Would make the very Green-cloth to look blue,
And rather wish, in their expense of sack,
So the allowance from the King to use
As the old Bard should no canary lack:
'Twere better spare a butt than spill his muse!
For in the genius of a poet's verse,

The King's fame lives. Go now, deny his tierce!

WHEN Spenser died in 1599, there were already growing to manhood a younger generation of Spenserians, pastoral poets, who would in course of years acknowledge for Spenser something of the docile reverence which he had expressed in his youth for Chaucer, his English 66 Tityrus." Among these younger poets, youths in their teens at the date of Spenser's death, were the brothers Giles and Phineas Fletcher. They were first cousins of John Fletcher the dramatist, and sons of Dr. Giles Fletcher, who was at one time Ambassador at the court of Russia, and who had dedicated a book, entitled Of the Russe Common Wealth, to Queen Elizabeth in 1591, which she as quickly suppressed, "lest," says Anthony Wood, "it might give offence to a prince in amity with England." Phineas and his brother were educated at Cambridge. Giles graduated as B.D., and obtained the living of Alderton in Suffolk, while Phineas became rector at Hilgay in Norfolk; and each of them produced a very remarkable poem. The Christ's Victory of Giles Fletcher was published at Cambridge in 1610. Its

1 See p. 352.

measure is a full flowing eight-lined stanza, which is, in fact, Spenser's own stanza with the seventh line omitted. It is written in a tone of exalted and rapturous piety. Giles Fletcher was emphatically a pastoral poet; but he cast away the oft-sung themes of Arcadian romance, and chose for the subject of his poem the most exquisite and sublime of all pastoral stories.

FROM CHRIST'S VICTORY AND TRIUMPH.

THE BIRTH OF CHRIST.

Who can forget, never to be forgot,

The time that all the world in slumber lies,
When, like the stars, the singing angels shot
To earth, and heaven awakèd all his eyes
To see another sun at midnight rise

On earth? Was never sight of pareil1 fame;
For God, before, man like himself did frame,
But God himself, now, like a mortal man became.

A Child he was, and had not learnt to speak,
That with his word the world before did make ;
His mother's arms him bore, he was so weak,
That with one hand the vaults of heaven could shake.
See, how small room my infant Lord doth take,
Whom all the world is not enough to hold!
Who of his years or of his age hath told?
Never such age so young, never a child so old!

And yet but newly he was infanted,
And yet already he was sought to die ;
Yet scarcely born, already banished;
Not able yet to go, and forced to fly ;

But scarcely fled away, when, by and by,

The tyrant's sword with blood is all defiled,
And Rachel for her sons, with fury wild,

Cries, “O, thou cruel king!" and "O, my sweetest child!"

The angels carolled loud their Song of Peace;
The cursed oracles were strucken dumb:
To see their Shepherd the poor shepherds press;
To see their King the kingly sophies2 come;
And, them to guide unto his Master's home,

A Star comes dancing up the orient,

That springs for joy over the strawy tent;

Where gold, to make their Prince a crown, they all present. . . .

With that, the mighty thunder dropt away

From God's unwary arm, now milder grown,

And melted into tears; as if to pray

For pardon and for pity it had known,

That should have been for sacred vengeance thrown :
There-to, the armies angelic devowed

Their former rage, and, all to Mercy bowed,
Their broken weapons at her feet they gladly strowed.
Bring, bring, ye Graces, all your silver flaskets,
Painted with every choicest flower that grows;
That I may soon unflower your fragrant baskets
To strow the fields with odours where he goes:
Let whatsoe'er he treads on be a rose !

So, down she let her eyelids fall, to shine
Upon the rivers of bright Palestine,

Whose woods drop honey and her rivers skip with wine.

CHRIST'S ASCENSION INTO HEAVEN.

So long He wandered in our lower sphere
That heaven began his cloudy stars despise,
Half envious to see on earth appear
A greater light than flamed in his own skies:
At length it burst for spite, and out there flies

A globe of wingèd angels, swift as thought,
That on their spotted feathers lively caught
The sparkling earth, and to their azure fields it brought.

The rest, that yet amazèd stood below

With eyes cast up, as greedy to be fed,

And hands upheld, themselves to ground did throw :
So, when the Trojan boy was ravishèd,

As through the Italian woods they say he fled,
His aged guardians stood all dismayed,

Some lest he should have fallen back afraid,
And some their hasty vows and timely prayers said.

"Toss up your heads, ye everlasting gates,

And let the Prince of Glory enter in ;

At whose brave volley of sidereal states

The sun to blush and stars grow pale were seen ;