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PHILIP MASSINGER.

PHILIP MASSINGER was born at Salisbury, A.D. 1584. In early life he resided at Wilton, and partook of that munificent patronage which the Pembroke family extended to men of letters. It was, however, withdrawn before long; and Mr. Gifford, who affirms that Massinger was a Roman Catholic, conjectures that to the circumstance of his having, when at the University of Oxford, abandoned the Church of England, we are to attribute the severance of that friendly tie. On leaving Oxford, Massinger settled in London, where he scantily maintained himself by his dramatic writings. The Virgin Martyr, the first printed of Massinger's works, appeared in 1622; but there can be little doubt that he had written much before that period. Hardly any incidents of his life have been recorded; but the number of plays which he wrote (many of them unfortunately lost) proves that that life must have been an industrious one. His death was sudden. On the 17th of March 1640, he retired to rest in good health, and the next morning was found dead in his bed. Little as is known of Massinger, it is admitted by all his biographers that his character was "one of singular modesty, gentleness, candour, and affability." His literary career was a constant struggle; for fortune never smiled upon him. His writings breathe a spirit incomparably nobler and manlier than that of his contemporaries generally; they are wholly free from the servile political maxims and, in a large measure, from the grave offences against religion and morals with which the stage in his time abounded. Their merit consists less in the vigour with which they delineate passion than in their dignity and refinement of style, and the variety of their versification. To wit they have no pretensions.

"6
FROM THE VIRGIN MARTYR."

The place of execution. Antonius, Theophilus, Dorothea, &c.

Ant.

See, she comes ;

How sweet her innocence appears! more like
To Heaven itself than any sacrifice
That can be offered to it. By my hopes
Of joys hereafter, the sight makes me doubtful
In my belief; nor can I think our gods
Are good, or to be served, that take delight
In offerings of this kind; that, to maintain
Their power, deface this master-piece of nature,

Which they themselves come short of. She ascends, And every step raises her nearer Heaven!

*

*

She smiles,

Unmoved by Mars! as if she were assured
Death, looking on her constancy, would forget
The use of his inevitable hand.

Theo. Derided too! Despatch, I say!
Dor.

Thou fool!

Thou gloriest in having power to ravish
A trifle from me I am weary of.

What is this life to me? Not worth a thought;
Or, if it be esteemed, 'tis that I lose it

To win a better: even thy malice serves

To me but as a ladder to mount up

To such a height of happiness, where I shall
Look down with scorn on thee and on the world;
Where, circled with true pleasures, placed above
The reach of death or time, 'twill be my glory
To think at what an easy price I bought it.
There's a perpetual spring, perpetual youth;
No joint-benumbing cold, or scorching heat,
Famine nor age, have any being there.
Forget for shame your Tempè; bury in
Oblivion your feign'd Hesperian orchards :-
The golden fruit, kept by the watchful dragon,
Which did require a Hercules to get it,
Compared with what grows in all plenty there,
Deserves not to be named. The power I serve
Laughs at your happy Araby, or the

Elysian shades; for he hath made his bowers
Better indeed than you can fancy yours.

Dor. Thou glorious minister of the Power I serve (For thou art more than mortal), is't for me, Poor sinner, thou art pleased awhile to leave Thy heavenly habitation, and vouchsafest, Though glorified, to take my servant's habit? For, put off thy divinity, so looked

My lovely Angelo.

Angelo.

Know, I am the same:

And still the servant to your piety.

Your zealous prayers and pious deeds first won me

(But 'twas by His command to whom you sent them)
To guide your steps. I tried your charity,
When, in a beggar's shape, you took me up,
And clothed my naked limbs, and after fed,
As you believed, my famished mouth. Learn all,
By your example, to look on the poor
With gentle eyes; for in such habits often
Angels desire an alms. I never left you,
Nor will I now; for I am sent to carry
Your pure and innocent soul to joys eternal,
Your martyrdom once suffered.

DRUMMOND.

A

WILLIAM DRUMMOND, a Scotch poet, worthily sustained the poetic fame which, in the fifteenth century, had been won for that country by King James I., Dunbar, Douglas, and others. He was the son of Sir John Drummond of Hawthornden, at which place he was born A.D. 1585. After his father's death, Drummond resided at his paternal home; and, in the midst of its beautiful scenery, cultivated his literary talents. His life was not a happy one. lady to whom he was attached was cut off by fever but a short time before the day appointed for their marriage; and a pathetic memorial of his grief remains in his poems. He spent eight years in foreign travel after this affliction; a circumstance to which we may probably attribute the degree in which his sonnets, hardly inferior to those of Petrarch, are formed after the Italian model. While abroad he made a collection of books and manuscripts. On his return he repaired the ancient family mansion, and set up upon it an inscription ending with the words, "ut honesto otio quiesceret, sibi et successoribus, instauravit, 1638." The hope expressed in these words was not fulfilled. As a royalist, he was harassed during the civil wars; and on the death of his sovereign his spirit seems to have been broken. He died A.D. 1649. He had, in his forty-fifth year, married a lady named Elizabeth Logan, whose attraction, in his eyes, consisted in her resemblance to his early love.

Scotland has reason to be proud of Drummond. Till the appearance of Burns he was her greatest poet. His genius, however, is by no means marked by the hardier characteristics of the north. Both in its excellences and defects, its character is southern; and it strikingly illustrates the influence which was exercised by Italian and Spanish upon English literature till the great Rebellion,—an influence which, after the Revolution, was superseded by that of French letters. Drummond wrote Latin as well as English poetry, and left behind him a history of the five James's, kings of Scotland.

The celebrated visit of Ben Jonson to Hawthornden gave rise to a stupid tradition respecting a quarrel between him and Drummond, for which no adequate grounds ever existed.

SONNETS.

I know that all beneath the moon decays,
And what by mortals in this world is brought,
In Time's great periods shall return to naught;
That fairest states have fatal nights and days.
I know that all the Muse's heavenly lays,
With toil of spirit which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought;
That there is nothing lighter than vain praise.
I know frail beauty's like the purple flower,
To which one morn oft birth and death affords ;
That love a jarring is of minds' accords,
Where sense and will envassal Reason's power;
Know what I list, all this cannot me move,
But that, alas! I both must write and love.

Dear chorister, who from those shadows sends,
Ere that the blushing morn dare show her light,
Such sad lamenting strains, that night attends
(Become all ear), stars stay to hear thy plight;
If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends,
Who ne'er (not in a dream) did taste delight,
May thee importune who like case pretends,
And seems to joy in woe, in woe's despite,-
Tell me (so may thou fortune milder try,

And long, long sing) for what thou thus complains,
Since winter's gone, and sun in dappled sky
Enamour'd smiles on woods and flowery plains?
The bird, as if my questions did her move,
With trembling wings sigh'd forth, I love, I love.

Sweet soul, which in the April of thy years,
For to enrich the heaven, madest poor this round,
And now, with flaming rays of glory crown'd,
Most blest abides above the sphere of spheres;
If heavenly laws, alas! have not thee bound
From looking to this globe that all upbears,
If ruth and pity there above be found,
O deign to lend a look unto these tears,

Do not disdain (dear ghost) this sacrifice;
And though I raise not pillars to thy praise,
My offerings take; let this for me suffice,
My heart a living pyramid I raise :

And whilst kings' tombs with laurels flourish green,
Thine shall with myrtles and these flowers be seen.

Sleep, silence' child, sweet father of soft rest,
Prince whose approach peace to all mortals brings,
Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,
Sole comforter of minds which are oppress'd;
Lo, by thy charming rod all breathing things
Lie slumb'ring, with forgetfulness possess'd;
And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings
Thou spar'st, alas! who cannot be thy guest.
Since I am thine, O come, but with that face
To inward light, which thou art wont to show,
With feigned solace ease a true-felt woe;
Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace,

Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath;
I long to kiss the image of my death.

Alexis, here she stay'd, among these pines—
Sweet hermitress, she did all alone repair;
Here did she spread the treasure of her hair,

More rich than that brought from the Colchian mines:
Here sate she by these musked eglantines;
The happy flow rs seem yet the print to bear;
Her voice did sweeten here thy sugar'd lines,

To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did lend an ear.
She here me first perceiv'd, and here a morn
Of bright carnations did o'erspread her face;
Here did she sigh, here first my hopes were born,
Here first I got a pledge of promis'd grace:

But, ah! what serves 't t' have been made happy so,
Sith passed pleasures double but new woe?

Sweet spring, thou com'st with all thy goodly train, Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flow'rs; The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain,

The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their show'rs. Sweet Spring, thou com'st-but, ah! my pleasant hours And happy days with thee come not again;

The sad memorials only of my pain

Do with thee come, which turn my sweets to sours.