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This man is freed from servilo bands

Of hope to rise, or fear to fall; Lord of himself, though not of lands; And having nothing, yet hath all.

John Lilly.

Lilly (circa 1554-1601) was a native of Kent. His principal work was a prose romance called "Euphues." The name of the book has passed, as an abstract term, into our language; but the book itself is no longer read, and the euphuistic method of expression is chiefly known to us in these days by caricatures. Lilly wrote nine plays, in which some songs occur. The following is from his play of "Campaspe," 1584.

CUPID AND CAMPASPE.

Cupid and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses; Cupid paid.

He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother's doves and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose

Growing on his cheek, but none knows how;

With these the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin:-
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes;
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas, become of me!

Henry Constable.

Born about 1560, and educated at Oxford, Constable published, in 1584, "Diana, or the excellent conceitful sonnets of H. C." The volume was reprinted for the Roxburghe Club in 1818. The following is from "England's Helicon," first published in 1600.

DIAPHENIA.

Diaphenia, like the daffadowndilly,
White as the sun, fair as the lily,

Heigh-ho, how I do love thee!

I do love thee as my lambs

Are belovéd of their dams;

How blest were I if thou would'st prove me!

Diaphenia, like the spreading roses, That in thy sweets all sweets encloses,

Fair sweet, how I do love thee!

I do love thee as each flower Loves the sun's life-giving power; For dead, thy breath to life might move me.

Diaphenia, like to all things blessed, When all thy praises are expressed, Dear joy, how I do love thee!

As the birds do love the spring,

Or the bees their careful king: Then in requite, sweet virgin, love me!

Joseph Hall.

Hall (1574-1656), bishop successively of Exeter in 1627, and of Norwich in 1641, is remembered chiefly for his prose theological works, written in the reigns of James and Charles. His only poems were a collection of Satires, composed at Cambridge University before his twenty-third year. They were condemned to be burnt in 1599, by an order of Bishop Bancroft. Hall's satire on the amatory poets of his day, of which we give a specimen, is coarse, but apt and pithy.

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JOHN MARSTON.-DR. JOHN DONNE.

41

ON LOVE POETRY.

SATIRE III., Book II.

Great is the folly of a feeble brain

O'erruled with love and tyrannous disdain :
For love, however in the basest breast

It breeds high thoughts that feed the fancy best,
Yet is he blind, and leads poor fools awry,
While they hang gazing on their mistress' eyc.
The love-sick poet, whose importune prayer
Repulséd is with resolute despair,
Hopeth to conquer his disdainful dame
With public plaints of his conceivéd flame.
Then pours he forth in patchéd sonnetings
His love, his lust, and loathsome flatterings;
As though the staring world hanged on his sleeve,
When once he smiles to laugh, and when he sighs
to grieve.

Careth the world thou love, thou live, or die?
Careth the world how fair thy fair one be?
Fond wit-wal, that wouldst load thy witless head
With timely horns before thy bridal bed!
Then can he term his dirty, ill-faced bride
Lady and queen and virgin deified:

Be she all sooty-black or berry-brown,

She's white as morrow's milk or flakes new-blown:
And though she be some dunghill drudge at home,
Yet can he her resign some refuse room
Amidst the well-known stars; or if not there,
Sure will he saint her in his Kalendere.

John Marston.

Marston, a rough but vigorous satirist and dramatic writer, produced his "Malcontent," a comedy, prior to 1600. He was educated at Oxford, became lecturer at the Middle Temple, and died in 1633. He wrote eight plays, and three books of Satires, called "The Scourge of Villany."

THE SCHOLAR AND HIS SPANIEL.

I was a scholar: seven useful springs
Did I deflower in quotations

Of crossed opinions 'bout the soul of man;
The more I learnt, the more I learnt to doubt.
Delight, my spaniel, slept, while I turned leaves,
Tossed o'er the dunces, pored on the old print
Of titled words: and still my spaniel slept;
Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, baited my flesh,
Shrunk up my veins and still my spaniel slept;
And still I held converse with Zabarell,
Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw

Of antick Donate: still my spaniel slept.
Still on went I; first, an sit anima;
Then, an it were mortal. Oh, hold, hold! at that
They're at brain buffets, fell by the ears amain
Pell-mell together: still my spaniel slept.
Then, whether 'twere corporeal, local, fixed,
Ex traduce; but whether 't had free-will
Or no; hot philosophers

Stood banding factions, all so strongly propped,
I staggered, knew not which was firmer part,
But thought, quoted, read, observed, and pried,
Stuffed noting-books: and still my spaniel slept.
At length he waked, and yawned; and by yon sky,
For aught I know, he knew as much as I.

TO DETRACTION I PRESENT MY POESIE. Foul canker of fair virtuous action, Vile blaster of the freshest blooms on earth, Envy's abhorred child, Detraction,

I here expose to thy all-tainting breath

The issue of my brain: snarl, rail, bark, bite;
Know that my spirit scorns Detraction's spite.

Know that the Genius which attendeth on
And guides my powers intellectual,
Holds in all vile repute Detraction.
My soul-an essence metaphysical,

That in the basest sort scorns critic's rage,
Because he knows his sacred parentage,—

My spirit is not puffed up with fat fume
Of slimy ale, nor Bacchus' heating grape.
My mind disdains the dungy, muddy scum
Of abject thoughts and Envy's raging hate.
True judgment slight regards Opinion,
A sprightly wit disdains Detraction.

A partial praise shall never elevate
My settled censure of my own esteem:
A cankered verdict of malignant hate
Shall ne'er provoke me worse myself to deem.
Spite of despite and rancor's villany,
I am myself, so is my poesy.

Dr. John Donne.

Donne (1573-1631) was born in London, and as a child was a prodigy of learning. He became Chaplain in Ordinary to James I., and Dean of St. Paul's. Much against the wishes of his devoted wife, he accompanied Sir Robert Drury on an embassy to Paris. While there, Donne

had a singular vision, which is often reproduced among stories of psychical or supersensual power. He saw (as Izaak Walton narrates) the apparition of his wife enter his room, bearing a dead child; and shortly after he heard that his wife had been delivered of a still-born

child at the very moment. The best known poetical writings of Donne are his "Satires," and "The Progress of the Soul." His poems are characterized by brilliant wit, depth of reflection, and terseness of language; but his versification is generally rugged and uncouth, and he is often so obscure as to task the closest attention.

SONNET.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful; for thou art not so:
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must
flow.

And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery!
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate
men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,
Or better, than thy stroke: why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!

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But think that Death hath now enfranchised thee! And think this slow-paced Soul which late did cleave

To a body, and went but by the body's leave,
Twenty, perchance, or thirty miles a day,
Despatches in a minute all the way

"Twixt heaven and earth! She stays not in the air,
To look what meteors there themselves prepare;
She carries no desire to know, nor sense,
Whether the air's middle region is intense;
For the element of fire, she doth not know
Whether she passed by such a place or no;
She baits not at the moon, nor cares to try
Whether in that new world men live and die;
Venus retards her not to inquire how she
Can, being one star, Hesper and Vesper be.
He that charmed Argus' eyes, sweet Mercury,
Works not on her who now is grown all eye;

Who, if she meet the body of the Sun,

Goes through, not staying till her course be run;
Who finds in Mars's camp no corps of guard;
Nor is by Jove, nor by his father, barred;
But, ere she can consider how she went,
At once is at, and through, the firmament:
And, as these stars were but so many beads
Strung on one string, speed undistinguished lends
Her through those spheres, as through those beads
a string,

Whose quick succession makes it still one thing:
As doth the pith which, lest our bodies slack,
Strings fast the little bones of neck and back,
So by the Soul doth Death string Heaven and
Earth.

ELEGY ON MISTRESS ELIZABETH DRURY. She of whose soul, if we may say 'twas gold, Her body was the Electrum, and did hold Many degrees of that-we understood Her by her sight: her pure and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, That one might almost say her body thought. She, she, thus richly, largely housed, is gone, And chides us slow-paced snails who crawl upon Our prison's prison, Earth, nor think us well Longer than whilst we bear our little shell.

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She whom we celebrate is gone before:
She who had here so much essential joy,
As no chance could distract, much less destroy;
Who with God's presence was acquainted so
(Hearing and speaking to him) as to know

His face in any natural stone or tree
Better than when in images they be;
Who kept, by diligent devotion,

God's image in such reparation

Within her heart, that what decay was grown
Was her first Parent's fault, and not her own;
Who, being solicited to any act,

Still heard God pleading his safe pre-contract;
Who by a faithful confidence was here
Betrothed to God, and now is married there;
Whose twilights were more clear than our mid-

day;

Who dreamed devoutlier than most use to pray;
Who, being here filled with grace, yet strove to be
Both where more grace and more capacity
At once is given. She to Heaven is gone,
Who made this world in some proportion
A heaven, and here became unto us all
Joy (as our joys admit) essential.

Ben Jonson.

BEN JONSON.

After

Jonson (1574-1637) was thirty years old at the death of Queen Elizabeth. He was ten years younger than Shakspeare, and survived him twenty-one years, living on almost to the troubled close of the reign of Charles I. Born in the North of England of humble parentage, Jonson, after a period of soldier life in the Low Countries, where he fought bravely, settled in London, married, and took to literature and the stage as a means of livelihood. He tried his fortune as an actor, but did not succeed. A duel with a brother actor, whom, unhappily, he killed, caused his confinement for a time in jail. While there, he was visited by a priest; and his mind being turned to religious subjects, he became a Roman Catholic, and continued one for twelve years. that, when at the height of his fame and prosperity, he once more professed himself a member of the Church of England. But an estimate of the quality of his relig ious feeling may be formed from the fact that, on partaking of the Holy Communion for the first time after this event, he quaffed off the entire contents of the chalice! “He did everything lustily," says one of his recent biographers, as a comment on this incident. Whether "lustily" or through simple love of good liquor, and in unconcern as to the proprieties, may remain a question. Probably it was done in the spirit of the reply of Theodore Hook, who, when asked by the College functionary if he could sign the Thirty-nine Articles, said, "Yes, furty, if you wish it."

On his release from prison, Jonson sprang at once into fame by his still-acted play of "Every Man in his Humor," in the representation of which no less a person than Shakspeare took a part. Jonson's works consist mainly of dramas and masks, of which he produced, in all, more than fifty. Poverty cast a gloom over his last years; he was obliged to solicit assistance from old friends; and so the bright life dimmed, and flickered, and went out. His mortal remains were buried in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey; and Sir John Young, a gentleman from Oxford, visiting the spot, gave eighteen-pence to a mason, to cut upon the flag-stone covering the poet's clay this epitaph: "O Rare Ben Jonson !" Such, at least, is the tradition.

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.43

Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were
To see thee in our water yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That did so take Eliza and our James!
But stay! I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there.
Shine forth, thou star of poets! and with rage
Or influence chide or cheer the drooping stage,
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned

like night,

And despairs day but for thy volume's light.

SEE THE CHARIOT AT HAND.

FROM "A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS."
See the chariot at hand here of Love,
Wherein my lady rideth!

Each that draws is a swan or a dove,
And well the car Love guideth.
As she goes all hearts do duty

Unto her beauty;

And, enamored, do wish, so they might
But enjoy such a sight,

That they still were to run by her side, Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light
All that Love's world compriseth!
Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As Love's star when it riseth!
Do but mark, her forehead's smoother
Than words that soothe her!
And from her arched brows, such a grace
Sheds itself through the face,

As alone there triumphs to the life
All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife.

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