Of forests and inchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Thus Night oft see me in thy pale career,
Till civil-suited morn appeer,

Not trickt and flounct as she was wont
With the Attick boy to hunt,

But cherchef'd in a comely cloud,
While rocking winds are piping loud,
Or usher'd with a shower still,
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves,
With minute drops from off the eaves.
And when the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me Goddess bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown that Sylvan loves
Of pine, or monumental oake,

Where the rude ax with heaved stroke
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt.
There in close covert by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from Day's garish eye,
While the bee with honied thigh,
That at her flowry work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feather'd sleep:

And let some strange mysterious dream

Wave at his wings in airy stream
Of lively portraiture display'd,

Softly on my eyelids laid.

And as I wake, sweet music breathe

Above, about, or underneath,

Sent by some spirit to mortals good,
Or th' unseen Genius of the wood.
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloysters pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antick pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dimm religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voic'd quire below

In service high, and anthems cleer,

As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into exstasies,

And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peacefull hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that Heav'n doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old Experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
And I with thee will choose to live.

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

WHEN I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, least he returning chide;
Doth God exact day labour, light denied,

I fondly ask? but patience to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best: his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,

And post o're land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and waite.

SIR JOHN SUCKLING was born in the year 1609, at Witham, in Middlesex, the then residence of his father, who had been Secretary of State to James the First, and was Comptroller of the Household in the memorable reign which succeeded. Marvellous stories are told of Sir John's quickness and sagacity in youth; and it is very certain that while he could scarcely have passed the age of fifteen, he had been already looking out upon the world with the eye of a wit and a scholar. Before he was twenty he had visited the greater portion of civilized Europe, and fought under Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, a campaign of three battles, five sieges, and several skirmishes. On his return to England, he flung himself at once into the easy, careless, and effected life of a gallant and a fine gentleman, most active when he seemed least so, and never with a lighter smile upon his face than when hazarding his safety in some public intrigue. The truth was, as we believe, that the tendency of Suckling's nature inclined to the serious, and that the greater part of the business of his life was an attempt to conceal this. One such affectation begets a thousand- and his career is, accordingly, a succession of strange contrasts, a brilliant game at cross purposes. His love of magnificence we take to be purely referable to the limited extent of his patrimony. That Le might appear at one moment of his existence as rich as a prince in power, he was quite content to pass the next as poor as a prince in poverty. No matter what his purpose was, a grandeur of style accompanied, if it did not conceal it. When Charles the First summoned his friends to attend him with troops, Sir John Suckling came with a hundred handsome horsemen

"the lords of holiday,"

but unfit for graver business. As his life drew near its close, however, this mask seems to have fallen from it. In his later years we find him labouring for the king's cause with a manly earnestness of purpose, with the utmost disregard of danger, and with so much effect, as to move against himself the wrath of the House of Commons. He was obliged to fly to France. As he slept at an inn on his way to Paris, his servant robbed him of a casket of gold and jewels; and to provide against the chance of his master's hot pursuit, stuck into one of his boots the blade of a penknife. He had anticipated the result with fatal precision. Sir John awoke, discovered his loss, leaped up, pulled on his boot in passionate haste, and received a mortal wound. He died on the 7th of May, 1641. Aubrey describes his person as of slight make, and his face as discoloured with ill-living. He had, it seems, a lively round eye, a head not very big, and hair of a kind of sand colour. His beard, Aubrey adds, turned up naturally, so that he had a brisk and graceful look.

The poetry of Sir John Suckling partakes of the character of his life. It would appear, in most respects, the very reverse of romantic; but this appearance is any thing but real. In his poetry, as in his life, he reached the very highest perfection in the art of withdrawing attention from his object, by fixing it on his manner. His style must always be placed between the laughing and the grave, the light and the cordial. The very poems, which, on examination, will be found to have the ground-work of as perfect a faith in nature as the greatest works of the age that had immediately preceded, flutter forth with a town air, and as mere careless trifles. Thoughts of a deep and painful kind, until they are examined closely, will strike on the reader of the poetry of Suckling, as the merest superficial remarks. Sir John Suckling was, in fact, the connecting link between the poetry of Elizabeth and that of Charles the Second. He would have led forth a new race of poets, but for the Puritanism that started up in England, to be driven back, with an unfortunate but most natural rebound, into profligate licentiousness. As the latter declined, it is curious to observe how poetry again came round to his peculiar style. For his is the origin, it is clear, of that of Prior and of Gay. The songs in "The Beggar's Opera" might have been written by Sir John Suckling. They have all his happy negligence, yet exquisite beauty of versification; his artificial sensibility; his true luxurious richness; his voluptuous delicacy of sentiment. They have the graver purpose too, which runs in an under-current through nearly every thing he wrote, and which breaks out more openly in his tragedies. As where he calls the court, in one of them,

"A most eternal place of low affronts,

And then as low submissions."

'Tis now, since I sate down before That foolish fort, a heart,

(Time strangely spent) a year and more, And still I did my part:

Made my approaches, from her hand

Unto her lip did rise,

And did already understand

The language of her eyes.

Proceeded on with no lesse art,
My tongue was engineer;

I thought to undermine the heart
By whispering in the ear.

When this did nothing, I brought down
Great canon oaths, and shot

A thousand thousand to the town,
And still it yeelded not.

I then resolv'd to starve the place
By cutting off all kisses,
Praysing and gazing on her face,
And all such little blisses.

To draw her out, and from her strength,
I drew all batteries in ;

And brought myself to lie at length

As if no siege had been.

When I had done what man could do,
And thought the place mine owne,
The enemy lay quiet too,

And smil'd at all was done.

I sent to know from whence and where
These hopes, and this relief?

A spie inform'd, honour was there,

And did command in chief.

March, march, (quoth I) the word straight give,

Let's lose no time, but leave her;

That giant upon ayre will live,

And hold it out for ever.

To such a place our camp remove
As will no siege abide;

I hate a fool that starves her love
Onely to feed her pride.

SONG.

WHY SO pale and wan, fond lover?
Prethee why so pale?

Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail?

Prethee why so pale?

Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Prethee why so mute?