from actual experience. We are not, indeed, aware of any book, which contains more original and accurate images drawn from rural life and scenery, than are to be found in the Britannia's Pastorals. An extraordinary circumstance, if we consider the very early age at which they were written, and that the most important part of his life, immediately preceding their composition, had been spent at Oxford and the Inner Temple.But it is one of the properties of genius to confound the calculations of ordinary individuals, and display fruits at a time when the seeds are not imagined to be sown. "Then walk'd they to a grove but neare at hand, The earth doth yeeld, which they through pores exhale, Like to that smell, which oft our sense descries Within a field which long unplowed lyes, Some-what before the setting of the sunne; And where the raine-bow in the horizon Doth pitch her tips: or as when in the prime, Not all the oyntments brought from Delos isle; Nor that brought whence Phoenicians have abodes; Saffron confected in Cilicia; Nor that of quinces, nor of marjoram, That ever from the isle of Coös, came. Nor these, nor any else, though ne're so rare, Could with this place for sweetest smels compare." The characterization of the forest trees will remind the reader of that in Spenser, from which it is, perhaps, taken-it is, however, by no means inferior. Such enumerations of trees, flowers, birds, or other interesting classes of objects, are invariably, when well executed, favorites with the poetical reader.-In this extract, the different trees of the grove pass in review be fore the mind, distinguished by their peculiar qualities and affections, until the whole assumes an appearance of life and animation; and acquires somewhat of the interest which we feel for a large body of individuals of various habits, ranks, and charac ters. "There stood the elme, whose shade so mildely dym grasse growes thickest, men are fresher made. The olive that in wainscot never cleaves. The amorous vine which in the elme still weaves. The pyne, with whom men through the ocean venter. The maple, ashe, that doe delight in fountaines, Which have their currents by the sides of mountaines. Their leaves all winter, be it ne'er so cold. The firre, that oftentimes doth rosin drop: The beech that scales the welkin with his top; By all the industry of nature strove To frame an arbour that might keepe within it The best of beauties that the world hath in it." The description of two streams, one in pursuit of the other, is painted with a very lively and fanciful pencil. Indeed, one of the most remarkable peculiarities in the poetry of Browne, is its fancifulness-it is also one of its worst vices.-And, by fancifulness we wish to be understood, a wild and unmeasured play of the imagination which endues, for instance, the properties of one being with the attributes of another-which disposes of pleasing ideas, and beautiful imagery, in the wrong place; and, by the idea of unfitness, gives an air of the ridiculous to what would otherwise be lovely or delightful.-But, perhaps, the term fantastic is rather the term which would best express our notion of Browne's characteristic. His poetry almost always strikes us, as if written by one who took delight to deck himself in such gifts, as he feigns the water-nymphs to have loved to bring him, in these lines. Speaking of himself, "Willy hight," he says, By Tavy's speedy stream he fled his flock, Where, when he sat to sport him on a rock, The water-nymphs would often come unto him, And for a dance, with many gay gifts woo him: Now posies of this flow'r, and then of that; Now with fine shells, then with a rushy hat: With coral or red stones brought from the deep, To make him bracelets." Of his fantastic vein, we have here an instance ;-the language is musical and expressive, the imagery is striking and picturesque, and the delineation is vivid and spirited; yet the passage is both fanciful and fantastic, and so gives but a tame kind of pleasure. Take the parts separately, that is, allow the poet to animate the streams without relation to each other, then the descriptions are only fanciful; but, let the two rivulets not only have life and character given to them, but also feigned to be in pursuit of each other, and the whole becomes fantastic and absurd. "Here dashes roughly on an aged rocke, Helpes downe an abbey, then a natural bridge By creeping under ground he frameth out, But th' other fearing least her noyse might show What path she tooke, which way her streames did flow: Not trusting to his heeles, treades on his toes: Feareth to dye, and yet his winde doth smother; Now leaves this path, Such was her course. takes that, then to another: The other not to finde, swels o'er each mound, Why one floud ranne so fast, th' other so soft, The contrast between his modest and his less decorous readers is drawn with a nervous pen. "Then each faire Nymph whom Nature doth endow With beautie's cheeke, crown'd with a shamefast brow; Ne'er heard nor saw the works of Aretine; Where hated impudence ne'er set her seede; But yee, whose bloud, like kids upon a plaine, Whose fained gestures doe entrap our youth We consider the following enumeration of rural objects as a pleasing specimen of a large portion of the book; and, also, an instance of the fault for which our poet has been blamed, of over-charging his pictures. The separate images, or, as it were, the successive strokes of his pencil, are nearly always beautiful, natural, and correct; but then, through a want of taste, these images are frequently crowded to such an excess, as to deprive the picture of all verisimilitude. In the landscape we are about to quote, the shepherd piping, the hunt, the ploughman that 'careless leaves the plow,' the angler, the milkmaid, the auncient town buried in his dust,' and all the other images, are striking, natural, and beautiful, but they are too numerous, too distinct from each other, make the scene too busy, and destroy the entire effect intended to be produced, of a bright and cheerful country. "And as within a landskip that doth stand Wrought by the pencill of some curious hand, Here sits a maiden milking of her cow. $? There on a goodly plaine (by time throwne downe)) Who now invillaged, there's onely seene |