With grisly type did represent Declining age of government; And tell, with hieroglyphic spade, Its own grave and the state's were made. In time to make a nation rue; Whose thread of life the fatal Sisters His doublet was of sturdy buff, food That often tempted rats and mice And when he put a hand but in The one or t' other magazine, They stoutly on defence on 't stood, And from the wounded foe drew blood; And till th' were stormed and beaten out, Ne'er left the fortified redoubt; And though knights-errant, as some think, Of old, did neither eat nor drink, Because when thorough deserts vast, Unless they grazed, there's not one word Which made some confidently write We should forget where we digressed, As learned authors use, to whom To shoot at foes, and sometimes pullets, Of warrants, exigents, contempts, It had appeared with courage bolder Than Sergeant Bum invading shoulder: Oft had it ta'en possession, And prisoners too, or made them run. Miscellaneous Thoughts.-From Butler's Remains. Are vanity, and pride, and arrogance; All wit and fancy, like a diamond, The more exact and curious 'tis ground, Is forced for every carat to abate As much in value as it wants in weight. Love is too great a happiness For wretched mortals to possess; Translate to earth the joys above; * An allusion to Cromwell. There was a tradition that the Protector's father had a brewery in Huntingdon, which was carried on successfully after his death by his widow. It is certain that the premises occupied by the family had previously been employed as a brewery. The father, Robert Cromwell, was a country gentleman of good estate, younger son of a knight. As at the approach of winter, all In Rome no temple was so low All smatterers are more brisk and pert To his Mistress. Do not unjustly blame My guiltless breast, For venturing to disclose a flame It had so long supprest. In its own ashes it designed For ever to have lain; But that my sighs, like blasts of wind, Made it break out again. CHARLES COTTON. It The name of CHARLES COTTON (1630-1687) calls up a number of agreeable associations. is best known from its piscatory and affectionate union with that of good old Izaak Walton; but Cotton was a cheerful, witty, accomplished man, and only wanted wealth and prudence to have made him one of the leading characters of his day. His father, Sir George Cotton, died in 1658, leaving the poet an estate at Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, near the river Dove, so celebrated in the annals of trout-fishing. The property was much encumbered, and the poet soon added to its burdens. As a means of pecuniary relief, as well as recreation, Cotton translated several works from the French and Italian, including Montaigne's Essays. In his fortieth year, he obtained a captain's commission in the army; and afterwards made a fortunate second marriage with the Countess-dowager of Ardglass, who possessed a jointure of £1500 a year. It does not appear, however, that Cotton ever got out of his difficulties. The lady's fortune was secured from his mismanagement, and the poet died insolvent. His happy, careless disposition seems to have enabled him to study, angle, and delight his friends, amidst all his embarrassments. He published several burlesques and travesties, some of them grossly indelicate; but he wrote also some copies of verses full of genuine poetry. One of his humorous pieces, A Journey to Ireland, seems to have anticipated, as Campbell remarks, the manner of Anstey in the New Bath Guide. As a poet, Cotton may be ranked with Andrew Marvell. The New Year. Hark! the cock crows, and yon bright star With him old Janus doth appear, Yet more and more he smiles upon Why should we then suspect or fear So smiles upon us the first morn, Be super-excellently good : For the worst ills, we daily see, Than the best fortunes that do fall; Invitation to Izaak Walton. In his eighty-third year, Walton professed a resolution to begin difficult and hazardous for an aged man to travel in, to visit his a pilgrimage of more than a hundred miles into a country then friend Cotton, and, doubtless, to enjoy his favourite diversion of angling in the delightful streams of the Dove. To this journey he seems to have been invited by Cotton in the following beautiful stanzas, printed with other of his poems in 1689, and addressed to his dear and most worthy friend, Mr Izaak Walton, Whilst in this cold and blustering clime, Where bleak winds howl, and tempests roar, Has been of many years before; Whilst from the most tempestuous nooks The chillest blasts our peace invade, And by great rains our smallest brooks Are almost navigable made; Whilst all the ills are so improved The sun in the morning disclosed his light, For his colour, my pains and your trouble I'll spare, For the creature was wholly denuded of hair; Now, such as the beast was, even such was the rider, With a head like a nutmeg, and legs like a spider; The brains of a goose, and the heart of a cat; Ev'n such was my guide and his beast; let them pass, The one for a horse, and the other an ass. The Retirement. Stanzas Irreguliers, to Mr Izaak Walton. Here I can eat, and sleep, and pray, Good God, how sweet are all things here! How cleanly do we feed and lie! What peace, what unanimity! Oh, how happy here's our leisure! By turns to come and visit ye! Dear Solitude, the soul's best friend, To read, and meditate, and write, By none offended, and offending none ! To walk, ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease, Oh, my beloved nymph, fair Dove, And with my angle, upon them I ever learned, industriously to try! Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber cannot shew; The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine, The rapid Garonne and the winding Seine Beloved Dove, with thee To vie priority; Nay, Thame and Isis, when conjoined, submit, Oh, my beloved rocks, that rise To awe the earth and brave the skies, Giddy with pleasure, to look down, And from the vales, to view the noble heights above! Oh, my beloved caves! from dog-star's heat, And all anxieties, my safe retreat; What safety, privacy, what true delight, In the artificial night, Your gloomy entrails make, Have I taken, do I take! In all Charles's days Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays. WENTWORTH DILLON, EARL OF ROSCOMMON (1634-1685), was the nephew and godson of the celebrated Earl of Strafford. He travelled abroad during the Civil War, and returned at the time of the Restoration, when he was made captain of the band of pensioners, and subsequently Master of the Horse to the Duchess of York. Roscommon, like Denham, was addicted to gambling; but he cultivated his taste for literature, and produced a poetical Essay on Translated Verse, a translation of Horace's Art of Poetry, and some other minor pieces. He planned, in conjunction with Dryden, a scheme for refining our language and fixing its standard; but, while meditating on this and similar topics connected with literature, the arbitrary measures of James II. caused public alarm and commotion. Roscommon, dreading the result, prepared to retire to Rome, saying, it was best to sit near the chimney when the chamber smoked. An attack of gout prevented the poet's departure. He died, and was buried (January 21, 1684-5) in Westminster Abbey. At the moment in which he expired,' says Johnson, 'he uttered, with an energy of voice that expressed the most fervent devotion, two lines of his own version of Dies Ira: My God, my Father, and my Friend, The only work of Roscommon's which may be said to elevate him above mediocrity, is his Essay on Translated Verse, in which he inculcates in didactic poetry the rational principles of translation previously laid down by Cowley and Denham. It was published in 1681; and it is worthy of remark, that Roscommon notices the sixth book of Paradise Lost-published only four years before -for its sublimity. Dryden has heaped on Roscommon the most lavish praise, and Pope has said that 'every author's merit was his own.' Posterity has not confirmed these judgments. Roscommon stands on the same ground with Denham - elegant and sensible, but cold and unimpassioned. We shall subjoin a few passages from his Essay on Translated Verse: The Modest Muse. With how much ease is a young maid betrayed- What moderate fop would rake the park or stews, Take then a subject proper to expound, For who without a qualm hath ever looked And Horace looks with indignation down: Caution against False Pride. On sure foundations let your fabric rise, A pure, an active, an auspicious flame, And bright as heaven, from whence the blessing came. How many ages since has Virgil writ! Heaven shakes not more at Jove's imperial nod Than poets should before their Mantuan god. Hail, mighty Maro! may that sacred name Kindle my breast with thy celestial flame, Sublime ideas and apt words infuse; EARL OF ROCHESTER. JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER (16471680), is known principally from his having-to use the figurative language of Johnson-blazed out his youth and his health in lavish voluptuousness,' and died from physical exhaustion and The Muse instruct my voice, and thou inspire the decay at the age of thirty-three. Like most of the Muse! An Author must Feel what he Writes. I pity, from my soul, unhappy men, But what they feel transport them when they write. himself. courtiers of the day, Rochester travelled in France and Italy. He was at sea with the Earl of Sandwich and Sir Edward Spragge, and distinguished himself for bravery. In the heat of an engagement, he went to carry a message in an open boat amidst a storm of shot. This manliness of character forsook Rochester in England, for he was accused of betraying cowardice in street-quarrels, and he refused to fight with the Duke of Buckingham. In the profligate court of Charles, Rochester was the most profligate; his intrigues, his low amours and disguises, his erecting a stage and playing the mountebank on Tower-hill, and his having been five years in a state of inebriety, are circumstances well known and partly admitted by It is remarkable, however, that his domestic letters shew him in a different light' tender, playful, and alive to all the affections of a husband, a father, and a son.' His repentance itself says something for the natural character of the unfortunate profligate: to judge from the memoir left by Dr Burnet, who was his lordship's spiritual guide on his death-bed, it was sincere and unreserved. We may, therefore, with some confidence, set down Rochester as one of those whose vices are less the effect of an inborn tendency, than of external corrupting circumstances. It may fairly be said of him, Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.' His poems consist of slight effusions, thrown off without labour. Many of them are so very licentious as to be unfit for publication; but in one of these, he has given in one line a happy character of Charles II.: A merry monarch, scandalous and poor. His songs are sweet and musical. Rochester wrote a poem Upon Nothing, which is merely a string of puns and conceits. It opens, however, with a fine image: Nothing! thou elder brother even to shade, That hadst a being ere the world was made, And, well fixed, art alone of ending not afraid. Song. While on those lovely looks I gaze, To see a wretch pursuing, In raptures of a blest amaze, His pleasing happy ruin; 'Tis not for pity that I move; His fate is too aspiring, Whose heart, broke with a load of love, But if this murder you'd forego, |