"What? you would faine haue all the great ones

freed?

They must not for their vices be controld:
Beware!-that were a saucinesse indeed;
But if the great ones to offend be bold
I see no reason but they should be told."

MORTON. The Frenchman made an empty boast of his courage when he said,

Je ne puis rien nommer si ce n'est pas son nom, J'appelle un chat un chat, et Rolet un fripon, but he took special care to name nobody whose anger could do him injury in the quarter which he most aimed to please.

BOURNE. Wither says elsewhere, that he only names the vices, not those who flourished in them, and he makes no vain pretensions to individual designation: yet the result showed the truth of what Lod. Barry excellently says in his Ram Alley, in Dodsley's Collection,

"All great mens sins must still be humoured,
And poor mens vices largely punished:

The privilege that great men have in evil
Is this they go unpunish'd to the Devil."

ELLIOT. Exceedingly well; but I am longing to see something more by the satirist in your hand. BOURNE. The following quotation is from the first satire of the first book " Of the passion of Love."

"Counsels in vaine, cause when the fit doth take

them

Reason and understanding doth forsake them;
It makes them som-time merry, som-time sad,
Vntam'd men mild, and many a mild man mad.**
That one to gold compares his Mistris haire
When tis like fox-fur; and doth thinke shees faire,
Though she in beauty be not far before

The Swart West Indian, or the tawny Moore.
Oh those faire star-like eyes of thine, one sayes,
When to my thinking she hath lookt nine waies:
And that sweet breath, when I thinke (out vpon't)
Twould blast a flower if she breathed on't. ***
Then there is one who hauing found a peere,
In all things worthy to be counted deere,
Wanting both Art and heart his mind to breake,
Sets sighing (woe is me) and will not speake;
All company he hates is oft alone,

Growes Melancholy, weepes, respecteth none,
And in dispaire seekes out a way to dye,
When he might liue and find a remedy.-

But how now? Wast not you, saies one, that late
So humbly beg'd a boone at beauties gate?
Was it not you that to a female Saint
Indited your Aretophils complaint? ***
To him I answere that indeed en'e I
Was lately subiect to this malady;

Like 't what I now dislike, emploi'd good times
In the composing of such idle Rimes

As are obiected: From my heart I sent
Full many a heauy sigh and oft-times spent
Vnmanly teares: I haue I must confesse.***
In many a foolish humor I haue beene,

As well as others; looke, where I haue seene
Her (whom I lou'd) to walke, when she was gone
Thither I often haue repair'd alone;

As if I thought the places did containe
Something to ease me (oh exceeding vaine!)
Yet what if I haue beene thus idly bent,
Shall I be now asham'd for to repent?
Moreouer, I was in my child-hood than
And am scarce yet reputed for a Man;
And therefore neither cold, nor old, nor dry,
Nor cloi'd with any foule desease am I :

Tis no such cause that made me change my minde; But my affection that before was blind,

Rash and vnruly, now begins to find,

That it hath run a large and fruitlesse race
And thereupon hath giuen Reason place. **
Yet for all this, looke, where I lou'd of late
I haue not turn'd it in a spleene to hate :
No, for 'twas first her Vertue and her Wit,
Taught me to see how much I wanted it;
Then as for Loue, I doe allow it still

I neuer did dislik't, nor neuer will,

So it be vertuous, and contein'd within

The bounds of Reason; but when t'will begin
To run at randome and her limits breake,
I must, because I cannot chuse but speake.

ELLIOT. There is not only uncommon ease in the running of the lines, but frequently great force in the very familiarity of the expressions. We have no right to complain that he is not very original on such a theme.

BOURNE. The number and variety of his works prove, that he must have composed with very great rapidity. These satires were written in 1611, when the author was only 23 years old, and for that age they show great acuteness and extent of observation.

MORTON. In the beginning of the extract Wither seems to allude to some work of his own, under the title of " Aretophils Complaint." Is that extant?

BOURNE. It is not, though some have confounded it with his poem of "the Mistress of Philarete."— "Aretophils Complaint" (which he afterwards called "Philaretes Complaint") is mentioned by Wither as one of his earliest pieces in the catalogue I before spoke of, and he there states that it was lost in manuscript. It was most likely addressed to the lady he alludes to in what I just read, and who rejected him. We will proceed to the fourth Satire on Envy, where the passion is thus happily described:

"But what is this, that men are so inclind
And subiect to it? How may't be defin'd?
Sure, if the same be rightly vnderstood,
It is a griefe that springs from others good,
And vexes them if they doe but heare tell
That other mens endeauors prosper well:

It makes them grieue when any man is friended, Or in their hearing praised or commended. Contrariwise againe, such is their spight, In other mens misfortunes they delight; Yea, notwithstanding it be not a whit Vnto their profit, nor their benefit. Others prosperitie doth make them leane; Yea it deuoureth and consumes them cleane : But if they see them in much griefe, why that Doth onely make them iocund, full & fat. ́Of Kingdomes ruine they best loue to heare And tragicall reports doth onely cheere Their hellish thoughts; and then their bleared eies Can looke on nothing but blacke infamies, Reprochfull actions, and the fowlest deeds Of shame that mans corrupted nature breeds : For they must wink when Vertue shineth bright For feare her lustre mar their weakned sight." In the last line her is misprinted their: it is an obvious error, which I corrected.

MORTON. And makes nonsense of the conclusion of a fine passage.

ELLIOT. It is a fine passage upon the whole, though there are weak lines in it. The qualities of Envy have seldom been better described by any of the thousand writers that have touched it. The finest character that Churchill ever wrote, I mean that in the beginning of his Rosciad, is not much better than part of what you have just read.