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We have but seen our sister, and, behold!

She sends us with our laps full brimm'd with gold.

There are scattered through Heywood's dramas various songs, some of which, such as the following, flow with peculiar ease and sweetness:—

SONG.

Pack clouds away, and welcome day,

With night we banish sorrow:
Sweet air blow soft, mount lark aloft,
To give my love good morrow:
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I'll borrow:
Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale sing,
To give my love good morrow:
To give my love good morrow,
Notes from them all I'll borrow.

Wake from thy nest, robin red-breast,
Sing, birds, in every furrow;
And from each bill let music shrill

Give my fair love good morrow.
Blackbird and thrush in every bush
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow,
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves,
Sing my fair love good morrow.
To give my love good morrow,
Sing, birds, in every furrow.

Besides his dramatic productions, Heywood published, in 1635, a poem of very considerable pretensions, under the title of The Hierarchy of Angels. It is at present, however, little known.

SHIRLEY was the last of these dramatists-' a great race,' says Lamb, 'all of whom spoke nearly the same language, and had a set of moral notions and feelings in common.'

James Shirley was of an ancient family, and was born in the parish of St. Mary, London, in 1595. Early designed for the church, he was sent, for his education, to St. John's College, Oxford; but after he had prepared to take orders, Archbishop Laud refused to ordain him because his left cheek was disfigured by a mole. From Oxford he removed to Cambridge, and having there taken his master's degree, he was soon after ordained, and officiated for a short time as curate at St. Albans, in Hertfordshire. Growing, meantime, unsettled in his religious principles, Shirley finally became a Romanist; in consequence of which he relinquished his curacy, and opened a grammar-school, intending to make teaching his future profession. This self-denying and laborious business soon, however, became irksome to him, and he, therefore, relinquished his school, removed to London, and turned his entire attention to the stage. Thirty-nine plays, proceeded, in a compara

tively few years, from his prolific pen, and a modern edition of his works forms six octavo volumes. The moral tone of Shirley's dramas is so comparatively high, that when the Master of the Revels, in 1633, licensed his play of The Young Admiral, he entered on his books an expression of admiration of the drama, because it was free from oaths, profanity, and obscureness; trusting that his approbation would encourage the poet to pursue this beneficial and cleanly way of poetry.'

When the civil war broke out Shirley exchanged the pen for the sword, and took the field under his patron, the Earl of Newcastle; but after the cessation of that struggle, the theatres being all closed by the prevailing party, he was compelled to return again to his former occupation of teacher. This pursuit he continued to follow until 1660, when the great fire of London drove him and his family from his house in Whitefriars; and shortly after that sad event occurred both he and his wife died on the same day. A life of various labors and reverses thus found a sudden and tragical termination.

Shirley's dramas have less force and dignity than those of Massinger, and less pathos than those of Ford. His comedies have the tone and manner of good society, but no more elevated property. Campbell has praised his 'polished and refined dialect, the airy touches of his expression, the delicacy of his sentiments, and the beauty of his similes.' He admits, however, what every reader feels, the want in Shirley's dramas of any strong passion, or engrossing interest. Shirley's best plays are The Brothers, The Grateful Servant, The Lady of Pleasure, and The Ball. He produced no play that is stamped, throughout, with a very high order of excellence; but his dramas contain many fine passages, such as the following description which Fernando, in 'The Brothers,' gives of the charms of his mistress :

Her eye did seem to labour with a tear,
Which suddenly took birth, but overweigh'd
With its own swelling, dropt upon her bosom,
Which, by reflection of her light appear'd
As nature meant her sorrow for an ornament.
After, her looks grew cheerful, and I saw
A smile shoot graceful upward from her eyes,
As if they had gain'd a victory o'er grief;
And with it many beams twisted themselves,
Upon whose golden threads the angels walk
To and again from heaven.

The following passagein 'The Grateful Servant,' where Cleona learns of the existence of Foscari, from her page Dulcino, is in the same vein of delicate fancy and feeling :

Cleo. The day breaks glorious to my darken'd thoughts

He lives, he lives yet! Cease, ye amorous fears,

Prithee speak, sweet youth;

More to perplex me.

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I'll build a flaming altar, to offer up

A thankful sacrifice for his return

To life and me. Speak, and increase my comforts.
Is he in perfect health?

Dul. Not perfect, madam,

Until you bless him with the knowledge of
Your constancy.

Cle. O get thee wings and fly then;

Tell him my love doth burn like vestal fire,
Which, with his memory richer than all spices,
Disperses odours round about my soul,

And did refresh it when 't was dull and sad,
With thinking of his absence.

-Yet stay;

Thou goest away too soon; where is he? speak.
Dul. He gave me no commission for that, lady;
He will soon save that question by his presence.

Cle. Time has no feathers; he walks now on crutches.
Relate his gestures when he gave thee this.

What other words? Did mirth smile on his brow?

I would not for the wealth of this great world

He should suspect my faith. What said he, prithee?
Dul. He said what a warm lover, when desire
Makes eloquent, could speak; he said you were
Both star and pilot.

Cle. The sun's lov'd flower, that shuts his yellow curtain
When he declineth, opens it again

At his fair rising: with my parting lord

I clos'd all my delight; till his approach

It shall not spread itself.

With Shirley we close the first and most splendid period of English dramatic literature; and though our remarks and illustrations have, in their range, been necessarily limited, yet we hope they may awaken an interest in the subject proportioned to its importance. We shall proceed to consider next, the prose writers of this great age of genius and intellect.

Lecture the Sixteenth.

LORD BURLEIGH-SIR WALTER RALEIGH-SIR PHILIP SIDNEY-RICHARD HOOKER.

HE authors who excelled in the various departments of prose during the present period, are confined, chiefly, to the departments of theology, philosophy, and historical and antiquarian information. Hardly any vestige of prose was, as yet, employed with taste in fiction, or even in observations upon manners; though it must not be forgotten that in Elizabeth's reign appeared the once popular romance of 'Arcadia' by Sir Philip Sidney, and in the early part of that of her successor, Thomas Dekker, whom we have already noticed as a dramatist, published a fiction under the title of The Gull's Hornbook, which was, at the time, extremely popular. The reign of James, and that of his successor Charles, produced several other acute and humorous describers of human character, which the sequel will develop. The authors whom we are first to notice under the department of literature now to be considered, are Cecil, Raleigh, Sidney, and Hooker.

WILLIAM CECIL, afterward the famous Lord Burleigh, was born at Bourn, Lincolnshire, in 1521. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, and passed thence to Gray's Inn, London, with a view to preparation for the legal profession. The assiduousness with which Cecil applied himself to the study of the law, was such, that he was scarcely admitted at the bar before he became one of its most distinguished ornaments. In the reign of Queen Mary, his abilities were so highly respected that, notwithstanding he had favored the course of Lady Jane Grey, still the queen often consulted him, and he retained throughout her whole reign, the good-will of her ministers. Soon after Elizabeth ascended the throne, Cecil was made secretary of state; and the duties of that arduous and responsible office he continued to discharge with unsullied honor until his death, which occurred in the month of August, 1598. In 1571, Cecil was created by the queen, Lord Burleigh.

As a minister this celebrated man was distinguished for wariness, application, sagacity, calmness, and a degree of closeness, which sometimes degenerated into hypocrisy; and most of these qualities characterize also, what is,

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