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SIR JOHN SUCKLING.

1608-1642.

[THE animal spirits and gallantry of Suckling are charmingly sustained in these songs. Nothing in verse can be more airy or sparkling. They have in them the brightest and finest elements of youth-manliness and gaiety, wit, grace, and refinement. In this class of light and sprightly lyrics, of which he may be considered the founder, he is unrivalled. The comparison between him and Waller is infinitely in favour of Suckling, whose ease and vivacity offer a striking contrast to the elaborate finish and careful filigree of Waller. He writes, also, more like a man of blood and high breeding. His luxurious taste and voluptuousness are native to him; while in Waller there is always the effort of art, and the consciousness of the fine gentleman.]

AGLAURA. 1638.

WHY

THE PINING LOVER.

HY so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee why so pale?

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

Prithee why so pale?

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

Will, when speaking well can't win her,
Saying nothing do't?

Prithee why so mute?

Quit, quit, for shame; this will not move,
This cannot take her;

If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her:
The devil take her.

TRUE LOVE.

O, no, fair heretic, it needs must be
But an ill love in me,

And worse for thee;

For were it in my power
To love thee now this hour
More than I did the last;
"Twould then so fall,

I might not love at all;

Love that can flow, and can admit increase,
Admits as well an ebb, and may grow less.

True love is still the same; the torrid zones,
And those more frigid ones

It must not know:

For love grown cold or hot,
Is lust, or friendship, not
The thing we have.

For that's a flame would die
Held down, or up too high:

Then think I love more than I can express,
And would love more, could I but love thee less.

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SHE'S pretty to walk with:

And witty to talk with:

And pleasant too to think on.
But the best use of all

Is, her health is a stale,*

And helps us to make us drink on.

THE VIRTUE OF DRINKING.

COME let the state stay,

And drink away,

* A snare or decoy.

There is no business above it:
It warms the cold brain,
Makes us speak in high strain;
He's a fool that does not approve it.

The Macedon youth

Left behind him this truth,
That nothing is done with much thinking;
He drunk, and he fought,

Till he had what he sought,
The world was his own by good drinking.

THE GOBLINS. 1646.

A CATCH.

FILL it up, fill it up to the brink,

When the poets cry clink,

And the pockets chink,

Then 'tis a merry world.

To the best, to the best, have at her,
And the deuce take the woman-hater:-
The prince of darkness is a gentleman,
Mahu, Mahu is his name.

THE SAD ONE.

FICKLE AND FALSE.

AST thou seen the down in the air,

HA

When wanton blasts have tossed it?

Or the ship on the sea,

When ruder winds have crossed it?

Hast thou marked the crocodile's weeping,

Or the fox's sleeping?

Or hast thou viewed the peacock in his pride,

Or the dove by his bride,

When he courts for his lechery?

Oh! so fickle, oh! so vain, oh! so false, so false is she!

215

WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT.

1611-1643.

[IT was of William Cartwright Ben Jonson said, 'My son, Cartwright writes like a man.' He has not left much behind to justify this eulogium; but his minor poems exhibit evidences of taste and scholarship which sufficiently explain the esteem and respect in which he was held by his contemporaries. His father, after spending a fortune, was reduced to the necessity of keeping an inn at Cirencester; but the son, obtaining a king's scholarship, was enabled to enter Westminster School, and from thence was elected a student of Christ Church, Oxford. He afterwards went into holy orders, and in 1643 was chosen junior proctor of the University. He is said to have studied sixteen hours a day, was an accomplished linguist, and added to his other graces a handsome A malignant fever that prevailed at Oxford seized upon him in 1643, and terminated his life in the thirty-second year of his age.]

person.

THE ORDINARY.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF EATING.

HEN our music is in prime,

THE

When our teeth keep triple time;

Hungry notes are fit for knells.

May lankness be

No guest to me:

The bag-pipe sounds when that it swells.

May lankness, &c.

A mooting-night brings wholesome smiles,
When John-a-Nokes and John-a-Stiles
Do grease the lawyer's satin.

A reading day

Frights French away,

The benchers dare speak Latin.

A reading, &c.

He that's full doth verse compose;
Hunger deals in sullen prose:
Take notice and discard her.
The empty spit

Ne'er cherished wit;
Minerva loves the larder.

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[THE author of the Purple Island and the Piscatory Eclogues. His out-of-door poetry is his best, and frequently recalls the sweetness and luxuriance of Spenser, and of his own namesake and cousin, the dramatic poet. Phineas was what honest Walton would have called 'a true brother of the nangle,' and his master-passion betrays itself in the most unexpected places. It appears even in the characters and subject of his only dramatic work, which he describes on the title-page as A Piscatory.]

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L

OVE is the fire, dam, nurse, and seed
Of all that air, earth, waters breed.
All these earth, water, air, and fire,
Though contraries, in love conspire.

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