MII TON.

BEN JONSON.

EARL OF MARLBOROUGH.

(Lord-President of the Council to King James 1. Parliament was O rare Ben Jonson !

dissolved March to, and he died March 14, 1628. ] Epitaph.

SIR J. YOUNG.

Till the sad breaking of that Parliament
What things have we seen

Broke him. ...
Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have Killed with report that old man eloquent.

To the Lady Margaret Ley.
been
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whence they came

JOHN WICKLIFFE.
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest

As thou these ashes, little Brook ! wilt bear of his dull life : then when there hath been Into the Avon, Avon to the tide thrown

Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas, Wit able enough to justify the town

Into main ocean they, this deed accursed For three days past; wit that might warrant be An emblem yields to friends and enemies, For the whole city to talk foolishly

How the bold Teacher's doctrine, sanctified l'ill that were cancelled; and when that was gone, By truth, shall spread, throughout the world We left an air behind us, which alone

dispersed. Was able to make the two next conipanies Eccles. Sonnels, Part II. xvii. : To Wickliffe. WORDSWORTH (Right witty, though but downright fools) more wise.

(Bartlett quotes, in this connection, the following: Letter to Ben Jonson.

F. BEAUMONT. “Some prophet of that day said :

The Avon to the Severn runs,

The Severn to the sea ;
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad, Far from the sun and summer gale,

Wide as the waters be.'"

From Address before the " Sons of New Hampshire" (1849). In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid,

DANIEL WEBSTER. What time, where lucid Avon strayed,

To him the mighty mother did unveil Her awful face : the dauntless child

John Milton. Stretched forth his little arms and smiled. “This pencil take,” she said, “whose colors clear

Nor second he, that rode sublime Riehly paint the vernal year :

Upon the seraph-wings of ecstasy,

The secrets of the abyss to spy.
Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!
This can unlock the gates of joy ;

He passed the flaming bounds of place and time Of horror that, and thrilling fears,

The living throne, the sapphire blaze, Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears."

Where angels tremble while they gaze, Progress of Poesy.

T. GRAY.

He saw ; but, blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.
Progress of Poesy.

T. GRAY.
Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room

OLIVER CROMWELL.
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb. How shall I then begin, or where conclude,
On Shakespeare.

To draw a fame so truly circular ?
For in a round what order can be showed,

Where all the parts so eqnal perfect are ?
ABRAHAM COWLEY.
Old mother-wit and nature gave

His grandeur he derived from Heaven alone ; Shakespeare and Fletcher all they have ;

For he was great, ere fortune made him so : In Spenser and in Jonson art

And wars, like mists that rise against the sun, Of slower nature got the start ;

Made him but greater seem, not greater grow. But both in him so equal are,

J. DRYDEN. None knows which bears the happiest share ; To him no author was unknown,

Or, ravished with the whistling of a name, Yet what he wrote was all his own.

See Cromwell, damned to everlasting fame ! Elepy on Cowley.

SIR J. DENHAM. Essay on Man, Epistle IV,

W. BASSE.

Oliver Cromwell.

POYL

T. MOORE,

KING CHARLES II.

Whose eloquence – brightening whatever it Here lies our sovereign lord the king,

tried, Whose word no man relies on ;

Whether reason or fancy, the gay or the grave He never says a foolish thing,

Was as rapid, as deep, and as brilliant a tide, Nor ever does a wise one.

As ever bore freedom aloft on its wave !

Lines on the Death of Sheridan, Written on the Bedchamber Door of Charles II.

EARL OF ROCHESTER.

Ye men of wit and social eloquence !

He was your brother, — bear his ashes hence ! JAMES THOMSON.

While powers of mind almost of boundless range, A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems Complete in kind, as various in their change, Who, void of envy, guile, and lust of gain,

While eloquence, wit, poesy, and mirth, On virtue still, and nature's pleasing themes, That humbler harmonist of care on earth, Poured forth his unpremeditated strain :

Survive within our souls, -- while lives our sense The world forsaking with a calm disdain, Of pride in merit's proud pre-eminence, Here laughed he careless in his easy seat ;

Long shall we seek his likeness, – long in vaill, Here quaffed, encircled with the joyous train,

And turn to all of him which may remain, Oft moralizing sage : his ditty sweet

Sighing that Nature formed but one such mal, He loathed much to write, ne cared to repeat.

And broke the die --- in moulding Sheridan!

Monody on the Death of Sheridan.

BYR).

Stanza introduced in'o Thomson's "Castle of Indolence," Cant, 1.

LORD LYTTELTON.

BYRON.

In yonder grave a Druid lies,

AMOS COTTLE. Where slowly winds the stealing wave ; Oh! Amos Cottle ! *-- Phoebus ! what a name The year's best sweets sball duteous rise

To fill the speaking trump of future fame! To deck its poet's sylvan grave.

Oh ! Amos Cottle! for a moment think

What meagre profits spring from pen and ink ! And see, the fairy valleys fade ;

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
Dun night has veiled the solemn view !
Yet once again, dear parted shade,
Meek Nature's child, again adieu !

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
Ode on the Death of Thomson.

W, COLLINS.

O good gray head which all men knew,

O voice from which their omens all men drew, WILLIAM HOGARTI.

O iron nerve to true occasion true,

O fallen at length that tower of strength The hand of him here torpid lies

Which stood four-square to all the winds that That drew the essential form of grace ;

blew ! Here closed in death the attentive eyes

Such was he whom we deplore. That saw the manners in the face.

The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er. Epitaph.

DR. S. JOHNSON.

The great World-victor's victor will be seen no

more.
William WORDSWORTH.

On the Death of the Duke of Wellington.
Thine is a strain to read among the hills,
The old and full of voices by the source

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. Of some free stream, whose gladdening presence There in seclusion and remote from men fills

The wizard hand lies cold, The solitude with sound ; for in its course

Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen, Even such is thy deep song, that seems a part

And left the tale half told.
Of those high scenes, a fountain from their heart.
Wordsworth.

Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power,

And the lost clew regain?
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.

The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower

l'nfinished must remain ! Whose humor, as gay as the firefly's light,

Hawthorne, May 23. 1864.

LONGFELLOW. Played round every subject, and shone as it played ;

• "Mr. Cottle, Amos or Joseph, I don't know which, but one or

both, once sellers of books they did not write, but now writers of Whose wit, in the combat, as gentle as bright,

books that do not sell, have published a pair of epics." - THE Ne'er carried a heart-stain awayon its blade;

TENNYSON

:

F. D. HEMANS.

AUTHOR.

HAWTHORNE

HARP of New England Song,
That even in slumber trembled with the touch

Of poets who like the four winds from thee waken
All harmonies that to thy strings belong,-
Say, wilt thou blame the younger hands too much

Which from thy laureled resting place have taken
Thee crowned one in their hold? There is a name

Should quicken thee! No carol Hawthorne sang, Yet his articulate spirit, like thine own,

Made answer, quick as fame, To each breath of the shore from which he sprang, And prose like his was poesy's high tone.

But he whose quickened eye
Saw through New England's life her inmost spirit,-

Her heart, and all the stays on which it leant,-
Returns not, since he laid the pencil by
Whose mystic touch none other shall inherit!

What though its work unfinished lies? Half-bent
The rainbow's arch fades out in upper air;

The shining cataract half-way down the height Breaks into mist; the haunting strain, that fell

On listeners unaware, Ends incomplete, but through the starry night The ear still waits for what it did not tell.

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN

Publishers: Houghton, Mifflin Sa Co., Boston

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