1

The Roses raigning in the pride of May,

Sharp Isopel good for green wounds remedies,
Faire Marigoldes, and bees-alluring Thime,
Sweet Marjoram and Daysies decking prime.

Coole Violets, and Orpine growing still,
Embathed Balme, and cheerful Galingale,
Fresh Costmarie, and breathfull Camomile,
Dull Poppy, and drink-quickning Setuale,
Veyne-healing Verven, and hed-purging Dill,
Sound Savorie, and Bazil heartie-hale,
Fat Colworts, and comforting Perseline,3
Cold Lettuce, and refreshing Rosmarine.

And what so else of vertue good or ill

Grewe in this gardin, fetcht from farre away,
Of every one he takes and tastes at will,

And on their pleasures greedily doth pray,
Then when he hath both plaid, and fed his fill,
In the warm sunne he doth himselfe embay,+
And there him rests in riotous suffisaunce
Of all his gladfulnes, and kingly joyaunce.5

What more felicitie can fall to creature

Than to enjoy delight with libertie,
And to be lord of all the works of nature,

To raigne in the air from the earth to highest skie,
To feed on flowres and weeds of glorious feature,

To take what ever thing doth please the eie?
Who rests not pleased with such happines,
Wel worthy he to taste of wretchednes.

But what on earth can long abide in state?
Or who can him assure of happy day?
Sith morning faire may bring fowle evening late,
And least mishap the most blisse alter may!
For thousand perills lie in close awaite

About us daylie, to worke our decay;

That none except a god, or God him guide,
May then avoyde, or remedie provide.

Isope-Hyssop. 2 Green-fresh. 3 Perseline-parsley.

4 Embay-bathe,

delight. 5 Joyaunce-the word must be pronounced here jo-y-aunce for the

sake of the metre.

4

And whatso heavens in their secret doome
Ordained have, how can fraile fleshly wight
Forecast, but it must needs to issue come?

The sea, the aire, the fire, the day, the night,
And the armies of their creatures all and some

Do serve to them, and with impòrtune might
Warre against us the vassals of their will,
Who then can save what they dispose to spill?

THE RUINS OF ROME.2

THOU stranger! which for Rome in Rome here seekest,
And nought of Rome in Rome perceivst at all,
These same olde walls, olde arches, which thou seest,
Olde palaces, is that which Rome men call.
Beholde what wreake, what ruine, and what wast,
And how that She which with her mightie powre
Tamed all the world, hath tamed herselfe at last;-
The pray of Time, which all things doth devowre,
Rome now of Rome is the onely funeral,
And onely Rome of Rome hath victorie;
Ne ought save Tyber, hastening to his fall,
Remains of all: O world's inconstancie!
That which is firme doth flit 33 and fall away,
And that is flitting doth abide and stay.

Thou that at Rome astonisht dost behold
The antique pride which menacéd the skie,
These haughtie heaps, these palaces of olde,

These wals, these arckes,+ these baths, these temples hie!
Judge, by these ample ruines5 vew, the rest,
The which injurious Time hath quite outworne,
Since of all workmen held in reckning best;
Yet these olde fragments are for paternes borne:
Then also mark how Rome, from day to day,
Repayring her decayed fashion,

Renewes herselfe with buildings rich and gay,
That one would judge that the Romaine dæmòn

1 Forecast-foresee, provide against.

3

2 From the poem of this name, stanzas 4, 27-29. Flit-to fly away rapidly. Arckes-coffers; here perhaps, shrines. 5 These ample ruines vew-the sight of these ample ruins. One would judge, &c.-i. e. one would imagine that the genius or spirit of Rome were striving to reanimate the mouldering body.

6

Doth yet himselfe with fatal hand enforce,
Againe on foot to reare her pouldred1 corse.

He that hath seene a great oke drie and dead,
Yet clad with reliques of some trophees olde,
Lifting to heaven her aged horie head,
Whose foot on ground hath left but feeble holde,
But halfe disboweld lies above the ground,
Shewing her wreathéd rootes and naked armes,
And on her trunk, all rotten and unsound,
Onely supports herself for meate of worms;
And, though she owe her fall to the first winde,
Yet of the devout people is adored,

And manie yong plants spring out of her rinde :-
Who such an oke hath seene, let him record
That such this cities honour was of yore,
And mongst all cities florished much more.3

All that which Ægypt whilome1 did devise,
All that which Greece, her temples to embrave,5
After the Ionicke, Atticke, Doricke guise,
Or Corinth, skild in curious works to grave;
All that Lysippus practique art could forme,
Apelles wit, or Phidias his skill;

Was wont this auncient citie to adorne,

And the heaven itselfe with her wide wonders fill:
All that which Athens ever brought forth wise,
All that which Afrike ever brought forth strange,
All that which Asia ever had of prise,8

Was here to see.

O mervelous great change!
Rome, living, was the world's sole ornament,
And, dead, is now the world's sole moniment.

4

3

Much more-i. e. than the

5 Embrave-make brave or

1 Pouldred-powdered, mouldering. 2 Owe her fall-i. e. her fall is, as it were, due-she is doomed to fall by the first wind. oak does amongst trees. Whilome-formerly. fine, adorn. Practique-skilful, cunning. 8 Prise-praise, value.

6

7

Wit-ingenuity or genius.

SHAKSPERE.

PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF HIS LIFE.-William Shakspere-called by Coleridge the "myriad-minded man”—was born in 1564, at Stratford upon Avon, in Warwickshire. So scanty is our information respecting the events of his life, that we may without much exaggeration, say in the language of one of his critics,1 "All that is known with any degree of certainty, concerning Shakspere is, that he was born at Stratford upon Avon, married and had children there, went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote poems and plays, returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried." The few additional items which modern research has furnished, give little further aid in illustrating Shakspere's character, either as a man or a poet.2 The important events of his life were, in truth, the publications from time to time, of those famous works with which his name has become inseparably connected. These however rather exhibit to us the universal range and capabilities, than the characteristic features of his mind, so that our attention is confined rather to what he did, than what he was; as we enjoy the genial light of the sun, by feeling its reflection from objects around us, rather than by gazing at the luminary itself. He died in 1616, eight years after the birth of Milton. Shakspere's was an era of distinguished men- the age of Spenser, Sidney, Raleigh, Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher in England; of Tasso in Italy, of Cervantes in Spain, and of Camoens in Portugal.

PRINCIPAL WORKS.-Shakspere wrote a few miscellaneous poems and many dramatical works, of which the "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Romeo and Juliet," the "Merchant of Venice," "Lear," "Timon of Athens," "Othello," the "Tempest," "Macbeth," and "Hamlet," are the most admired.

CHARACTERISTIC SPIRIT AND STYLE.-"He [Shakspere] was the man, who of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature

1 Steevens.

2 "How much," says Mr. Hallam, (Edinburgh Review, 1808,) "has been written upon Shakespeare and Shakespere--what long pedigrees of the Halls, Harts, and Hathaways-while the reader, amidst the profusion of learning, searches in vain for a vestige of the manners and opinions of him, in whom alone he is interested! Pars minima est ipse poeta sui."

:

were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously but luckily when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation; he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat and insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great when great occasion is presented to him. No man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets,

"Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.'

"Criticism goes back for names worthy of being put into competition with his, to the first great masters of dramatic invention; and even in the points of dissimilarity between them and him, discovers some of the highest indications of his genius. Compared with the classical composers of antiquity, he is to our conceptions nearer the character of a universal poet; more acquainted with man in the real world, and more terrific and bewitching in the præternatural. He expanded the magic circle of the drama beyond the limits that belonged to it in antiquity; made it embrace more time and locality; filled it with larger business and action, with vicissitudes of gay and serious emotion which classical taste had kept divided; with characters which developed humanity in stronger lights and subtler movements; and with a language more wildly, more playfully diversified by fancy and passion, than was ever spoken on any stage. Like nature herself, he presents alternations of the gay and the tragic; and his mutability, like the suspense and precariousness of real existence, often deepens the force of our impressions."2

"When Aristotle defined it to be the province of Tragedy, to move pity, and terror, he did not intend that the excitement of these emotions was its ultimate use. These are the instruments it employs to impress its moral. It woos and urges thus our attention and sympathy. Where then, can such a Tragic Bard be found as this? Where can we trace the same power to soften and to alarm the heart? Where are the same strokes