One month, three days, and half an hour, Judith held the sov'reign power.

Wondrous beautiful her face; But so weak and small her wit, That she to govern was unfit,

And so Susanna took her place.

But when Isabella came,

Arm'd with a resistless flame

And th' artillery of her eye, Whilst she proudly march'd about, Greater conquests to find out,

She beat out Susan by the bye.

But in her place I then obey'd

Black-eyed Bess, her viceroy maid,
To whom ensued a vacancy.
Thousand worse passions then possest

The interregnum of my breast:

Bless me from such an anarchy !

Gentle Henrietta then,

And a third Mary next began,

Then Joan and Jane and Audria,

And then a pretty Thomasine,

And then another Catherine,

And then a long et cetera.'

But should I now to you relate

The strength and riches of their state,
The powder, patches, and the pins,
The ribbons, jewels, and the rings,
The lace, the paint, and warlike things
That make up all their magazines :

If I should tell the politic arts

To take and keep men's hearts;

The letters, embassies, and spies,

The frowns, and smiles, and flatteries, The quarrels, tears, and perjuries, Numberless, nameless mysteries;

And all the little lime-twigs laid
By Machiavel, the waiting-maid ;

I more voluminous should grow
(Chiefly if I, like them, should tell
All change of weathers that befell)
Than Holinshed or Stow.

But I will briefer with them be,

Since few of them were long with me.
A higher and a nobler strain
My present emperess does claim,
Heleonora, first o' the name,

Whom God grant long to reign!

[SIR JOHN DENHAM, the son of the Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland, was born in Dublin, in 1615, and was educated at Oxford, where he is said to have been more attentive to cards than study: a propensity which prevented his making any progress in the law, when he entered Lincoln's Inn. To please his father, he wrote an essay, proving the pernicious tendency of gaming; nevertheless, he seriously injured his patrimony by this vice. He was a zealous adherent of Charles I. and being discovered in secret correspondence with Cowley, he fled, to save his life, and his estate was sold by the Parliament. At the Restoration he was made a Knight of the Bath, and SurveyorGeneral of the Royal Buildings. He died in 1668, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

"Cooper's Hill" is his best production; his poetry was written chiefly in the earlier portion of his life.]

My eye, descending from the hill, surveys

Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays;

Thames the most loved of all the ocean's sons

By his old sire, to his embraces runs,

Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,

Like mortal life to meet eternity.

Though with those streams he no remembrance hold,
Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold,

His genuine and less guilty wealth to explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring,

And then destroys it with too fond a stay,

Like mothers which their infants overlay ;

Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,

Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.

No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil,

But Godlike his unwearied bounty flows;

First loves to do, then loves the good he does.

Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,

But free and common as the sea or wind.
When he to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying towers
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours:
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants;

So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.

O, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!

Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull,

Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.

But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes; his curlèd brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat,
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is placed,
Between the mountain and the stream embraced,
Which shade and shelter from the hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives;
And in the mixture of all these appears

Variety, which all the rest endears.

This scene had some bold Greek or British bard

Beheld of old, what stories had we heard

Of fairies, satyrs, and the nymphs their dames,

Their feasts, their revels, and their amorous flames!

'Tis still the same, although their airy shape

All but a quick poetic sight escape.