Will, when speaking well can't win her, Prethee why so mute? Quit, quit for shame! this will not move, If of herself she will not love, THE CARELESS LOVER. NEVER believe me if I love, Or know what 'tis, or mean to prove; And she's extreamly handsome too; She's fair, she's wondrous fair, But I care not who knows it, E'er I'll die for love, I fairly will forego it. This heat of hope, or cold of fear, When I am hungry I do eat, Black fryars to me, and old Whitehall, I visit, talk, do business, play, HH CONSTANCY. Our upon it, I have lov'd Time shall moult away his wings In the whole wide world again But the spite on't is, no praise Is due at all to me; Love with me had made no staies, Had it any been but she. Had it any been but she, And that very face, There had been at least e'er this LOVE TURN'D TO HATRED. I WILL not love one minute more, I swear, Thou gett'st from me, or one kind look again, Though thou should'st court me to't, and would'st begin, I will not think of thee, but as men do Of debts and sins, and then I'll curse thee too: For thy sake, woman shall be now to me Less welcome, than at midnight ghosts shall be. Treason to love that man that loves a she; DETRACTION EXECRATED. THOU vermin slander, bred in abject minds, Where each meant more than could by both be said. Our thoughts, as pure as the chaste morning's breath, Nor from the water could'st thou have this tale, Much less couldst have it from the purer fire, Whence hadst thou then, this talking monster? even Curst be th' officious tongue that did address SAMUEL BUTLER was born in the parish of Stresham, Worcestershire, in the year 1612. His father was a small farmer. It appears that he received his education partly at Cambridge, but never became a member of any College. He was afterwards clerk to an eminent justice of the peace in his own county; and here, doubtless, he obtained that smattering of legal knowledge and acquaintance with legal terms of which in his writings he made frequent use. He was subsequently admitted into the family of the Countess of Kent, where he enjoyed advantages to which probably he is indebted for his fame-he had access to a noble library, and obtained literary occupation under the direction of the great Selden. After a time, from some cause of which we are ignorant, he was domiciled in a household far less to his taste-that of Sir Samuel Luke, a conspicuous officer of the Commonwealth; while in this service, he conceived the plan of, or at least gathered materials for, the work by which he is known to posterity. At length hope came to Butler with the Restoration - it was but to be deferred until the heart grew sick. In 1663, was published the first part of Hudibras-the king quoted, the courtiers studied, and all applauded—but still “the Muse's fleece was dry." In 1664, the second part appeared,—and the author was again quoted, studied, and applauded. Other reward he had none. In 1678 he printed the third part, which still leaves the poem unfinished. It was doubtless his intention to have considerably extended it; but he has left us no outline of his plan. We may imagine the many interruptions which delayed its completion even so far during fifteen years of difficulties and disappointments-of waitings for results from hollow court promises, of unmeaning cheers from wealthier wits, and of praise from better sources - praise that was nothing worth to one who wanted bread. The proud soul of the Poet at length sunk in the unequal struggle against poverty, neglect, ill health, and old age. The author of Hudibras died in 1680--and owed the decency of interment to the charity of a friend, who vainly sought among the admirers of his genius a subscription to defray a more costly funeral than private means allowed. Notwithstanding that the poem bears reference almost solely to times, characters, and customs long since forgotten, that it is written in an uninviting measure, is full of crudities and false rhymes, and is occasionally grossly indecent, Hudibras is still considered one of the most remarkable productions in the English language. Passages from it have become familiar as household words because of their general satire and biting applicability of wit. Butler had studied human nature closely-had peered into the more secret recesses of the human heart. He was original-and therefore his remarks upon the whims, opinions, interests, and passions of mankind, astonish the reader by their exceeding point and accuracy. If the sour and sullen Covenanters of the day are no more remembered, human nature has yet varied little in a century and a half; and where the satire of Butler is general it tells upon us as if the subjects of it still lived and moved before us. The Hero of the Poem, Sir Hudibras, is a Presbyterian Justice, who after the fashion of Don Quixote-but with objects very opposite-ranges high ways and bye ways, for the redress of grievances, accompanied by a clerk, Ralpho, who is converted into a squire. The knight is a compound of the pedant and the bully-an object for laughter and contempt without a single redeeming quality. His adventures, however, are but few;-those of the bear and fiddle-in which the bear is routed, and the fiddler taken prisoner-the subsequent thrashing which the knight receives at the hands of the Amazonian Trulla-the placing the knight and the squire in the stockshis release from durance by the hands of his lady-the consultation and subsequent battle with Sydrophel, the astrologer-the wooing of the widow who treats the knight to "a masquerade made of furies and hobgoblins,"-the knight's application to the lawyer-and his resolve to "try a subtle artifice" and "bait a letter"-to which his lady inditeth a suitable reply:-these are the main incidents on which the descriptions hang. We have selected passages from the "heroical epistle of Hudibras to his lady"-as preferable to giving part of a scene-and as affording a just idea of the general style and manner of the writer uninterrupted by those grossnesses which render unfit for transfer to our pages portions, perhaps more full of wit and character. I WHO was once as great as Cæsar, Or did his exercise in battle, By you turn'd out to graze with cattle. Of your good graces, and fair eyes; |