His will his law; he weighed not wrong or right; Much scorned to bear, much more forgive, a spite: Patience he "the ass's load," and "coward's virtue," hight.1...

Upon his belt, fastened with leather laces,

Black boxes hung, sheaths of his paper swords,
Filled up with writs, subpoenas, trial-cases ;—
This trespassed him in cattle, that in words.
Fit his device and well his shield became ;-
A Salamander, drawn in lively frame :

His word was this :-"I live, I breathe, I feed, on flame."

FORTITUDE.

By him Andreos paced: of middle age,

His mind as far from rashness as from fears;
Hating base thoughts as much as desperate rage,

The world's loud thunderings he, unshaken, hears :
Nor will he death, or life, or seek, or fly,

Ready for both he is as cowardly

:

That longer fears to live as he that fears to die.

Worst was his civil war, where deadly fought

He with himself till passion yields or dies;
All heart and hand, no tongue; not grim, but stout;
His flame had counsel in it, his fury eyes.
His rage well-tempered is; no fear can daunt
His reason. But cold blood is valiant :

Well may he strength in death, but never courage want!

But, like a mighty rock whose unmoved sides

The hostile sea assaults with furious wave,

And 'gainst his head the boisterous north wind rides ;
Both fight and storm, and swell, and roar, and rave,
Hoarse surges drum, loud blasts their trumpets strain;
The heroic cliff laughs at their frustrate pain,

Waves scattered drop in tears, winds broken whining plain :

Such was this knight's undaunted constancy.

No mischief weakens his resolvèd mind;

None fiercer to a stubborn enemy,

But to the yielding none more sweetly kind.
His shield an even-ballast ship embraves,

Which dances light while Neptune wildly raves.

His word was this: "I fear but heaven; nor winds, nor waves."

PARTHENIA, OR CHASTITY.

With her, her sister went, a warlike maid,
Parthenia, all in steel and gilded arms;
In needle's stead, a mighty spear she swayed;
With which, in bloody fields and fierce alarms,
The boldest champion she down would bear,
And, like a thunderbolt, wide passage tear,
Flinging all to the earth with her enchanted spear.
Her goodly armour seemed a garden green,

Where thousand spotless lilies freshly blew ;
And on her shield the lone bird might be seen,
The Arabian bird, shining in colours new.
Itself unto itself was only mate,

Ever the same but new in newer date;

And underneath was writ "Such is chaste single state."

Thus hid in arms she seemed a goodly knight,
And fit for any warlike exercise;

But, when she list lay down her armour bright,
And back resume her peaceful maiden's guise,
The fairest maid she was that ever yet

Prisoned her locks within a golden net,

Or let them waving hang with roses fair beset. . . .

Upon her forehead Love his trophies fits,

A thousand spoils in silver arch displaying; And in the midst himself full proudly sits, Himself in awful majesty arraying.

Upon her brows lies his bent ebon bow

And ready shafts: deadly those weapons show, Yet sweet that death appeared, lovely that deadly blow....

A bed of lilies flower upon her cheek,

And in the midst was set a circling rose;

Whose sweet aspèct would force Narcissus seek
New liveries and fresher colours choose
To deck his beauteous head in snowy tire.
But all in vain; for who can hope to aspire
To such a fair, which none attain but all admire?...

Yet all these stars, which deck this beauteous sky,

By force of the inward sun both shine and move:

Throned in her heart sits Love's high majesty,

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

(1585-1649.)

ANOTHER eminent junior Spenserian was the Scottish poet William Drummond, eldest son of the first Laird of Hawthornden, and distantly connected with the Drummonds of Stobhall, Earls of Perth. He graduated at Edinburgh University in 1605, and succeeded his father in the lairdship in 1610. His first publication was a poem written on the occasion of Prince Henry's death in 1612. This was followed in 1616 by a volume entitled Poems: Amorous, Funerall, Divine, Pastorall: in Sonnets, Songs, Sextains, Madrigals; and in 1617, when King James visited Edinburgh, by Forth Feasting, A Panegyric to the King's most Excellent Majesty. In the year 1619 Ben Jonson paid his memorable visit to Drummond at Hawthornden, and Drummond's Notes1 of their talk on that occasion afford us vivid glimpses of the literary world of that day and of Jonson's own stupendous figure, half grand, half burlesque, in the midst. Some of Jonson's critical remarks referred to Drummond himself. He told his host that his verses were all good . . . save that they smelled too much of the schools, and were not after the fancy of the time." He said Drummond ". was too good and simple," "and," adds Drummond, "he dissuaded me from poetry, for that she had beggared him when he might have been a rich lawyer, physician, or merchant." Jonson's criticism was extremely honest and clever, but scarcely just. Four years later Drummond published another volume containing his Flowers of Sion and Cypress Grove. His life had been in the meantime saddened by an unhappy loveaffair, and the songs and madrigals of his youth were replaced by strains of religious and philosophic reflection; and in a few of his finest pieces, written late in his life, there is something of Milton's own lofty sadness. Drummond's sonnets are considered his masterpieces, and they are with

1 Notes of Ben Jonson's Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden, January 1619. Edited by David Laing (Shakespeare Society's Publications,

out doubt the best in the language between the time of Shakespeare and that of Milton.

MY WANDERING THOUGHTS.

How that vast Heaven intitled First1 is rolled;
If any glancing towers beyond it be,

And people living in Eternity,

Or essence pure that doth this All uphold;

What motion have those fixèd sparks of gold;

The wandering carbuncles which shine from high,
By spirits or bodies contrar-wise in sky

If they be turned, and mortal things behold;

How Sun posts heaven about; how Night's pale Queen,
With borrowed beams, looks on this hanging Round ;2
What cause fair Iris hath, and monsters seen

In Air's large field of light and Sea's profound :

Did hold my wandering thoughts, when thy sweet eye
Bade me leave all and only think on thee.

THE MOURNING LUTE.

Sound hoarse, sad lute, true witness of my woe,
And try no more to ease self-chosen pain;

With soul-enchanting sounds your accents strain
Unto these tears incessantly which flow;
Sad treble, weep! and you, dull basses, show
Your master's sorrow in a doleful strain;
Let never joyful hand upon you go,

Nor comfort weep but when you do complain;
Fly Phoebus' rays, abhor the irksome light;
Wood's solitary shades for thee are best,
Or the black horrors of the blackest night,
When all the world save thou and I do rest.

Then sound, sad lute, and bear a mourning part;
Thou hell canst move, but not a woman's heart!

A MADRIGAL.

Like the Idalian queen,
Her hair about her een

And neck, on breasts ripe apples to be seen,

At first glance of the morn,

In Cyprus gardens gathering those fair flowers
Which of her blood were born:

1 The Primum Mobile or outermost Sphere.

2 Globe.

I saw, but fainting saw my paramours
The Graces, naked, danced about the place;
The winds and trees, amazed,

With silence on her gazed;

The flowers did smile like those upon her face;
And, as the aspen stalks those fingers bind,
That she might read my case,
I wished to be a hyacinth in her hand.

PHYLLIS.

In petticoat of green,
Her hair about her een,
Phyllis, beneath an oak,

Sat milking her fair flock:

'Mongst that sweet strainèd moisture, rare delight, Her hand seemed milk in milk, it was so white!

OF A BEE.

O, do not kill that bee
That thus hath wounded thee!

Sweet, it was no despite,

But hue did him deceive:

For, when thy lips did close,

He deemed them a rose ;

What wouldst thou further crave?

He, wanting wit, and blinded with delight,
Would fain have kissed, but, mad with ioy, did bite.

FROM FLOWERS OF SION.

CHILDREN OF THE WORLD.

Of this fair volume which we World1 do name
If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care,
Of Him who it corrects and did it frame

We clear might read the art and wisdom rare,
Find out His power which wildest powers doth tame,
His providence extending everywhere,

His justice which proud rebels doth not spare,
In every page and period of the same.