Where that great Persian bear, whose swelling pride
The lion's self tore out with ravenous jaw?

Or he which, 'twixt a lion and a pard,

Through all the world with nimble pinions fared,

And to his greedy whelps his conquer'd kingdoms shared.

Hardly the place of such antiquity,

Or note of these great monarchies we find:

Only a fading verbal memory,

And empty name in writ is left behind:
But when this second life and glory fades,

And sinks at length in time's obscurer shades,

A second fall succeeds, and double death invades.

That monstrous beast, which, nursed in Tiber's fen,
Did all the world with hideous shape affray;
That fill'd with costly spoil his gaping den,

And trod down all the rest to dust and clay:
His battering horns, pull'd out by civil hands,
And iron teeth, lie scatter'd on the sands;

Back'd, bridled by a monk, with seven heads yoked stands.

And that black vulture,' which, with deathful wing,
O'ershadows half the earth, whose dismal sight
Frighted the Muses from their native spring,

Already stoops, and flags with weary flight:

Who then shall hope for happiness beneath?

Where each new day proclaims chance, change, and death,
And life itself's as flit as is the air we breathe.

WILLIAM HABINGTON. 1605-1654.

WILLIAM HABINGTON was born at the country seat of his ancestors in Worcestershire, called Hindlip, in 1605, the year of the famed gunpowder plot, the discovery of which is said to have come from his mother. They were a wealthy family, and were Papists. William was educated in the Jesuits' College in St. Omers, and afterwards at Paris, in the hope that he might enter into that society. But he preferred a wiser and happier course of life, and returning to his own country, married Lucy, daughter of William Herbert. In 1635 he published a volume of poems entitled “Castara,” under which name he celebrates his wife, a kind of title fashionable in that day. He died when he had just completed his fiftieth year, and was buried in the family vault at Hindlip.

But little is known of Habington's history. He appears to have been distinguished for connubial felicity, for a love of retirement and study, and for the dignity and moral beauty of his sentiments. "His poems possess much elegance, much poetical fancy, and are almost everywhere tinged with a deep moral cast, which ought to have made their fame more permanent."

1 The Mohammedan Empire.

? See "Censura Literaria," viii. 227 and 387; and "Retrospective Review," xii. 274; also, “Yal lam's Literature," &c., II. 183.

TO CASTARA,

In praise of Content, and the calm Happiness of the Country at Hindlip.

Do not their profane orgies hear

Who but to wealth no altars rear:
The soul's oft poison'd through the ear.

Castara, rather seek to dwell
In th' silence of a private cell:
Rich discontent's a glorious Hell.

Yet Hindlip doth not want extent
Of room (though not magnificent)
To give free welcome to content.
There shalt thou see the early Spring,
That wealthy stock of Nature bring,
Of which the Sybils' books did sing.
From fruitless palms shall honey flow,
And barren Winter harvest show,
While lilies in his bosom grow.

No north wind shall the corn infest,
But the soft spirit of the east,

Our scent with perfumed banquets feast.

A Satyr here and there shall trip,
In hope to purchase leave to sip
Sweet nectar from a Fairy's lip.

The Nymphs with quivers shall adorn
Their active sides, and rouse the morn
With the shrill music of their horn.

Waken'd with which, and viewing thee,
Fair Daphne, her fair self shall free
From the chaste prison of a tree;
And with Narcissus (to thy face
Who humbly will ascribe all grace)
Shall once again pursue the chase.

So they whose wisdom did discuss
Of these as fictions, shall in us
Find they were more than fabulous.

THE VANITY OF AVARICE.

Hark! how the traitor wind doth court
The sailors to the main;

To make their avarice his sport:

A tempest checks the fond disdain;
They bear a safe though humble port.

We'll sit, my love, upon the shore,
And while proud billows rise
To war against the sky, speak o'er
Our love's so sacred mysteries;

And charm the sea to th' calm it had before.

FEW names in our language have united in a greater degree the character of an instructive prose writer and a vigorous poet, than Joseph Hall. He was born at Briston Park, in Leicestershire, in 1574, and after taking his degree at Cambridge, he rose through various church preferments to be Bishop of Exeter, and subsequently, in 1641, to be Bishop of Norwich. In the same year he joined with the twelve prelates in the protestation of all laws made during their forced absence from Parliament. In consequence of this, he, with the rest, was sent to the Tower, and was released only on giving £5000 bail. Two years after, he was among the number marked out for sequestration. After suffering extreme hardships, he was allowed to retire on a small pittance, to Higham, near Norwich, where he continued, in comparative obscurity, but with indefatigable zeal and intrepidity, to exercise the duties of a pastor, till he closed his days, in the year 1656, at the venerable age of eighty-two.

As a poet, Bishop Hall is known by his "Bookes of byting Satyres." These were published at the early age of twenty-three. They are marked, says Warton, with a classical precision to which English poetry had yet rarely attained. They are replete with animation of style and sentiment. The characters are delineated in strong and lively coloring, and their discrimina. tions are touched with the masterly traces of genuine humor. His chief fault is obscurity, arising from a remote phraseology, constrained combinations, " familiar allusions, and abruptness of expression. But it must be borne in mind that he was the first English satirist. Pope, on presenting Mr. West with a copy of his poetical works, observed that he esteemed them the best poetry and the truest satire in the language.

THE ANXIOUS CLIENT AND RAPACIOUS LAWYER.

The crouching client, with low-bended knee,
And many worships, and fair flattery,

1 A masterly analysis of these satires may be found in Warton's "History of English Poetry vol. iv., sections 62, 63, and 64.

Tells on his tale as smoothly as him list;
But still the lawyer's eye squints on his fist:
If that seem lined with a larger fee,

"Doubt not the suit, the law is plain for thee."
Tho' must he buy his vainer hopes with price,
Disclout his crowns,2 and thank him for advice.

1 Yet even.

THE DOMESTIC TUTOR.

A gentle squire would gladly entertain
Into his house some trencher-chapelain ;3
Some willing man that might instruct his sons,
And that would stand to good conditions.4
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,
While his young master lieth o'er his head.
Second, that he do, on no default,

Ever presume to sit above the salt.6

Third, that he never change his trencher twice.
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies;
Sit bare at meals, and one half rise and wait.
Last, that he never his young master beat;
But he must as his mother to define

How many jerks she would his back should line.
All these observed, he could contented be

To give five marks and winter livery.

THE RUSTIC WISHING TO TURN SOLDIER.

The sturdy ploughman doth the soldier see
All scarf'd with pied colors to the knee,
Whom Indian pillage hath made fortunate;
And now he 'gins to loathe his former state:
Now doth he inly scorn his Kendal-green,R
And his patch'd cockers now despised been;
Nor list he now go whistling to the car,
But sells his team, and settleth to the war.
Oh war! to them that never tried thee, sweet:
When 10 his dead mate falls grovelling at his feet;
And angry bullets whistle at his ear,

And his dim eyes see nought but dread and drear.

2 Pull them out of his purse.

3 Or, a table-chaplain. In the same sense we have "trencher-knight" in "Love's Labor Lost." We still too often see, as did Hall, the depressed state of modest, but true genius; we still see "the earned pate duck to the golden fool;" we still see "pastors and teachers" court and flatter men who have little else than their money to recommend them.

♦ Pronounced as in four syllables, con-di-ti-ons.

6 This indulgence allowed to the pupil is the reverse of a more ancient rule at Oxford, by which the scholars are ordered "to sleep respectively under the beds of the Fellows, in a truckle bed, (Frookyű Leddys, vulgariter nuncupati,) or small bed shifted about upon wheels."

6 In Hall's day the table was divided into the upper and lower messes, by a huge salt-cellar, and the rank and consequence of the visitors were marked by the situation of their seats above or below the salt-cellar. 7 Lashes.

A kind of forester's green cloth, so called from Kendal, Westmoreland county, which was famous for its manufacture 9 "A kind of rustic high shoes or half boots.

10 That is, to them who have never seen the time when, &c.

THE FASHIONABLE BUT FAMISHED BEAU.

Seest thou how gayly my young master goes,
Vaunting himself upon his rising toes;
And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side;
And picks his glutted teeth since late noontide?
'Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he dined to-day?
In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humfray.'
Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say
He touch'd no meat of all this livelong day.
For sure methought, yet that was but a guess,
His eyes seem'd sunk for very hollowness;
But could he have (as I did it mistake)

So little in his purse, so much upon his back?
So nothing in his maw? yet seemeth by his belt,
That his gaunt bulk not too much stuffing felt.
Seest thou how side2 it hangs beneath his hip?
Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip.
Yet for all that, how stiffly struts he by,

All trapped in the new-found bravery.

His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head,
One lock amazon-like dishevelled,

As if he meant to wear a native cord,

If chance his fates should him that bane afford
All British bare upon the bristled skin,
Close notched is his beard both lip and chin;
His linen collar labyrinthian set,

Whose thousand double turnings never met:
His sleeves half hid with elbow pinionings,
As if he meant to fly with linen wings.
But when I look, and cast mine eyes below,
What monster meets mine eyes in human show?
So slender waist with such an abbot's loin,
Did never sober nature sure conjoin.
Lik'st a straw scarecrow in the new-sown field,
Rear'd on some stick, the tender corn to shield.
Or if that semblance suit not every deal,
Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel.

As a prose writer, Hall was known in his day as a most able champion in controversial theology, being one of the antagonists of Milton, and writing with great learning, as well as with a most excellent spirit, in favor of the esta blished church. But his numerous tracts on this subject are now but little read. Not so, however, with his "Contemplations on the principal Passages of the Holy Story," and his "Occasional Meditations." These are replete with fine thoughts, excellent morality, and sterling piety. He has been styled the Christian Seneca, from his sententious manner of writing, and from the peculiar resemblance of his "Meditations" to "Seneca's Morals."3

1 A proverbial phrase for going without a dinner, arising from the circumstance of St. Paul's, where Duke Humphrey's tomb was supposed to stand, being the common resort of loungers who had no: dined. 2 Long or low.

"Poetry was the occupation merely of his youth, the vigor and decline of his days being em ployed in the composition of professional works, calculated, by their piety, eloquence, and originality. to promote, in the most powerful manner, the best interests of morality and religion.”—Drake.