SIR MATTHEW HALE.

BORN 1600. DIED 1675.

Author of many learned, judicial, and religious works.

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On my Saviour's Birth.

WHEN the great lamp of heaven, the glorious sun,
Had touch'd this southern period, and begun
To leave the winter tropic, and to climb
The zodiac's ascending signs; that time
The brighter Sun of righteousness did choose
His beams of light and glory to diffuse
O'er our dark lower world, and by that ray
To chase the darkness, and to make it day.
And lest the glorious and resplendent light
Of his eternal beam might be too bright
For mortal eyes to gaze upon, he shrouds,
And clothes his fiery pillar, with the clouds
Of human flesh; that in that dress He may
Converse with men, acquaint them with the way
To life and glory, show his Father's mind
Concerning them, how bountiful and kind

His thoughts were to them; what they might expect
From Him, in the observance or neglect

Of what He did require ;-and then He seal'd,
With his dear blood, the Truth He had reveal'd.

[Attributed to Doctour B. in Wotton's Remains: 1651.]

WHO would have thought, there could have bin
Such joy in tears wept for our sin?

Mine eyes have seen, my heart hath proved
The most and best of earthly joyes;

The sweets of love, and being loved,

Maskes, feasts and plaies, and such like toyes;
Yet this one tear, which now doth fall,
In true delight exceeds them all.

IZAAK WALTON.

BORN 1593. DIED 1683.

Principal Works:-The Complete Angler, and some Biographical Tracts. The most fastidious critic would find it difficult to give a good reason for being displeased with the following very humble stanzas.

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The Angler's Song.

As inward love breeds outward talk,

The hound some praise, and some the hawk;

Some, better pleased with private sport,

Love tennis; some a mistress court

But these delights I neither wish,

Nor envy, while I freely fish.

Who hunts doth oft in danger ride;

Who hawks lures oft both far and wide;

Who uses games shall often prove
A loser; but who falls in love
Is fetter'd in fond Cupid's snare:
-My angle breeds me no such care.

Of recreation, there is none
So free as fishing is alone;
All other pastimes do no less
Than mind and body both possess;
My hand alone my work can do,
So I can fish and study too.

I care not, I, to fish in seas,

Fresh rivers best my mind do please;
Whose sweet calm course I contemplate,
And seek in life to imitate;

In civil bonds I fain would keep,
And for my past offences weep.

And when the timorous trout I wait
To take, and he devours my bait,
How poor a thing, sometimes, I find
Will captivate a greedy mind:

And when none bite, I praise the wise,
Whom vain allurements ne'er surprize.

But yet though while I fish I fast,
I make good fortune my repast,
And thereunto my friend invite,
In whom I more than that delight;
Who is more welcome to my dish,
Than to my angle was my fish.

As well content no prize to take,
As use of taken prize to make;
For so our Lord was pleased, when
He fishers made fishers of men ;
Where (which is in no other game,)
A man can fish and praise his name.

The first men, that our Saviour dear
Did choose to wait upon him here,

Blest fishers were,-and fish the last
Food was, that He on earth did taste;
I therefore strive to follow those
Whom He to follow Him hath chose.

FRANCIS NETHERSOLE.

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Saints have their Conversation in Heaven :-addressed to Dr. Thomas Nevyle, Dean of Canterbury.

[Written about the year 1620.]

As when the Captain of the heavenly host,
Or else that glorious armie, doth appeare
In ocean drown'd, with surging billows tost,
We know they are not where we see they are;
We see them in the deep, we see them move,
We know they fixed are in heaven above.

So did the Sunne of Righteousness come down,
Clouded in flesh, and seem'd be in the deep;
So do the many waters seem to drown

The starres, his Saints, and they on earth to keep;
And yet this Sunne from heaven never fell,
And yet these earthly starres in heaven dwell.

What if their souls be into prison cast
In earthly bodies! yet they long for heaven;
What if this worldly sea they have not past!
Yet fain they would be brought into their haven:
They are not here, and yet we here them see,
For every man is there where he would be.

Long may you wish, and yet long wish in vain,
Hence to depart, and yet that wish obtain;

Long may you here in heaven on earth remain,
And yet a heaven in heaven hereafter gain;

Go you to heaven, but yet O make no haste!
Go slowly, slowly, but yet go at last.

ABRAHAM COWLEY.

BORN 1618. DIED 1667.

The most miscellaneous of all our Poets, having attempted every species of composition except that of Tragedy, and, it may be added, having distinguished himself in each above all his contemporaries except Milton, who, however, in his range of writing, was far less various than he. Cowley was such a prodigal of his genius, that he seems to have spent nearly his whole patrimony of fame during his lifetime, by expending all the riches of a most accomplished mind on the fashions of his age in literature, which, like other fashions, necessarily passed away with the generation that bred them. The very artifices of style, which once were the glory of his verse, are now the eclipsing shadows that obscure it, and the fine gold of his poetry is but dimly discernible amidst the rusted ornaments, of baser metal, that formerly outshone it; so that it has been the fate of one of the most brilliant intellects that ever arose in this country, never to be estimated by its real excellence. Yet the first line of his Odes, like the sound of a trumpet, announces the entrance of no ordinary actor on the most magnificent

scene of human ambition

"What shall I do to be for ever known ?"

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Reason and Religion.

SOME blind themselves, 'cause possibly they may
Be led by others a right way;

They build on sands, which if unmoved they find,
'Tis but because there was no wind.

Less hard 'tis, not to err ourselves, than know
If our forefathers err'd or no.

When we trust men concerning God, we then
Trust not God concerning men.