The following very pretty song is from "the tuneful Waller," as he has generally been called, and who lived during the reigns of James I., Charles I., Cromwell, and Charles II. Gaiety and elegance of thought, united with harmony of versification, characterizes his poetry.

"Go, lovely Rose!

Tell her, that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

"Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,

That hadst thou sprung

In desarts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

"Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retir'd:

Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desir'd,

And not blush so to be admir'd.

"Then die! that she

The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee,

How small a part of time they share,
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

Carew, whom I have before mentioned, selects the fugaciousness of the Rose to enforce a similar exhortation:

"The faded Rose each spring receives
A fresh red tincture on her leaves;
But if your beauties once decay,
You never know a second May.
O then be wise, and whilst your season
Affords you days for sport, do reason;
Spend not in vain your life's short hour,
But crop in time your beauty's flower,
Which will away, and doth together

Both bud and fade, both blow and wither."

In like manner, exhorting the importance of carpe diem, singeth Daniel, another early English poet, in the following very clever Sonnet. Love is fickle and fastidious, and beauty transitory as youth; it is therefore not without reason that the poets recommend the ingenuous maiden to love while she is "lovely and beloved."

"Look, Delia, how we 'steem the half-blown Rose, The image of thy blush, and Summer's honour;

Whilst yet her tender bud doth undisclose

That fall of beauty time bestows upon her.

No sooner spreads her glory in the air,

But straight her wide-blown pomp comes to decline;

She then is scorn'd that late adorn'd the fair;

So fade the Roses of those cheeks of thine.

No April can revive thy wither'd flowers,
Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now;
Swift speedy Time, feather'd with flying hours,
Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow:
Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain,
But love now, while thou may'st be lov'd again."

I shall conclude this letter with a short quotation from Dryden's "Palamon and Arcite," and which exhibits the only distinct allusion to the Rose which I can recollect, from the numerous works of this vigorous poet.

"At every turn she made a little stand,

And thrust among the thorns her lily hand,
To draw the Rose; and every Rose she drew,
She shook the stalk, and brush'd away the dew;
Then party-colour'd flowers of white and red,
She wove, to make a garland for her head."

I remain,

Yours, &c.

LETTER XVI.

"I deem the Rose the nightingale of flowers!"

MY DEAR ANNE,

It is impossible to mention Persia, without recalling ideas of Love, Roses, and Nightingales! And although the gorgeous and voluptuous pictures which travellers have drawn of this country, exist in our minds rather as akin to the pleasing delusions of our dreams, than to the images of our waking recollections, still we turn with willing attention our thoughts to a country so peculiarly interesting:

"To those romantic regions of the Sun"

To a country which has been selected by some-not without reason—as the scite of primeval paradise; and which is now emphatically paradise lost! It is still a garden where nature revels in the most unbounded luxuriance; but where man is fallen

indeed—where he is held in the most abject mental bondage; his chains, it is true, are wreathed with flowers, and his prison house vocal with the song of birds; but they are chains, and he is still a prisoner; and remote indeed does the period appear when he shall be emancipated from this vassalage and spiritual darkness, into the freedom and light of the everlasting gospel. The Gheber fire-worshipper of Persia, and the Arabian follower of Mahomet, must, however, be brought into the way of truth, and some first-fruits have already appeared, one of which is celebrated in Mr. Montgomery's beautiful poem of "Abdallah and Sabat," which, you will recollect, we read with so much interest, and which I now mention for the purpose of reminding you of the couplet in which he has recognised the triple alliance mentioned at the beginning of this letter:

"Where the soft Persian maid the breath inhales Of love-sick Roses wooed by nightingales."

The Persian poets abound with allusions to the affection which is feigned to subsist between the nightingale and the Rose; and Lady Mary Wortley Montague gives the following introductory lines, in one of her letters from the East:

"The nightingale now wanders among the vines;
His passion is to seek Roses."