So stands my mournfull case,

For had he been lesse good

He yet (all uncorrupt) had kept the stocke
Whereon he fairly stood.

[From Milton.]

As killing as the canker to the rose,

Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows,

Such Lycidas thy loss to shepherd's ear.

Here is not an absolute plagiarism, but there is evidently a borrowed suggestion-a kind of debt which a great poet is often found to owe even to his inferiors. But it is not this single passage alone which shows, that Milton's perusal of Browne's verses had left an impression on his ear and mind that influenced him in the composition of his Lycidas. Browne, in the introduction to his eclogue, explains that "the author bewails the death of one, whom he shadoweth forth under the name of Philarete ;" and Milton in his pastoral monody also "bewails a friend" under a poetical name. The general plan, the occasion, the sentiments and the illustrations of both poems, are very similar-a similarity that is too close to be an accidental coincidence. That the passage about the rose is not the only one that seems to have given a hint to Milton, the following lines will convince any reader in the habit of tracing out poetical beauties to their first source, which is often too obscure and dim to strike a careless eye.

Behold our flowery beds :
Their beauties fade, and violets
For sorrow hang their heads.

The glowing violet,

Browne.

The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine.
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears.

Milton.

In the place of the words sad embroidery in the last line, Milton originally wrote (as is known from the various readings in his manuscript copy) sorrow's livery; which was perhaps a slight shade nearer to the imagery of Browne.

Browne was born in Devonshire, and has made his native county-the garden of England—the scene of his Pastorals. I honor him for his boldness, his good sense, and his good taste, in breaking through the silly custom of carrying the British Muse to foreign regions, in search of beauties that are no where more easily found than in our own delightful land.

SONNET.

ON THE DEATH OF

NEVER, oh! never, this sin-tainted earth,
The realm of care, hath holier pilgrim trod!
The priest of Nature, Poetry, and God!

His words were bodied radiance, and his worth

An angel's dower. There seemed nor gloom nor dearth
When he but smiled. His thoughts were lovelier far

Than flower or gem, or sun or moon or star,

Or river-waves that dance in summer mirth.
Of transitory hopes the base control

He proudly spurned for heaven's eternal day.
A death-spark touched his tenement of clay,
And forth upsprang towards its destined goal
The flame divine. A purer spirit never

Hath joined the choir that hymn their God for ever!

LOVE-VERSES.

I.

WHEN thou wert nigh the world was bright,

And life a lovely dream;

I basked beneath the warm sun's light,
Or hailed the lunar beam;—

In every mood, by night or day,
The time too swiftly passed away.

SONNETS.

I.

THE breast that would not feel this calm profound,
The eye that would not love this landscape fair,
Though in their mortal make beyond compare,
In spiritual life were senseless and unsound.
This glassy lake--the silent hills around-
The western clouds where rests, like woven air,
In tresses wild, the day god's golden hair-
All seem in sleep's divine enchantment bound.
Nor brute nor human form, nor cot nor cave,
Nor palace proud, nor sign nor sound of life

Is seen or heard; not lonelier is the grave;

And yet this lovely solitude is rife

With food for living thought, and few would crave

A holier refuge from the loud world's strife.

II.

But, ah! no scene of loveliness may last!
The earth is all mutation. Sunny skies-
The meadows gay-the sleeping lake that lies
A broad bright sheet of gold-are soon o'ercast.
O'er all these silent hills loud gales have past,
And erelong shall return. The gorgeous dyes
Of sun-set clouds,-the calm night's countless eyes,-
Shall vanish at the rude storm's trumpet-blast.
"Tis thus too with the soul. Eternal change
Of mood and passion seems her lot below;
Nature and man with kindred movement range
From fair to foul, from happiness to woe,
Again to light and joy-reversion strange-
And naught a long monotony may know.

III.

Yet well and wisely hath the poet said,

That all exists by elemental strife,

And passions are the elements of life*."

This moving world were as a dreamless bed-
Grave of the living-if stagnation dread

Held in its base enthralment Nature's realm,

And man's unslumbering soul. Though storms o'erwhelm Life's scene awhile, eternal stillness dead

Were heavier fate for human heart to bear.

We know not what we ask; but, blind and weak,

Madly neglect the blessings that we share,

And hidden evils ignorantly seek.

Oh! if his own fixed fate could man bespeak

How oft for change would rise the impatient prayer!

STANZAS WRITTEN AT SEA.

LIKE blossoms pale the vernal orchard strewing
The light foam sprinkles wide the billows green,
And flitting clouds, aerial sports pursuing,
Dapple and variegate the moving scene.

Through the stiff shrouds the gale is loudly singing,
The big waves revel round our oaken walls
That reel and tremble, as if hosts were flinging
The thundering cannon's rampart-shaking balls.

But here no human foes with fierce commotion
Now meet in deadly strife for mastery vain ;
The loud-voiced winds and vast uplifted ocean
Confess, with mighty mirth, their Maker's reign.

* Pope.