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est of the inferior order of the school of conceit; but to
his sacred poems, a milder criticism is due: they show
considerable originality and picturesque grace. He was
an imitator of Herbert, of whom he makes affectionate
mention, and whom he often resembles in the negligence of
his versification, and the inappropriateness of his imagery.
But he occasionally swept the harp with a master's hand:
what an affecting solemnity runs through these stanzas:-
They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit lingering here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest,
After the sun's remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,

Whose light doth trample on my days:

My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.

O holy Hope! and high Humility,

High as the heavens above:

These are your walks, and you have showed them me
To kindle my cold love.

Dear beauteous Death! the jewel of the just,

Shining no where but in the dark;

What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,

Could man outlook that mark!

He that hath found some fledged bird's nest, may know

At first sight if the bird be flown;

But what fair well, or grove, it sings in now,

That is to him unknown.

O, Father of eternal life, and all

Created glories under thee!

Resume my spirit from this world of thrall

Into true liberty.

Either disperse these mists which blot and fill

My perspective as they pass,

Or else remove me hence unto that Hill
Where I shall need no glass.

The image of the bird, in the 6th stanza, is very charming. The last verse is imitated from Herbert's poem on Grace.

THE RETREAT.

Happy those early days, when I
Shined in my angel-infancy.
Before I understood this place,
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white celestial thought,—
When yet I had not walked above
A mile or two from my first love,
And looking back (at that short space)
Could see a glimpse of his bright face.
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour;
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity.

Oh, how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track!

That I might once more reach that plain,
Where first I left my glorious train,

From whence the enlightened spirit sees
That shady City of Palm Trees.

These lines will find an echo in many bosoms, for the same aspiration must have risen to the lips of every one. But we know that "the enlightened spirit" belongs more to the maturity of age than to the inexperienced innocence of childhood; and to the eye of the Christian pilgrim, in the most desolate path of his wanderings, "the shady City of Palm Trees" is visible, and the blackness of the remote horizon often glows with the orient light of the Bowers of Paradise.

THE WREATH.

Addressed to the Redeemer.
Since I in storms most used to be,
And seldom yielded flowers,
How shall I get a wreath for Thee
From these rude barren hours?

The softer dressings of the spring,
Or summer's later store,
I will not for Thy temples bring,
Which thorns, not roses, wore;

But a twined wreath of grief and praise,
Praise soiled with tears, and tears again
Shining with joy, like dewy days,

This day I bring for all Thy pain.

A pretty verse on the burial of an infant should not be omitted:

Blest infant bud whose blossom-life,

Did only look about and fall,

Weary'd out in harmless strife

Of milk and tears, the food of all.

The verses on Peace may be compared with Herbert's

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My Soul, there is a Countrie,

Far beyond the stars,

Where stands a winged Centrie

All skilful in the wars;

There above all noise and danger,

Sweet Peace sits crown'd with smiles,

And One born in a manger,

Commands the beauteous files.

He is thy gracious friend,
And, (O my soul awake!)
Did in pure love descend,

To die here for thy sake.
If thou canst get but thither,
There grows the flower of Peace,
The rose that cannot wither,

Thy fortress and thy ease;
Leave, then, thy foolish ranges,
For none can that secure;
But One who never changes,
Thy God, thy Life, thy Care.

RICHARD CRASHAW.

AFTER an anxious search in all the accessible sources of information, I am able to tell little of one of whom every lover of poetry must desire to know so much. The time of his birth and of his decease is involved in equal mystery.

Crashaw was born in London. His father was an eminent Divine, and Preacher at the Temple. His works, however, brought him more fame than profit, and he confessed that he had spent his patrimony in buying books, and his time in scribbling them. At the close of the reign of Elizabeth he had also been deprived of a "little vicarage*." But his learning and virtues procured for him the esteem of many learned and excellent ment, and particularly of Sir Randolph Crew, and Sir Henry Yelverton ‡, by whom his son Richard was placed on the foundation of the Charter House School, where he highly distinguished * A Discourse on Popishe Corruption Requiringe a Kingly Refor mation; among the MS. Books in the Royal Library. See Casly's Catalogue.

+He was intimate with Archbishop Usher, as an extract from a letter to that Prelate will show:-"I lent you Josseline de Vitis Archiep. Cant., in folio, which you said you lent to Dr. Mocket, and I believe it; yet I could never get it, and now I find my book at Mr. Edwards his shop, in Duke Lane, and he saith he bought it with Dr. Mocket's library, but I cannot have it. Happily you might, by your testimony, prevail to get it me, for I charged him not to sell it. I pray think of it as you go that way. Thus longing to see you, and till you send me word what day you will be here, I commend us unto God, and am,

Yours in Christ,

WILLIAM CRASHAW." Appendix to Parr's Life of Usher.

Sir Henry Yelverton was appointed Solicitor-General soon after 1613, and Attorney-General in 1616. In 1625, he was one of the Judges of the King's Bench, and subsequently of the Common Pleas. A curious narrative, written by hmiself, of what passed on his being restored to the King's favour, in 1609," is printed in the fifteenth volume of the Archæologia, p. 27.

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himself under Brooks, a celebrated master of that day, whom he afterwards addressed in an epigram, full of attachment and respect. I had hoped, from a reference to the Registers of the School, to have determined the period of his admission, but they contain no entry before 1680. How long he continued there is equally uncertain. He was elected a scholar of Pembroke Hall, March 26, 1632*, and yet we find him lamenting the premature death of his friend, William Herrys, a fellow of the same College, which happened in the October of 1631. Herrys had been originally entered of Christ's, and his relations were persons of property and consideration, in the county of Essex. Crashaw calls him the sweetest among men, and mourned his fate in five epitaphs, one of which was in Latin.

In 1633 he took his Bachelor's Degree, and, in 1634, published anonymously, a volume of Epigrammata Sacra, inscribed to Benjamin Laney, the Master of Pembroke Hall. In the civil war, Laney was deprived of his situation, and suffered much persecution and many hardships for his loyalty.

The guides of the poet's youthful studies were always esteemed, and their memory preserved in his heart. Of Mr. Tournay, the tutor of Pembroke, he spoke in grateful language, as of one who merited his respect t.

* From the College Register, quoted in Cole's MSS.

+ Tutori Summe Observando.-"We have had some doings here of late about one of Pembroke Hall, who preaching in St. Mary's, about the beginning of Lent, upon that text James ii, 22, seemed to avouch the insufficiency of faith to justification, and to impugn the doctrine of our 11th article, of Justification by faith only; for which he was convented by the Vice-Chancellor, who was willing to accept of an easy acknowledgment: but the same party preaching his Latin sermon, pro Gradu, the last week, upon Rom. iii, 28, he said, he came not palinodiam canere, sed eandem cantilenam canere, which moved our Vice-Chancellor, Dr Love, to call for his sermon, which he refused to deliver. Whereupon, upon Wednesday last, being Barnaby Day, the day appointed for the admission of the Bachelors of Divinity, which must answer Die Comitiorum, he was stayed by the major part of the suffrages of the Doctors of the faculty. * * *The truth is, there are some Heads among us

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