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SIR JOHN DENHAM.

1615-1668.

Though with those streams he no resemblance

hold,

Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold;
His genuine and less guilty wealth t'explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore.
Cooper's Hill, Line 165.

O, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not

dull;

Strong without rage; without o'erflowing full. Line 189.

Actions of the last age are like almanacs of the last year. The Sophy. A Tragedy.

But whither am I strayed? I need not raise
Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise;
Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built;
Nor needs thy juster title the foul guilt

Of Eastern kings, who, to secure their reign,
Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred

slain.1

On Mr. John Fletcher's Works.

1 Poets are sultans, if they had their will; For every author would his brother kill.

Orrery, "in one of his Prologues," says Johnson.

Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,

Bear like the Turk, no brother near the throne.

Pope, Prologue to the Satires, Line 197.

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That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer; A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit. The first true gentleman that ever breathed.1 The Honest Whore. Part i. Act i. Sc. 12.

We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies.

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What shall I do to be for ever known,
And make the age to come my own?

The Motto.

1 Of the offspring of the gentilman Jafeth, come Habraham, Moyses, Aron, and the profettys; and also the Kyng of the right lyne of Mary, of whom that gentilman Jhesus was borne. - Juliana Berners, Heraldic Blazonry.

His time is for ever, everywhere his place. Friendship in Absence.

We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine; But search of deep philosophy,

Wit, eloquence, and poetry;

Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine. On the Death of Mr. William Harvey.

His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.1 On the Death of Crashaw.

We grieved, we sighed, we wept: we never blushed before.

Discourse concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwell.

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair.

From Anacreon. Drinking.

Why

Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?

A mighty pain to love it is,
And 't is a pain that pain to miss ;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.

Ibid.

Gold.

1 For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, He can't be wrong whose life is in the right. Pope, Essay on Man, Ep. iii. Line 306.

Th' adorning thee with so much art

Is but a barb'rous skill;

'Tis like the poisoning of a dart,

Too apt before to kill. The Waiting Maid.

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.1

Davideis. Vol. i. Book i.

The monster London . . . .

Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.

Of Solitude.

God the first garden made, and the first city

Cain.2

The Garden. Essay v.

Hence ye profane, I hate ye all,

Both the great vulgar and the small.

Horace. Book iii. Ode 1.

Charm'd with the foolish whistling of a name.3

Words that weep and tears that speak.*

The Prophet.

One of our poets (which is it?) speaks of an everlasting now. - Southey, The Doctor, Ch. xxv. p. 1.

2 Compare Bacon, Of Gardens.

3 Ravish'd with the whistling of a name.

Pope, Essay on Man, Ep. iv. Line 283. 4 Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. Gray, The Progress of Poesy, iii. 3, 4.

EDMUND WALLER.

1605-1687.

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,1
Lets in new light thro' chinks that time has made.
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.

Verses upon his Divine Poesy.
Under the tropic is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath received our yoke.
Upon the Death of the Lord Protector.

A narrow compass! and yet there

Dwelt all that 's good, and all that 's fair:
Give me but what this riband bound,

Take all the rest the sun goes round.

Go, lovely rose !

On a Girdle.

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.

Go, lovely Rose.

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair! Ibid. Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,

And every conqueror creates a muse.

For all we know

Panegyric on Cromwell.

Of what the blessed do above

Is, that they sing and that they love.

While I listen to thy voice. The yielding marble of her snowy breast. On a Lady passing through a Crowd of People. I See Fuller, The Holy and the Profane State, i. ii.

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