Part 71 (1/2)

7 If friends.h.i.+p sympathy impart, Why this ill-shuffled game, That heart can never meet with heart, Or flame encounter flame?

What does this cruelty create?

Is't the intrigue of love or fate?

8 Had friends.h.i.+p ne'er been known to men, (The ghost at last confessed) The world had then a stranger been To all that heaven possessed.

But could it all be here acquired, Not heaven itself would be desired.

A FRIEND.

1 Love, nature's plot, this great creation's soul, The being and the harmony of things, Doth still preserve and propagate the whole, From whence man's happiness and safety springs: The earliest, whitest, blessed'st times did draw From her alone their universal law.

2 Friends.h.i.+p's an abstract of this n.o.ble flame, 'Tis love refined and purged from all its dross, The next to angels' love, if not the same, As strong in pa.s.sion is, though not so gross: It antedates a glad eternity, And is an heaven in epitome.

3 Essential honour must be in a friend, Not such as every breath fans to and fro; But born within, is its own judge and end, And dares not sin though sure that none should know.

Where friends.h.i.+p's spoke, honesty's understood; For none can be a friend that is not good.

4 Thick waters show no images of things; Friends are each other's mirrors, and should be Clearer than crystal or the mountain springs, And free from clouds, design, or flattery.

For vulgar souls no part of friends.h.i.+p share; Poets and friends are born to what they are.

MARGARET, d.u.c.h.eSS OF NEWCASTLE.

This lady, if not more of a woman than Mrs Phillips, was considerably more of a poet. She was born (probably) about 1625. She was the daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, and became a maid-of-honour to Henrietta Maria.

Accompanying the Queen to France, she met with the Marquis, afterwards Duke of Newcastle, and married him at Paris in 1645. They removed to Antwerp, and there, in 1653, this lady published a volume, ent.i.tled 'Poems and Fancies.' The pair aided each other in their studies, and the result was a number of enormous folios of poems, plays, speeches, and philosophical disquisitions. These volumes were, we are told, great favourites of Coleridge and Charles Lamb, for the sake, we presume, of the wild sparks of insight and genius which break irresistibly through the scholastic smoke and bewildered nonsense. When Charles II. was restored, the Marquis and his wife returned to England, and spent their life in great harmony. She died in 1673, leaving behind her some beautiful fantasias, where the meaning is often finer than the music, such as the 'Pastime and Recreation of Fairies in Fairy-land.' Her poetry, particularly her contrasted pictures of Mirth and Melancholy, present fine acc.u.mulations of imagery drawn direct from nature, and shewn now in brightest suns.h.i.+ne, and now in softest moonlight, as the change of her subject and her tone of feeling require.

MELANCHOLY DESCRIBED BY MIRTH.

Her voice is low, and gives a hollow sound; She hates the light, and is in darkness found; Or sits with blinking lamps, or tapers small, Which various shadows make against the wall.

She loves nought else but noise which discord makes, As croaking frogs, whose dwelling is in lakes; The raven's hoa.r.s.e, the mandrake's hollow groan, And shrieking owls which fly i' the night alone; The tolling bell, which for the dead rings out; A mill, where rus.h.i.+ng waters run about; The roaring winds, which shake the cedars tall, Plough up the seas, and beat the rocks withal.

She loves to walk in the still moons.h.i.+ne night, And in a thick dark grove she takes delight; In hollow caves, thatched houses, and low cells, She loves to live, and there alone she dwells.

MELANCHOLY DESCRIBING HERSELF.

I dwell in groves that gilt are with the sun; Sit on the banks by which clear waters run; In summers hot, down in a shade I lie; My music is the buzzing of a fly; I walk in meadows, where grows fresh green gra.s.s; In fields, where corn is high, I often pa.s.s; Walk up the hills, where round I prospects see, Some brushy woods, and some all champaigns be; Returning back, I in fresh pastures go, To hear how sheep do bleat, and cows do low; In winter cold, when nipping frosts come on, Then I do live in a small house alone; Although 'tis plain, yet cleanly 'tis within, Like to a soul that's pure, and clear from sin; And there I dwell in quiet and still peace, Not filled with cares how riches to increase; I wish nor seek for vain and fruitless pleasures; No riches are, but what the mind intreasures.

Thus am I solitary, live alone, Yet better loved, the more that I am known; And though my face ill-favoured at first sight, After acquaintance, it will give delight.

Refuse me not, for I shall constant be; Maintain your credit and your dignity.

THOMAS STANLEY.

Thomas Stanley, like Thomas Brown in later days, was both a philosopher and a poet; but his philosophical reputation at the time eclipsed his poetical. He was the only son of Sir Thomas Stanley of Camberlow Green, in Hertfords.h.i.+re, and was born in 1620. He received his education at Pembroke College, Oxford; and after travelling for some years abroad, he took up his abode in the Middle Temple. Here he seems to have spent the rest of his life in patient and multifarious studies. He made translations of some merit from Anacreon, Bion, Moschus, and the 'Kisses' of Secundus, as well as from Marino, Boscan, Tristan, and Gongora. He wrote a work of great pretensions as a compilation, ent.i.tled 'The History of Philosophy,' containing the lives, opinions, actions, and discourses of philosophers of every sect, of which he published the first volume in 1655, and completed it in a fourth in 1662. It is rather a vast collection of the materials for a history, than a history itself.