And you, my alter'd mother, (grown above

Great nature, which you read and reverenced here)
Chide not such kindness, as you once call'd love,
When you as mortal as my father were.

This said, her soul into her breast retires;
With Love's vain diligence of heart she dreams
Herself into possession of desires,

And trusts unanchor'd hope in fleeting streams:
Already thinks the duke her own spoused lord,
Cured, and again from bloody battle brought,
Where all false lovers perish'd by his sword,
The true to her for his protection sought.
She thinks how her imagined spouse and she
So much from heaven may by her virtues gain,
That they by time shall ne'er o'ertaken be,

No more than Time himself is overta'en.
She thinks of Eden-life; and no rough wind
In their pacific sea shall wrinkles make;
That still her lowliness shall keep him kind,
Her cares keep him asleep, her voice awake.

She thinks, if ever anger in him sway,

(The youthful warrior's most excused disease,) Such chance her tears shall calm, as showers allay The accidental rage of winds and seas.

Thus to herself in day-dreams Birtha talks:

The duke, (whose wounds of war are healthful grown,) To cure Love's wounds, seeks Birtha where she walks: Whose wandering soul seeks him to cure her own.

Yet when her solitude he did invade,

Shame (which in maids is unexperienced fear)

Taught her to wish night's help to make more shade,
That love (which maids think guilt) might not appear.

And she had fled him now, but that he came
So like an awed and conquer'd enemy,
That he did seem offenceless, as her shame;
As if he but advanced for leave to fly.

Of his minor pieces, we have room but for the following beautiful

SONG.

The lark now leaves his watery nest,

And, climbing, shakes his dewy wings;

He takes this window for the east;

And to implore your light, he sings,-
Awake, awake, the morn will never rise,
Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.

The merchant bows unto the seaman's star,
The ploughman from the sun his season takes,
But still the lover wonders what they are

Who look for day before his mistress wakes.
Awake, awake, break through your veils of lawn,
Then draw your curtains, and begin the dawn.

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. Died 1673.

THIS lady was the daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, and was born about the end of the reign of James the First. She early manifested a fondness for literary pursuits, and the greatest care was bestowed upon her education. Having been appointed one of the maids of honor to Henrietta Maria, the queen of Charles the First, she attended her when she fled to France, during the civil commotions; and having met with the Marquis of Newcastle at Paris, she there became his wife in 1645. Her lord, soon after their marriage, went to Antwerp to reside, and found her a most faithful and affectionate companion of his long and honorable exile. At the Restoration they returned to England.

"The labors of no modern authoress can be compared, as to quantity, with those of our indefatigable duchess, who has filled nearly twelve volumes, folio, with plays, poems, orations, philosophical discourses, &c. Her writings show that she possessed a mind of considerable power and activity, with much imagination, but not one particle of judgment or taste."

MIRTH AND MELANCHOLY.

As I was musing by myself alone,

My thoughts brought several things to work upon:
At last came two, which diversely were drest,
One Melancholy, t'other Mirth exprest;

Here Melancholy stood in black array,

And Mirth was all in colors fresh and gay.

Mirth.

Mirth laughing came, and running to me, flung
Her fat white arms about my neck, there hung,
Embraced and kiss'd me oft, and stroked my cheek,
Saying, she would no other lover seek:

I'll sing you songs, and please you every day,

Invent new sports to pass the time away;

I'll keep your heart, and guard it from that thief,

Dull Melancholy, Care, or sadder Grief,

And make your eyes with Mirth to overflow;

With springing blood your cheeks soon fat shall grow;
Your legs shall nimble be, your body light,

And all your spirits, like to birds in flight.

Mirth shall digest your meat, and make you strong,

Shall give you health, and your short days prolong;

Refuse me not, but take me to your wife;

For I shall make you happy all your life.

But Melancholy, she will make you lean,

Your cheeks shall hollow grow, your jaws be seen;
Your eyes shall buried be within your head,
And look as pale as if you were quite dead;

1 Pev. Alexander Dyce's "Specimens of British Poetesses." Read, also, a very excellent notice of her in Sir Egerton Brydges's "Imaginative Biography," in which he remarks, "that considerable as is the alloy of absurd passages in many of her grace's compositions, there are few of them in which there are not proofs of an active, thinking, original mind. Her imagination was quick, copious, and metimes ever. beautiful, yet her taste appears to have been not only uncultivated, but, perhaps, Originally defective

She'll make you start at every noise you hear,
And visions strange shall to your eyes appear,
Thus would it be, if you to her were wed:
Nay, better far it were that you were dead.
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 hoarse, the mandrake's hollow groan,
And shrieking owls, which fly in th' night alone;
The tolling bell, which for the dead rings out;
A mill, where rushing waters run about;
The roaring winds, which shake the cedars tail,
Plough up the seas, and beat the rocks withal.
She loves to walk in the still moonshine night,
And in a thick dark grove she takes delight;
In hollow caves, thatch'd houses, and low cells,
She loves to live, and there alone she dwells.
Then leave her to herself alone to dwell,
Let you and I in Mirth and Pleasure swell,
And drink long lusty draughts from Bacchus' bowl,
Until our brains on vaporous waves do roll;
Let's joy ourselves in amorous delights;
There's none so happy as the carpet knights.
Melancholy.

Then Melancholy, with sad and sober face,
Complexion pale, but of a comely grace,
With modest countenance thus softly spake
May I so happy be your love to take?
True, I am dull, yet by me you shall know
More of yourself, and so much wiser grow;
I search the depth and bottom of mankind,
Open the eye of ignorance that's blind;
All dangers to avoid I watch with care,
And do 'gainst evils that may come prepare;
I hang not on inconstant fortune's wheel,
Nor yet with unresolving doubts do reel;
I shake not with the terrors of vain fears,
Nor is my mind fill'd with unuseful cares;
I do not spend my time, like idle Mirth,
Which only happy is just at her birth;
And seldom lives so long as to be old,

But if she doth, can no affections hold;

Mirth good for nothing is, like weeds doth grow,

Or such plants as cause madness, reason's foe.

Her face with laughter crumples on a heap,

Which makes great wrinkles, and ploughs furrow's deep;
Her eyes do water, and her skin turns red,

Her mouth doth gape, teeth bare, like one that's dead;
She fulsome is, and gluts the senses all,
Offers herself, and comes before a call;
Her house is built upon the golden sands,
Yet no foundation has, whereon it stands;

A palace 'tis, and of a great resort,

It makes a noise, and gives a loud report,
Yet underneath the roof disasters lie,

Beat down the house, and many kill'd thereby:
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 grass,
In fields, where corn is high, I often pass;
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 fill'd 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-favor'd at first sight,
After acquaintance it will give delight.
Refuse me not, for I shall constant be,
Maintain your credit and your dignity.

OF THE THEME OF LOVE

O Love, how thou art tired out with rhyme!
Thou art a tree whereon all poets climb;
And from thy branches every one takes some
Of thy sweet fruit, which Fancy feeds upon.
But now thy tree is left so bare and poor,
That they can hardly gather one plum more.

THE FUNERAL OF CALAMITY.

Calamity was laid on Sorrow's hearse,
And coverings had of melancholy verse;
Compassion, a kind friend did mourning go,
And tears about the corpse, as flowers, strow,
A garland of deep sighs, by Pity made,
Upon Calamity's sad corpse was laid;
Bells of complaints did ring it to the grave,
Poets of monument of fame it gave.

FAB above all the poets of his own age, and, in learning, invention, ana sublimity, without an equal in the whole range of English literature, stands JOHN MILTON. He was born in London, December 9, 1608. His father. who was a scrivener, and who had suffered much for conscience' sake, doubtless infused into his son those principles of religious freedom which made him, in subsequent years, the bulwark of that holy cause in England. He was also early instructed in music, to which may doubtless be attributed that richness and harmony of his versification which distinguished him as much as his learning and imagination. His early education was conducted with great care. At sixteen he entered the University of Cambridge. After leav ing the university, where he was distinguished for his scholarship, he retired to the house of his father, who had relinquished business, and had purchased a small property at Horton in Buckinghamshire. Here he lived five years, devoting his time most assiduously to classical literature, inaking the wellknown remark that he "CARED NOT HOW LATE HE CAME INTO LIFE, ONLY THAT HE CAME FIT." While in the university he had written his grand "Hymn on the Nativity, any one verse of which was sufficient to show that a new and great light was about to rise on English poetry:" and there, at his father's, he wrote his "Comus," and "Lycidas," his "L'Allegro," and "Il Penseroso," and his "Arcades."

In 1638 he went to Italy, the most accomplished Englishman that ever visited her classical shores. Here his society was courted by "the choicest Italian wits," and he visited Galileo,' then a prisoner in the Inquisition. On his return home, he opened a school in London, and devoted himself with great assiduity to the business of instruction. In the mean time, he entere into the religious disputes of the day, engaging in the controversy singie. handed against all the royalists and prelates; and though numbering among

1 "The Tuscan artist." Paradise Lost, book i. line 288.