TO THE COUNTESS OF CUMBERLAND.

He that of such a height hath built his mind,
And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong,
As neither hope nor fear can shake the frame
Of his resolved powers; nor all the wind
Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong

His settled peace, or to disturb the same :
What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may
The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey.

And with how free an eye doth he look down
Upon these lower regions of turmoil,
Where all the storms of passions mainly beat
On flesh and blood! where honour, power, renown,
Are only gay afflictions, golden toil;

Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet
As frailty doth; and only great doth seem
To little minds who did it so esteem.

He looks upon the mightiest monarch's wars,
But only as on stately robberies ;
Where evermore the fortune that prevails
Must be the right: the ill-succeeding mars
The fairest and the best-fac'd enterprise.
Great pirate Pompey lesser pirates quails:
Justice he sees, as if reduced, still

Conspires with power, whose cause must not be ill.

To this passage we shall add the following very beautiful Sonnet on Sleep-a most fruitful subject with the sonnet writers of that period.

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,

Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,
Relieve my anguish, and restore the light,
With dark forgetting of my care, return,
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwreck of my ill-advised youth;
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,
Without the torments of the night's untruth.
Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires,
To model forth the passions of to-morrow;
Never let the rising sun prove you liars,
To add more grief, to aggravate my sorrow.
Still let me sleep embracing clouds in vain,
And never wake to feel the day's disdain

MICHAEL DRAYTON, a poet of very different genius from Daniel, was born at Harshall in the parish of Atherston, Warwickshire, in 1563. His family, though poor, was very ancient, and originally belonged to the town c Drayton in Leicestershire, the place whence his ancestors derived their name, His genius so early developed itself that when only ten years of age, he became page to some person of quality-a situation which was not, in that age, thought too humble for the sons of gentlemen. He entered the university of Oxford, but for some reason did not remain there long enough to take a degree. Immediately after he left the university, he entered into the service of the Countess of Bedford, with whom he remained for a number of years, and by whom he was very highly esteemed.

In 1593, Drayton appeared before the public as an author, in the publication of a collection of his pastorals; and in the course of the few following years he gave to the world his more elaborate poems, The Baron's Wars, and England's Heroical Epistles. In the latter productions we see the first symptoms of that taste for poetized history, as it may be called, which marked the age--which is first seen in Sackville's design of 'The Mirror for Magistrates,' and was now developing itself strongly in the historical plays of Marlow, Shakspeare, and others.

On the accession of James the First in 1603, Drayton acted as squire to Sir Walter Aston, in the ceremony of his installation as a Knight of the Bath. The poet now expected some patronage from the new sovereign, but being disappointed, he again courted the muses, and in 1612, published the first part of his most elaborate work, the Polyolbion, the second part of which appeared in 1622. This great performance forms a poetical description of England in thirty books, and is, both in its subject, and in the manner of its execution, entirely unlike any other work in English poetry. It is full of topographical and antiquarian details, with innumerable allusions to remarkable events and persons, as connected with various localities; yet such is the poetical genius of the author, so happily does he idealize almost every thing upon which he touches, and so lively is the flow of his verse, that we do not readily tire in perusing this vast map of intelligence. The information which the 'Polyolbion' imparts, is in general so accurate that it is frequently quoted as authority.

In 1627 Drayton published a volume containing The Battle of Agincourt, The Court of Faerie, and other poems; and three years after appeared his last volume, entitled The Muse's Elysium, from which it appears that he had found a final shelter in the family of the Earl of Dorset. On his death, which occurred in 1631, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a monument, containing an inscription in letters of gold, was raised to his memory by the wife of that nobleman, the celebrated Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke.

Drayton, throughout the whole of his writings, voluminous as they are, shows the fancy and feeling of the true poet. 'He possessed a very considerable fertility of mind, which enabled him to distinguish himself in almost every spe

cies of poetry, from a trifling sonnet to a long topographical poem. If he anywhere sinks below himself, it is in his attempts at satire. In a most pedantic era, he was unaffected, and seldom exhibits his learning at the expense of his judgment.' Our limited space will allow us room for two brief extracts only from the writings of this truly interesting poet; and both those we shall select from the 'Polyolbion.' The first is a description of Morning in Warwickshire, and the other, a description of the River Trent.

MORNING IN WARWICKSHIRE.

When Phoebus lifts his head out of the winter's wave,
No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave,
At such a time as the year brings on the pleasant spring,
But hunts up to the morn the feath'red sylvans sing:
And in the lower grove, as on the rising knole,

Upon the highest spray of every mounting pole,
Those quiristers are perch't, with many a speckled breast,
Then from her burnisht gate the goodly glitt'ring east
Gilds every lofty top, which late the humorous night
Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning's sight;
On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats,
Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes,
That hills and valleys ring, and even the echoing air
Seems all composed of sounds, about them everywhere.
The throstle, with shrill sharps; as purposely he sang
T' awake the listless sun; or chiding, that so long
He was in coming forth, that should the thickets thrill;
The ouzel near at hand, that hath a golden bill,
As nature him had markt of purpose, t' let us see
That from all other birds his tunes should different be:
For with their vocal sounds they sang to pleasant May;
Upon his dulcet pipe the merle? doth only play.
When in the lower brake, the nightingale hard by,

In such lamenting strains the joyful hours doth ply,

As though the other birds she to her tunes would draw;

And, but that nature (by her all-constraining law)

Each bird to her own kind this season doth invite,

They else, alone to hear that charmer of the night,

(The more to use their ears,) their voices sure would spare,
That moduleth her tunes so admirably rare,

As man to set in parts at first had learn'd of her.
To Philomel the next, the linnet we prefer ;

And by that warbling bird, the wood-lark place we then,
The red-sparrow, the nope, the red-breast and the wren.
The yellow-pate; which though she hurt the blooming tree,
Yet scarce hath any bird a finer pipe than she.

And of these chanting fowls, the goldfinch not behind,

That hath so many sorts descending from her kind.

The tydy for her notes as delicate as they,

The laughing hecco, then the counterfeiting jay.

The softer with the shrill (some hid among the leaves,
Some in the taller trees, some in the lower greaves)

1 Headley.

2 Of all birds only the blackbird whistleth.

M

Thus sing away the morn, until the mounting sun,
Through thick exhaled fogs his golden head hath run,
And through the twisted tops of our close covert creeps
To kiss the gentle shade, this while that sweetly sleeps.

THE RIVER TRENT.

But, Muse, return at last, attend the princely Trent,
Who straining on in state, the north's imperious flood,
The third of England call'd, with many a dainty wood,
Being crown'd to Burton comes, to Needwood where she shows
Herself in all her pomp; and as from thence she flows,
She takes into her train rich Dove, and Darwin clear,
Darwin, whose font and fall are both in Derbyshire;
And of those thirty floods, that wait the Trent upon,
Doth stand without compare the very paragon.
Thus wand'ring at her will, as uncontroll'd she ranges,
Her often varying form, as variously and changes;
First Erwash, and then Lyne, sweet Sherwood sends her in;
Then looking wide, as one that newly wak'd had been,
Saluted from the north, with Nottingham's proud height,
So strongly is surpris'd, and taken with the sight,
That she from running wild, but hardly can refrain,
To view in how great state, as she along doth strain,
That brave exalted seat beholdeth her in pride,
As how the large-spread meads upon the other side,
All flourishing in flowers, and rich embroideries dress'd,
In which she sees herself above her neighbours bless'd.
As wrapp'd with the delights, that her this prospect brings
In her peculiar praise, lo thus the river sings:
'What should I care at all, from what my name I take,
That thirty doth import, that thirty rivers make;
My greatness what it is, or thirty abbeys great,
That on my fruitful banks, times formerly did seat;

Or thirty kinds of fish that in my streams do live,
To me this name of Trent, did from that number give?
What reck I? let great Thames, since by his fortune he
Is sovereign of us all that here in Britain be;
From Isis and old Fame his pedigree derive;

And for the second place, proud Severn that doth strive,
Fetch her descent from Wales, from that proud mountain sprung,
Plinillimon, whose praise is frequent them among,

As of that princely maid, whose name she boasts to bear,
Bright Sabine, whom she holds as her undoubted heir,
Let these imperious floods draw down their long descent,
From these so famous stocks, and only say of Trent,
That Moreland's barren earth me first to light did bring,
Which though she be but brown, my clear complexion'd spring
Gain'd with the nymphs such grace, that when I first did rise,
The Naiads on my brim danc'd wanton hydagies,

And on her spacious breast (with heaths that doth abound)
Encircled my fair fount with many a lusty round:

And of the British floods, though but the third I be,
Yet Thames and Severn both in this come short of me,

For that I am the mere of England, that divides
The north part from the south, on my so either sides,
That reckoning how these tracts in compass be extent,
Men bound them on the north, or on the south of Trent;
Their banks are barren sands, if but compar'd with mine,
Through my perspicuous breast, the pearly pebbles shine:
I throw my crystal arms along the flow'ry valleys,
Which lying sleek and smooth as any garden alleys,
Do give me leave to play, whilst they do court my stream,
And crown my winding banks with many an anadem;
My silver-scaled scrolls about my streams do sweep
Now in the shallow fords, now in the falling deep:
So that of every kind, the new spawn'd numerous fry
Seem in me as the sands that on my shore do lie.

EDWARD FAIRFAX, the celebrated translator of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, lived at the period before us, though of the history of his life we have very little knowledge. He was the natural son of Sir Thomas Fairfax, but neither the date of his birth, nor that of his death, has been preserved. That he flourished during the age of Elizabeth is entirely evident, for his great literary performance is dedicated to that princess; and it also appears that he was living in 1631; but nothing farther of him is certainly known, only that he spent his life at Fuystone, in the forest of Knaresborough, in the enjoyment of many blessings which rarely fall to the poetical race --competence, ease, rural scenes, and in ample command of the means of study. The poetical beauty and freedom of Fairfax's version of Tasso has been the theme of almost universal praise. Dryden ranked him with Spenser as a master of the English language, and Waller declared that he derived from him the harmony of his numbers. Collins too has finely alluded to his poetical and imaginative genius in the following lines:

Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind

Believed the magic wonders which he sung.

Besides the translation of the 'Jerusalem Delivered, Fairfax' wrote some minor poems, and also a work on Demonology, in the preface to which he remarks that in religion I am neither a fanatic Puritan, nor superstitious Papist; but so settled in conscience, that I have the sure ground of God's word to warrant all I believe, and the commendable ordinances of our English church to approve all I practice: in which course I live a faithful Christian, and an obedient subject, and so teach my family.'

As Fairfax's original poems are comparatively little known, we shall pass them over, and take the following passage from the eighteenth book of the 'Jerusalem,' commencing with the twelfth stanza :—

RINALDI AT MOUNT OLIVET AND THE ENCHANTED WOOD.

XII.

It was the time, when 'gainst the breaking day,
Rebellious night yet strove, and still repined,
For in the cast appear'd the morning gray,
And yet some lamps in Jove's high palace shined,