whether to call the thoughts more poetical or philosophically just. The judgment and the fancy are reconciled, and the imagery of the poem seems to start more vividly from the surrounding shades of abstraction.' From this poem, the versification of which was afterward copied by Davenant and Dryden, we extract the following passage-

THE DIGNITY OF MAN.

Oh! what is man, great Maker of mankind!
That thou to him so great respect dost bear;
That thou adorn'st him with so bright a mind,
Mak'st him a king, and even an angel's peer?
Oh! what a lively life, what heav'nly pow'r,
What spreading virtue, what a sparkling fire,
How great, how plentiful, how rich a dow'r
Dost thou within this dying flesh inspire!

Thou leav'st thy print in other works of thine,
But thy whole image thou in man has writ;
There can not be a creature more divine,
Except, like thee, it should be infinite.

But it exceeds man's thought, to think how high
God hath rais'd man, since God a man became;
The angels do admire this mystery,

And are astonish'd when they view the same:

Nor hath he given these blessings for a day,
Nor made them on the body's life depend;
The soul, though made in time, survives for aye;
And though it hath beginning, sees no end.

in another production, the 'Orchestra, or Poem of Dancing, in a Dialogue between Penelope and one of her Wooers,' Davies is much more fanciful than in the previous poem. He there represents Penelope as declining to dance with Antinous, and the latter as proceeding to lecture her upon the antiquity of that elegant exercise, the merit of which he describes in verses partaking peculiarly of the flexibility and grace of the subject. Of this performance, the following is one of the most imaginative passages:

THE DANCING OF THE AIR.

And now behold your tender nurse, the air,
And common neighbour, that aye runs around,

How many pictures and impressions fair

Within her empty regions are there found,
Which to your senses dancing do propound;
For what are breath, speech, echoes, music, winds,
But dancings of the air in sundry kinds.

For when you breathe, the air in order moves,
Now in, now out, in time and measure true,
And when you speak, so well she dancing loves,
That doubling oft, and oft redoubling new,
With thousand forms she doth herself endue:

For all the words that from your lips repair,
Are naught but tricks and turnings of the air.

Hence is her prattling daughter, Echo, born,
That dances to all voices she can hear:
There is no sound so harsh that she doth scorn,
Nor any time wherein she will forbear

The airy pavement with her feet to wear:
And yet her hearing sense is nothing quick,
For after time she endeth ev'ry trick.

And thou, sweet Music, dancing's only life,

The ear's sole happiness, the air's best speech,
Loadstone of fellowship, charming rod of strife,

The soft mind's paradise, the sick mind's leech,
With thine own tongue thou trees and stones can teach,
That when the air doth dance her finest measure,
Then art thou born, the gods, and men's sweet pleasure.

Lastly where keep the Winds, their revelry,

Their violent turnings, and wild whirling hays,

But in the air's translucent gallery?

Where she herself is turn'd a hundred ways,

While with those maskers wantonly she plays:
Yet in this misrule, they shall rule embrace,
As two at once encumber not the place.

Davies wrote a number of pieces in prose also; and the first Reports of Law Cases, published in Ireland, proceeded from his able and accomplished pen. The preface to the volume containing these Reports is considered the best that was ever prefixed to a law-book.

JOHN DONNE, the poet whom we are next to notice, was of respectable parentage, and was born in London, 1573. His mother was descended from the family of Sir Thomas More, and his parents being both rigidly attached to the Romish religion, had their son's education attended to at home until he reached the eleventh year of his age, when he was sent to the university of Oxford; where, such was the precociousness of intellect that he evinced, that one of his tutors, through admiration of his early genius, remarked, that he was rather born wise than made so by study.' His acquirements in learning at the university realized all that his early mental developments had promised; so that at the expiration of three years he was prepared for the bachelor's degree--an honor which he was compelled to forego, as the religious sentiments of his parents would not allow him to take the oath of allegiance which the occasion required. Having passed three years at Oxford he entered the university of Cambridge, where he also remained for the same length of time; but as the difficulties in the way of obtaining university honors prevailed there also, which had existed at Oxford. he now relinquished collegiate studies, repaired to London, and entered Lincoln's Inn as a student of law. He had, however, no predilection for the legal profession; and as his father, who had been a merchant, died before he

was admitted into Lincoln's Inn society, and left him a fortune of three thousand pounds, he at once relinquished the law, and resolved to pass some years upon the continent. Before he should leave England, however, he determined thoroughly to investigate the relative claims the Romish faith, in which he had been brought up, and the Protestant, had upon his belief. Of this investigation he himself gives the following account:-' I had a longer work to do in this inquiry than many other men: for I was first to blot out certain impressions of the Roman religion, and to wrestle against the examples, and against the reasons by which some hold was taken, and some anticipations early laid upon my conscience, both by persons who by nature had a power and superiority over my will, and others, who, by their learning and good life, seemed to me justly to claim an interest for the guiding and rectifying of mine understanding in these matters." The result of this inquiry was a thorough conversion to Protestantism; of which he remarks, 'I was not transported by any sudden and violent determination, till I had, to the measure of my poor wit and judgment, surveyed and digested the whole body of divinity, controverted between ours and the Romish church. In which such an disquisition that God, which awakened me then, and hath never forsaken me in that industry, as he is the author of that purpose, so he is a witness of this protestation, that I proceeded therein with humility and diffidence in myself, and by that, which by his grace, I took to be the ordinary means, frequent prayer and equal actions.'

Having thus settled the momentous question of his religious faith, Donne, in 1596, accompanied the Earl of Essex into Spain, and after spending about a year in that country and acquiring a knowledge of the Spanish language, he visited Italy, intending to embark thence for Palestine, to view Jerusalem and the sepulchre of our Saviour. He was, however, disappointed in the company with whom he had arranged to make the journey, and he therefore returned to England, after having remained in Italy a sufficient length of time to become familiar with the language of that country.

Soon after his return to England, Donne was appointed by Sir Thomas Egerton, lord-keeper of the great seal, his chief secretary; but he had filled. this important place only a few years before he clandestinely married Anne, the daughter of Sir George More, and niece of the lord-keeper. Sir George was so incensed at this conduct on the part of Donne, as to insist that Sir Thomas Egerton should dismiss him from his service. Sir Thomas complied with his friend and relative's request, but in parting with his secretary he remarked that Mr. Donne was fitter to serve a king than a subject.' A long altercation, and even a law-suit followed between Donne and his father-in-law, during the whole of which the former resided with his relative, Sir Francis Wolley, who eventually succeeded in reconciling the parties, and obtaining from Sir George eight hundred pounds as his daughter's marriage portion. Sir Francis Wolley dying soon after, Donne sought a home and employment with Sir Robert Drury, through whose influence he obtained in 1610 the degree of master of arts from the university of Oxford.

In 1612, Sir Robert Drury was sent ambassador to the court of France, and thither Donne accompanied him as his secretary. Meantime, many of the nobility were urgent with the king to confer some secular employment upon him worthy of his singular merits; but James who was familiar with his talents and attainments, desired him to enter the church, and would hear of no other arrangement. About this important step Donne for some time hesitated; but at length he consented to comply with the king's request, and was, accordingly, ordained by Doctor King, bishop of London, and soon after appointed by his royal patron, dean of St. Paul's with the degree of doctor of divinity conferred upon him, at the king's request, by the university of Cambridge. In this position Donne passed the remainder of his life, honored and respected even by nobility itself, until his death, which occurred on the thirty-first of March, 1631. He was buried in the cathedral church of St. Paul's, where a suitable monument was soon after erected to his memory.

The poetical works of Donne consist of satires, elegies, religious poems, complimentary verses, and epigrams. His reputation as a poet, was, in his own day, very great; and though during the latter part of the seventeenth and the whole of the eighteenth century it was comparatively low, it has lately revived again. It is now generally acknowledged that amid much rubbish, there is much real poetry, and that of a high order, in his writings. He is usually considered as the first of a series of poets of the seventeenth century, who, under the name of Metaphysical Poets, fill a conspicuous place in English literary history. The directness of thought, the naturalness of description, the rich abundance of genuine poetical feeling and imagery, which distinguished the poets of Elizabeth's reign, now began to give way to cold and forced conceits, mere vain workings of the intellect, a kind of poetry as unlike the former as punning is unlike genuine wit. This quality, it should be remarked, however, did not characterize the whole of the poetry of Donne and his followers. These writers are often direct, natural, and truly poetical. Donne is usually considered the first writer of that kind of satire which Pope afterward carried to perfection. From this poet's various poems we select the following curious specimen :

THE WILL.

Before I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,
Great Love, some legacies: I here bequeath
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see;

If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee;
My tongue to Fame; to ambassadors mine ears;
To women, or the sea, my tears;

Thou, Love, hast taught me here to fall,

By making me serve her who had twenty more,

That I should give to none but such as had too much before.

My constancy I to the planets give;

My truth to them who at the court do live;

Mine ingenuity and openness

To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;
My silence to any who abroad have been;
My money to a Capuchin.

Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me
To love there, where no love received can be,
Only to give to such as have no good capacity.

My faith I give to Roman Catholics;

All my good works unto the schismatics

Of Amsterdam; my best civility

And courtship to an university;

My modesty I give to soldiers bare;
My patience let gamesters share;

Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me
Love her that holds my love disparity,

Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

I give my reputation to those

Which were my friends; mine industry to foes;

To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness;

My sickness to physicians, or excess;

To Nature all that I in rhyme have writ!
And to my company, my wit:

Thou, Love, by making me adore

He who begot this love in me before,

Taught'st me to make as though I gave, when I do but restore.

To him for whom the passing bell next tolls

I give my physic books; my written rolls

Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give;

My brazen medals, unto them which live

In want of bread; to them which pass among
All foreigners, my English tongue:

Thou, Love, by making me love one

Who thinks her friendship a fit portion

For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo

The world by dying, because love dies too.

Then all your beauties will be no more worth

Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth,

And all your graces no more use shall have

Than a sun-dial in a grave.

Thou Love, taught'st me, by making me

Love her who doth neglect both me and thee,

To invent and practice this one way to annihilate all three.

Doctor DONNE's poems, it must be remembered, were written chiefly in early life. After he took orders he indulged very little in the poetic vein, though his fancy, as will appear from the following extract from his sermons, was still very fruitful

GOD SHOULD BE WORSHIPED EVERYWHERE.

It is true, God may be devoutly worshiped anywhere; in all places of his dominion, my soul shall praise the Lord, says David. It is not only a concurring of men,