GEORGE HERBERT,

Third brother of the celebrated Lord Herbert of Cherbury, was born in 1593. Nature seems to have intended him for a knight errant, but disappointed ambition made him a saint. Walton tells us that no less than 10,000 copies of his poems were sold; a circumstance which proves the religious zeal, much more than the good taste, of his contemporaries. He was fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and orator of the University; and (because not desiring, says Fuller) had no higher preferment than the benefice of Bemmerton, near Salisbury, and the prebend of Leighton, in the cathedral of Lincoln; at the former of which he built a parsonage, and at the latter a church. He died about 1635.

LIFE.

IM

MADE a posy, while the day ran by:
Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
My life within this band.

But time did beckon to the flow'rs, and they
By noon, most cunningly, did steal away,
And wither in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then

my

heart; I took, without more thinking, in good part,

Time's gentle admonition;

Who did so sweetly death's sad taste convey,
Making my mind to smell my fatal day,

Yet sugaring the suspicion.

Farewell, dear flow'rs! sweetly your time ye spent, Fit, while ye liv'd, for smell and ornament,

And after death, for cures.

I follow straight, without complaints or grief,
Since, if my scent be good, I care not if

It be as short as yours.

ISAAC WALTON.

This author was born in 1593, and died 1683. He is justly celebrated for his biographical pieces, and has described the characters of Sir H. Wotton, Donne, Hooker, and Herbert, with a degree of minuteness, which he alone could render interesting. But he is principally known by his "Com"plete Angler;" a truly original treatise on the theory of an art from which the invincible patience of some men is able to extract amusement.

THE ANGLER'S WISH.

I IN these flowery meads would be:
These chrystal streams should solace me;
To whose harmonious bubbling noise,

I with my angle would rejoice,

Sit here, and see the turtle dove
Court his chaste mate to acts of love.

Or on that bank, feel the west wind
Breathe health and plenty, please my mind
To see sweet dew-drops kiss these flowers,
And then wash'd off by April-showers;

There hear my Kenna sing a song, Here see a black-bird feed her young,

Or a leverock build her nest;

Here give my weary spirits rest,

And raise my low-pitch'd thoughts above
Earth, or what poor mortals love:

Thus free from law-suits, and the noise
Of princes' courts I would rejoice.

Or with my Bryan, and a book,
Loiter long days near Shawford-brook ;
There sit by him and eat my meat,
There see the sun both rise and set:
There bid good morning to next day,
There meditate my time away,
And angle on, and beg to have
A quiet passage to a welcome grave.

1 Laverock, lark.

2

Supposed to be the name of a favourite dog.

JAMES SHIRLEY,

Was born in London, about 1594, educated at Merchant Taylors' School, entered at St. John's College, Oxford, and afterwards removed to Cambridge. He successively became an English divine, a Popish schoolmaster, and a deservedly celebrated writer of plays (of which he published 39) from 1629 to 1660. He died in 1666 immediately after the great fire of London, and was interred in the same grave with his second wife, who died the same day, and was supposed, as well as Shirley, to have owed her death to the fright occasioned by that calamity. Besides his plays he published a volume of poems, 1646.

UPON HIS MISTRESS SAD.

MELANCHOLY hence! and get

Some piece of earth to be thy seat.
Here, the air and nimble fire
Would shoot up to meet desire:
Sullen humour leave her blood,
Mix not with the purer flood,
But let pleasures swelling here
Make a spring-tide all the year.