Oft in a smile : oft in a silent tear :
And if all fail, yet virtue's self he'll hire.

Himself's a dart, when nothing else can move:

Who then the captive soul can well reprove, When love and virtue's self become the darts of love. SIR JOHN BEAUMONT,

Brother of Francis Beaumont, and author of “ Bosworth

“ Field,” and other poems, 1629. According to Wood, he was entered at Oxford, in 1596, at the age of 14, consequently born in 1582.

DESCRIPTION OF LOVE.

Love is a region full of fires,
And burning with extreme desires ;

An object seeks, of which possess'd
The wheels are fix'd, the motions rest,

The flames in ashes lie oppress’d.
This meteor, striving high to rise,
(The fuel spent) falls down and dies.

Why then should lovers (most will say)
Expect so much th' enjoying day?

Love is like youth: he thirsts for age,
He scorns to be his mother's page;

But when proceeding times assuage
The former heat, he will complain,
And wish those pleasant hours again.

We know that Hope and Love are twins ;
Hope gone, fruition now begins :

But what is this ? unconstant, frail,
In nothing sure, but sure to fail,
Which, if we lose it, we bewail ;
And when we have it, still we bear
· The worst of passions, daily fear!

When Love thus in his centre ends,
Desire and Hope, his inward friends,

Are shaken off; while Doubt and Grief,
The weakest givers of relief,

Stand in his council as the chief.
And now he to his period brought,
From Love becomes some other thought.

These lines I write not to remove
United souls from serious love:

The best attempts by mortals made
Reflect on things which quickly fade;

Yet never will I men persuade
To leave affections, where may shine
Impressions of the love divine.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

John Fletcher was born in 1576, and Francis Beaumont in

1585; but it is impossible to separate two names so closely united during their lives. It is generally supposed that Fletcher was superior in wit and imagination, Beaumont (though the younger man) in taste and judgment. Their carliest composition was the “ Woman Hater,” printed in 1607, 4to.

SONG.

[In the Knight of the Burning Pestie.]
'Tis mirth that fills the veins with blood,
More than wine, or sleep, or food.
Let each man keep his heart at ease :
No man dies of that disease.
He that would his body keep
From diseases, must not weep:
But, whoever laughs and sings,
Never he his body brings
Into fevers, gouts, or rheums,
Or ling’ringly his life consumes ;
Or meets with aches of the bone,
Or catarrhs, or griping stone :

But contented lives for aye.
The more he laughs the more he may.

SONG.

[From the Tragedy of the Bloody Brother.)

Take, oh take those lips away,

That so sweetly were forsworn; And those eyes, the break of day

Lights, that do mislead the morn. But my kisses bring again, Seals of love, tho' seal'd in vain.

Hide, oh hide those hills of snow

That thy frozen bosom bears ; On whose tops the pinks that grow

Are of those that April wears ; But my poor heart first set free, Bound in those icy chains by thee,