All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him. Listen to Phineas Fletcher, another poet of the golden age; how fresh and invigorating is the fcene which he presents to our view! and how fimple and healthy are the occupations of the folding and unfolding of the flock, which form the fole charge and only care of the gentle and happy fhepherds! Thrice, oh thrice happy, shepherd's life and state! His cottage low and safely humble gate Shuts out proud Fortune with her scorns and fawns: Instead of music and base flattering tongues, Or sing, or dance unto the rural muses; And but in music's sports all difference refuses. His certain life, that never can deceive him, Is full of thousand sweets and rich content : His life is neither toss'd in boist'rous seas Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease; Pleased and full blest he lives, when he his God can please. D His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps, The lively picture of his father's face: Never his humble house nor state torment him : Less he could like, if less his God had sent him; And when he dies, green turfs with grassy tomb content him. With the dawn of day the fhepherds awaken to the pleasant call of John Fletcher, the companion of Beaumont,— Shepherds, rise and shake off sleep- With his rising flames, which grow Brighter with his climbing still Up! ye lazy swains! and fill Bag and bottle for the field! Clasp your cloaks fast, lest they yield To the bitter north-east wind; Call the maidens up, and find At close of day, the flocks are to be folded, fo Shepherds all, and maidens fair, See the dew-drops, how they kiss And let your dogs lie loose without, Lest the wolf come as a scout From the mountain, and, ere day, Bear a lamb or kid away; Or the crafty thievish foe Break upon your simple flocks. To secure yourself from these Be not too secure in ease; So shall you good shepherds prove, And deserve your master's love. Now, good night! may sweetest slumbers And soft silence fall in numbers On your eyelids! so farewell! Thus I end my evening knell ! There are few portraits drawn with greater care, or finish, than that one by the hands of Sir Thomas Overbury, of "A Fayre and happy milk-maid." "The golden eares of corne fall and kiffe her feet when she reapes them as if they wifht to be bound and led prifoners by the fame hand that fell'd them. Her breath is her own, which scents all the yeare long of June, like a new made hay cocke. She makes her hand hard with labour, and her heart foft with pity; and when winter evenings fall early (fitting at her merrie wheele), fhe fings a defiance to the giddy wheele of fortune. She doth all things with fo fweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not fuffer her to do ill, feeing her mind is to doe well. The garden and bee-hive are all her phyfick and chyrurgerye, and fhe lives the longer for't. She dares goe alone, and unfold sheepe i' the night, and feares no manner of ill because she means none; yet, to say truth, fhe is never alone, for she is still accompanied with old fongs, honeft thoughts, and prayers, but short ones, yet they have their efficacy in that they are not pauled with enfuing idle cogitations. Thus lives fhe, and all her care is that she may die in the Spring-time, to have store of flowers ftucke upon her winding sheete." England has shepherds now, and her hills and dales afford pasture for countless flocks; but it is not "merrie England,” as in the days of yore: it is a land of exports and imports, a huge trading nation, the battle-ground of competition; the arena of peaceful—or, as it is the fashion to term it, "industrial strife.” Dyer's prophecy, in his poem of "The Fleece," now a century old, is rapidly being fulfilled. Shall we burst strong Darien's chain, And through the great Pacific every joy Of civil life diffuse? Are not her isles Numerous and large? Have they not harbours calm, |