Brings each rare wit to sun from shade

To weare the laurell croune.

True stories old, with new delite

Shall fill your harts and eares;
For they of poets' praises write,

Their books good witness beares.*

If aunshent authors and great kings
No credit gets herein;

Darke sight sees not no stately things,
That doth great glory win.†

Plucke up cleere judgment from the pit
Of poore esprit and sense,

And wipe the slime from slubber'd wit,
And looke on this defence,

That Sydney makes a matchlesse worke,
A matter fresh and new,

That did long while in silence lurke,
And seldome came to view. ||

He cals them poets, that embrace
True vertue in her kinde,

And do not run with rimes at bace,
With wanton blotted minde. §

Lelius, a Roman, and Socrates, both were poets.

James the First, that was King of Scotland, and K. James the Sixt, now raigning, great poets.

The Greeke Socrates put Æsop's fables into verse, and Aristotle wrate the arte of poetric.

art.

Emperors, kings, captains, and senators, were poets, and favoured the

5 Adrian and Sophocles, great poets.

All

* Of our neerer time, the patrons of poetry, Robert, King of Cecill, [Sicily] and the great Francis, King of France.

† Cardinal Bembus, and Bibiena.

Famous teachers and preachers, Beza and Melancthon.

Learned philosophers, Fracastorius and Scaliger.

S Great and good orators, Pontanus and Muretus.

**And beyond all these, the hospitall of France being builded on vertue,

gave poets a singular commendation.

So

So ruling pen, as duties bounds,

B kept in evry part;

For when the poet trumpet sounds,

It must be done by art.

As though a sweete consort should plaie
On instruments most fine,

And shew their musicke evry waie,

With daintie notes divine.*

Each string in tune, as concord were
The guide of all the glee,

Whose harmonie must please the eare,
With musicke franke and free.t

The poets lyra must be strung
With wire of silver sound,
That all his verses may be sung
With maidens in a round.

So chaste and harınless should they be,
As words from preacher's voice,
With spiced speech in each degree
Wherein good men rejoice.‡

Not farsed full of follies light

That beares ne poise nor weight,

But flying cleer in air-like flight,

Whose force mounts up an height."

[To be continued.]

T.P.

Alexander kept the books of Homer in Darius his jewel-casket.

+ Menander, the comicke poet, being sent for by embassadors of Macedonia and Ægipt, preferred the conscience of learning, before kinglie for

tunes.

Augustus Cæsar wrate familiar epistles unto Horace, which Horace in his life was advanced to the tribuneship of soldiers, and when he died he left Augustus Cæsar his heire.

ART.

ART. XVIII. Memoirs of the Life of Col. Hutóhinson, Governor of Nottingham Castle and Town, Representative of the County of Nottingham in the Long Parliament and of the Town of Nottingham in the First Parliament of Charles II. &c. With original Anecdotes of many of the most distinguished of his Cotemporaries, and a Summary Review of Public Affairs. Written by his Widow Lucy, daughter of Sir Allen Apsley, Lieutenant of the Tower, &c. Now first published from the Original Manuscript by the Rev. Julius Hutchinson, &c. &c. To which is prefixed the Life of Mrs. Hutchinson, written by Herself, a Fragment. London. Printed for Longman and Co. 1806. 4to. pp. 460.

This is a book of singular interest and indeed importance, of which, though lately published, yet having been written so many years past, the notice in this work will not be out of place. "Surely," observes the Editor, "we risque little in saying that the history of a period the most remarkable in the British annals, written one hundred and fifty years ago by a lady, of elevated birth, of a most comprehensive and highly cultivated mind, herself a witness of many of the scenes she describes, and active in several of them, is a literary curiosity of no mean sort."

It is indeed the most impressive of all the books on that side of the question, which I recollect to have read. The character of a man of inflexible virtue, actuated solely by the purest principles of patriotism, opposing

VOL. IV.

E

posing tyranny without a taint of the hatred of greatness; seeking the post of difficulty and danger without a wish for the vanity of rank and honours; a zealous. and energetic supporter of his cause; yet frank and discriminative; and free from the virulence, and rant,. and prejudices of party, when party raged in its utmost fury, commands such respect and admiration, that we listen to his opinions, and pursue his actions, with feelings of involuntary inclination towards them!

Under the influence of opinions founded on the experience of a series of various and complicated events which have since occurred, I have hitherto thought that had I lived in those times, I should have been a fixed and undoubting Royalist. But perhaps the principles of Col. Hutchinson, as enforced by the arguments and eloquence of his heroic, virtuous, and highlyaccomplished wife, might then have made me hesitate. No rational man can question that the sentiments and conduct of the Monarch and his Ministry, did actually not only threaten, but intrench upon, the just liberties of the people. Some resistance became necessary: circumstances, in which both parties were perhaps to blame, at length caused the scabbard to be thrown away; and from that moment the purest and wisest patriots might think, and perhaps think rightly, that there was no medium between victory and despotism.

It cannot be denied, that they, who taxed Charles I. with insincerity, had strong appearances on their side. Perhaps it resulted from some of the many amiable traits in his character; from that ductility, and diffidence of his own opinions and resolves, which made him a dupe to artful, yet less wise, advisers; but

whether