Or to the groves, where birds, from heate or weather,
Sit sweetly tuning of their noates together;

Or to a meade a wanton river dresses
With richest collers of her turning esses;

Or where the shepheards sit old stories telling;
Chronos, my syre, hath no set place of dwelling;
But if the shepheard meete the aged swaine,

He tels him of his sheepe, or shewes them slaine."

This short passage is, beyond a doubt, imitated from Shakspeare's well-known song in Love's Labour Lost.

"In winter's time, when hardly fed the flockes,
And isicles hung dangling on the rockes;
When Hyems bound the floods in silver chaines,
And hoary frosts had candy'd all the plaines;
When every barne rung with the threshing flailes,
And shepheards' boyes for cold gan blow their nailes :"

The following passage has been remarked by Warton, as containing an assemblage of the same images as the morning picture in the L'Allegro of Milton.

"By this had Chanticlere, the village-cocke,
Bidden the good-wife for her maides to knocke:
And the swart plow-man for his breakfast staid,
That he might till those lands were fallow laid;
The hills and vallies here and there resound
With the re-ecchoes of the deepe-mouth'd hound;
Each shepheard's daughter with her cleanly paile,
Was come a-field to milke the morning's meale;
And ere the sunne had clymb'd the easterne hils,
To gild the mutt'ring bournes and pritty rils,
Before the lab'ring bee had left the hive,
And nimble fishes, which in rivers dive,
Began to leape, and catch the drowned flie,
I rose from rest, not infelicitie."

The following extract is a favorable specimen of our poet's power in collecting forcible images, and expressing them in felicitous language. Speaking of a walk in a thick wood:

"So 'twixt those hils had Nature fram'd this walke,
Not over darke, nor light, in angles bending,
And like the gliding of a snake descending:
All husht and silent as the mid of night:
No chatt'ring pie nor crow appear'd in sight;

But further in I heard the turtle-dove,
Singing sad dirges on her lifelesse love,

Birds that compassion from the rocks could bring,
Had onely license in that place to sing:
Whose dolefull noates the melancholly cat
Close in a hollow tree sate wond'ring at.
And trees, that on the hill-side comely grew,
When any little blast of Æol blew,

Did nod their curled heads, as they would be
The judges to approve their melody."

The poems of Browne are above all remarkable for their opulence, richness, and propriety of phrase. He possessed an extraordinary command over his native tongue, and collects compounds, and applies his words and expressions with a curious felicity.-Nor does he confine himself within acknowledged and accustomed forms of speech, like the poets of the French school; but takes the liberty of inventing any combination of words, which will precisely, definitely, and forcibly, convey the image which is dwelling on his mind. This peculiar freedom of expression and propriety of phrase is by no means uncommon in many of the poets of the present day, who are, in reality, of the old school revived. In truth, that which has been termed unbounded license, and even vulgarity, in the poems of Leigh Hunt and others, is frequently neither more nor less than a free imitation of the old English masters of the art, whose spirit they have imbibed, with the addition of the ease and point of modern versification. It is given to few, to revel at will in the wide sea of English words and phrases; and the only way to attain it, is to study the forms of expression made use of when our language luxuriated in its early vigour, and to cast off the trammels im posed by the paring and trimming despotism of a foreign taste. Many of the old poets are, indeed, nearly worthless, except as studies for poetical expression-Browne, however, has other beauties.-Examples of his originality and force of expression, as well as of his various melody of versification, are scattered over all the quotations we have made; but, perhaps, they more particularly occur in the passages which follow.

"So when the prettie rill a place espies,

Where with the pebbles she would wantonize;

And that her upper streame so much doth wrong her,
To drive her thence, and let her play no longer;
If she with too loud mutt'ring ranne away,
As being much incens'd to leave her play;
A westerne, mild, and pretty whispering gale,
Came dallying with the leaves along the dale,

And seem'd as with the water it did chide,
Because it ranne so long unpacifide:

Yea, and me-thought it bad her leave that coyle,
Or he would choake her up with leaves and soyle:
Whereat the rivelet in my minde did weepe,

And hurl'd her head into a silent deepe."

Take the following short quotation, for the same purpose :

"As when some gale of winde doth nimbly take

A faire white locke of wooll, and with it make

Some prettie driving; here it sweepes the plaine:

There staies, here hops, there mounts, and turnes againe :
Yet all so quicke, that none so soone can say
That now it stops, or leapes, or turnes away:
So was their dancing, none look'd thereupon,
But thought their severall motions to be one."
As also this:

"And as the yeere hath first his jocund spring,
Wherein the leaves, to birds' sweete carrolling,
Dance with the winde: then sees the summer's day
Perfect the embrion blossome of each
spray:
Next commeth autumne, when the threshed sheafe
Looseth his graine, and every tree his leafe:
Lastly, colde winter's rage, with many a storme,
Threats the proud pines which Ida's toppe adorne,
And makes the sappe leave succourlesse the shoote,
Shrinking to comfort his decaying roote.

Or as a quaint musitian being won,
To run a point of sweete division,
Gets by degrees unto the highest key;
Then, with like order, falleth in his play
Into a deeper tone; and lastly, throwes
His period in a diapazon close:

So every humane thing terrestriall,

His utmost height attain'd, bends to his fall.
And as a comely youth, in fairest age,
Enamour'd on a maide

Carried unto a place, that can impart
No secret embassie unto his heart,

Climbes some proud hill, whose stately eminence

Vassals the fruitfull vale's circumference:

From whence, no sooner can his lights descry
The place enriched by his mistresse' eye:

But some thicke cloud his happy prospect blends,
And he, in sorrow rais'd, in tears descends."

Our poet not unfrequently alludes to himself, and betrays the very amiable qualities of his character. We may gather, for instance, from the following, his love of poesy; and that he was under twenty years of age when he wrote this first book of the pastorals.

"Here could I spend that spring of poesie,

Which not twice ten sunnes have bestow'd on me;
And tell the world, the muse's love appeares
In nonag'd youth, as in the length of yeeres.
But ere my muse erected have the frame,
Wherein t' enshrine an unknowne shepheard's name,
She many a grove and other woods must treade,
More hils, more dales, more founts, must be displaid,
More meadowes, rockes, and from them all elect
Matter befitting such an architect."

The single passage which follows, ought alone to redeem William Browne from oblivion.-No where is a disinterested attachment to the muses expressed in so noble a vein.-No where is the assured confidence which genius always feels, of being appreciated by posterity, more modestly, more sublimely, set forth. This strain is of a higher mood-this possesses a moral and elevated beauty, far superior to mere poetical grace and fitness of imagery. And the ease and the felicity of the versification are as remarkable, as the self-possessed loftiness of the

sentiment.

"No thirst of glory tempts me: for my straines
Befit poore shepheards on the lowly plaines;
The hope of riches cannot draw from me
One line that tends to servile flatterie,
Nor shall the most in titles on the earth
Blemish my muse with an adulterate birth,
Nor make me lay pure colours on a ground
Where nought substantiall can be ever found.
No; such as sooth a base and dunghill spirit,
With attributes fit for the most of merit,
Cloud their free muse;

My free-borne muse will not, like Danaë, be
Wonne with base drosse to clip with slavery;
Nor lend her choiser balme to worthlesse men,
Whose names would die but for some hired pen;
No: if I praise, vertue shall draw me to it,
And not a base procurement make me doe it.
What now I sing is but to passe away
A tedious houre, as some musitians play;
Or make another my owne griefes bemone;
Or to be least alone when most alone.
In this can I, as oft as I will chuse,
Hug sweet content by my retyred muse,
And in a study finde as much to please
As others in the greatest pallaces.
Each man that lives (according to his powre)
On what he loves, bestowes an idle howre;
Instead of hounds, that make the wooded hils
Talke in a hundred voyces to the rils,
I like the pleasing cadence of a line
Strucke by the concert of the sacred Nine.
In lieu of hawkes, the raptures of my soule
Transcend their pitch, and baser earths controule.
For running horses, contemplation flyes

With quickest speed to winne the greatest prize.
For courtly dancing, I can take more pleasure
To heare a verse keepe time and equall measure.
For winning riches, seeke the best directions
How I
may
well subdue mine owne affections.
For raysing stately pyles for heyres to come,

Here in this poem I erect my toombe.

And Time may be so kinde, in these weake lines
To keepe my name enroll'd, past his, that shines

In gilded marble, or in brazen leaves:

Since verse preserves when stone and brasse deceives.

Or if (as worthlesse) Time not lets it live

To those full days which others' muses give,
Yet I am sure I shall be heard and sung
Of most severest eld, and kinder young
Beyond my dayes, and maugre Envye's strife,
Adde to my name some houres beyond my life.
Such of the muses are the able powres,
And, since with them I spent my vacant houres,
I find nor hawke, nor hound, nor other thing,
Tournyes nor revels, pleasures for a king,
Yeeld more delight; for I have oft possest
As much in this as all in all the rest,