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Shakspeare and the poets of the former age speak of love! How different the impassioned tone of old Middleton, who

says

The treasures of the deep are not so precious
As are the conceal'd comforts of a man,
Lock'd up in woman's love.

How differently Master Chapman; who asks,

And didst thou know the comfort of two hearts
In one delicious harmony united?

As to joy one joy, and think both one thought;
Live both one life, and therein double life,
To see their soules met at an enterview;
In their bright eyes, at parlè in their lippes,
Their language kisses; and t' observe the rest,
Touches, embraces, and each circumstance
Of all love's most unmatcht ceremonies.

But in the times, when the little work before us was published, it does not seem that he who wrote of love was required to feel it; ' poets,' as Cowley observes, in his preface to his Mistress,' 'were scarcely thought freemen of their company, without paying some duties, or obliging themselves to be true to love; in other words, first trying their pens in love-verses before they girded themselves up for more important undertakings. The truth of the matter is, it was the fashion for men of polite accomplishments to amuse themselves and their friends in this way. And whether they possessed, or fancied a mistress of undeniable charms, it was pretty nearly the same thing. The verses were not supposed to be the dictates of passion, but the amusements of an idle hour; not the tributes of deep affection, but the compliments of gallantry. And if, in the course of this exercise, the writer seldom reached either sublimity or pathos, yet practice gave him facility and sometimes elegance of composition. If he did not discover a hidden vein of genius in himself, and become a real poet, as Cowley and one or two others did, yet, he contented himself with the praise of an accomplished versifier. This is nearly all the merit which Robert Heath, the poet before us, has any right to claim, and that he has not been successful in maintaining with posterity. In truth, they who look into his volume with any other but a Retrospective' eye, will probably lay it down with feelings little short of contempt. But we are not accustomed thus to give way to despair. We have taken upon ourselves to read for those whose time is too valuable, or whose patience is too small to read, for themselves,

and are not easily damped by page after page of frigid hyperbole, or perverse conceit. In the dullest writers, a spark of brighter intelligence is sometimes visible; and in the authors, whose chief fault or rather misfortune it is that they lived in an age when false principles and bad taste ruled the fashion, it is hard if the natural genius of the man does not now and then break out into strains worth recording. And in the worst case, when a rhymester has little to recommend him but long practice with his pen, we consider ourselves unfortunate indeed, if we do not find his verse run sometimes with ease, and occasionally mount to elegance. Such perhaps, if not greater, is the merit of the following stanzas, being the three first of the verses entitled, What is Love?'

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""Tis a child of phansie's getting,

Brought up between hope and fear,
Fed with smiles, grown by uniting
Strong, and so kept by desire:

"Tis a perpetual vestal fire
Never dying,

Whose smoak like incense doth aspire,
Upwards flying.

It is a soft magnetick stone,

Attracting hearts by sympathie,
Binding up close two souls in one,

Both discoursing secretlie:
'Tis the true gordian knot that ties
Yet ne'r unbinds,

Fixing thus two lovers' eies
As wel as minds.

'Tis the spheres' heavenly harmonie
Where two skilful hands do strike;

And every sound expressively

Marries sweetly with the like:

'Tis the world's everlasting chain
That all things ti'd,

And bid them like the fixed wain

Unmov'd to bide."

The following song, also, possesses similar merit, perhaps in a higher degree.

"Invest my head with fragrant rose
That on fair Flora's bosome grows!
Distend my veins with purple juyce,
That mirth may through my soul diffuse!

"Tis wine and love, and love in wine,
Inspires our youth with flames divine.
Thus crown'd with Paphian myrtle, I
In Cyprian shades wil bathing lie,
Whose snow if too much cooling, then
Bacchus shal warm my blood agen.

"Tis wine and love, and love in wine,
Inspires our youth with flames divine.
Life's short, and winged pleasures flie;
Who mourning live, do living die:
On down and flouds then swan-like I
Wil stretch my limbs, and singing die.
"Tis wine and love, and love in wine,
Inspires our youth with flames divine."

The stanzas to Clarastella, which we shall next extract, are of a higher order of poetry, and combine with exquisite ease of versification considerable moral beauty.

""Tis not your beautie I admire,

Nor the bright star-light of each eie,
Nor do I from their beams take fire
My love's torch to enlighten, I:
No: 'tis a glorie more divine
Kindles my tapour at your shrine.

Your comly presence takes not me,

Nor your much more inviting meen;
Nor your sweet looks; tho' graces be,
Fair creature! in your picture seen.
No: 'tis your soul to which I bow,
"Tis none of these I love, but you.

How blind is that philosophie

Doth onely natʼral bodies know?
That views each orb o'th' glorious skie,
But sees not him that made it so.
I love thy informing part, i'th' whol

And every part, thy all; thy soul."

In the following lines, which commence The Farewell to Clarastella, the reader will see how the poet endeavours to cast himself into a huge fit of melancholy-but in vain.-He threatens a storm, but produces only a drizzling shower. The lines, however, are not unworthy of quotation.

"Passion o'me! why melt I thus with griefe
For her whose frozen heart denies reliefe?
Find out some other way to punish me,
Yee gods! and let me not the author be
Of mine own death! make me forget that e'r
I lov'd! at least that e'r I lov'd her!

Yet I must love her stil: O cruel fate!
That dost true love so il requite with hate!
Why e'r I saw her didst not make me blind?
Then had she as before continued kind
Without pow'r to displease, her charitie
Warm as my love, and I had stil been I:
But now alas! my distant bliss I see,
Which like my courted shadow flieth mee
As fast as I pursue: ay mee! she's gone,
And with her all my winged hopes are flown."

This beginning of a Protest of Love by Damon to Stella,

is also pretty.

"When I thee all o'r do view,

I all o'r must love thee too.

By that smooth forehead, wher's exprest
The candour of thy peaceful breast:
By those fair twin-like-stars that shine,
And by those apples of thine eyn:
By the lambkins and the kids
Playing 'bout thy fair eie-lids:
By each peachie blossom'd cheek,
And thy sattin skin more sleek
And white then Flora's whitest lillies

Or the maiden daffadillies:

By that ivorie porch, thy nose:
By those double blanched rows
Of teeth, as in pure coral set:
By each azure rivolet,
Running in thy temples, and

Those flowrie meadows 'twixt them stand:

By each pearl-tipt ear by nature, as

On each a jewel pendant was:

By those lips all dew'd with bliss,

Made happy in each other's kiss."

The stanzas called Clarastella's Indictment, though founded on a conceit, are ingenious, and we wish all the rest of the volume had been as amusing:

"My heart was slain when none was by
But only you and I:

Durst itself do this act?

No a strange hand did shoot that dart
Which pierc'd so deep my heart,
Nor could I do the fact.

Then I'm o'th' fact acquitted, now
The guilt must lie on you;
I wil enquire no further;

The proof is plain, the boy that lies
Hid in your cruel eies,

Did do this wicked murther.

Witness your lips all stain'd with red,
They speak who did the deed,

The crimson bloud sticks there,
And makes them at each blush confess
(For they dare do no less)

And cry we guiltie are.
Your pale and self-accusing look
As soon as ere he strook
Proclaim'd you accessorie :

And your distorted angry brow
Your ful assent did show,
To make my death a storie.

In your heart's trembling doth appear
Your more than guilty fear:

You'r by your tongue bewraid,

Which silently accusing, tels

That 'twas by you, none els,
My heart was first betraid.

By signs thus murther's oft reveal'd,
Though it lie long conceal'd:
This doom I wish

you then,

If stil a cruel mind you bear,

May each man prove, when ere

You love, unkind agen."

Out of the verses To Clarastella on Valentine's Day, some may be selected of more than ordinary elegance. The lover steals to the couch of the unconscious fair one, and, while gazing on her reposing beauty, exclaims :

"Behold where Innocence herself doth lie

Clad in her white array! Fair deitie!

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