We have now introduced our readers to the principal persons of the heroic group, whose actions are recorded in the poem, and they are worthy to be placed by the side of each

other.

As only three, on each side, were to be engaged in the combat between the Duke and Oswald, in addition to the leaders, and as there were several candidates, it became necessary to determine by lots, whether Tybalt or Hugo should enter the lists on the side of Gondibert. The two last lines, in the following quotation, are eminently poetical and expressive.

"And here they trembling reach'd at honour so,
As if they, gath'ring flow'rs, a snake discern'd;
Yet fear'd Love onely, whose rewards then grow
To lovers sweetest, when with danger earn'd.

From this brave fear, lest they should danger scape,
Was little Hugo eas'd; and, when he drew
The champion's lot, his joy inlarg'd his shape,
And, with his lifted mind, he taller grew.'

The introduction to the combat is written in a fine spirit, and with great dignity and beauty.

"By what bold passion am I rudely led,

Like Fame's too curious and officious spie,
Where I these rolls in her dark closet read,
Where worthies wrapt in Time's disguises lie?

Why should we now their shady curtains draw,
Who by a wise retirement hence are freed,
And gone to lands exempt from Nature's law,
Where love no more can mourn, nor valour bleed?

Why to this stormy world, from their long rest,
Are these recall'd to be again displeas'd,
Where, during Nature's reign, we are opprest,
Till we, by Death's high priviledge, are eas'd?

Is it to boast that verse has chymick pow'r,
And that its rage (which is productive heat)
Can these revive, as chymists raise a flower,
Whose scatter'd parts their glass presents compleat?

Though in these worthies gone, valour and love

Did chastely, as in sacred temples, meet;

Such reviv'd patterns us no more improve,

Than flowers, so rais'd by chymists, make us sweet.

Yet, when the soul's disease we desp❜rate find,
Poets, the old renown'd physitians are,
Who, for the sickly habits of the mind,
Examples, as the ancient cure, prepare.

And bravely then physitians honour gain,
When, to the world, diseases cureless seem;
And they (in science valiant) ne'er refrain
Art's war with Nature, till they life redeem.

But poets their accustom'd task have long
Forborn, (who, for examples, did disperse
The heroe's virtues in heroick song)

And now think virtue sick, past cure of verse.

Yet to this desp❜rate cure I will proceed,

Such patterns shew as shall not fail to move;
Shall teach the valiant patience when they bleed,
And hapless lovers constancy in love."

Hurgonil and Tybalt depart for Verona, with the dead bodies of their slain companions, Hugo and Arnoldo.

They slowly rode till night's dominion ceast;

When infant morn (her scarce wak'd beams display'd)
With a scant face, peept shylie through the east,
And seem'd as yet of the black world afraid.

To this vast inn, where tydes of strangers flow,
The Morn and Hurgonil together came;
The Morn, whose dewy wings appear'd but slow,
When men the motion mark'd of swifter fame.

For Fame (whose journeys are through waies unknown,
Traceless and swift, and changing as the wind)
The Morn and Hurgonil had much out-gone,

Whilst temp'rate Truth mov'd patiently behind."

In the description of the matin appearance of the streets of Verona, the following stanzas, with the exception of the fifth and sixth lines, are extremely forcible.

"Here through a secret postern issues out

The skar'd adult'rer, who out-slept his time;
Day, and the husband's spie, alike does doubt,

And, with a half hid face, would hide his crime.

There, from sick mirth, neglectful feasters reel,
Who cares of want in wine's false Lethe steep.
There, anxious empty gamsters homeward steal,

And fear to wake, ere they begin to sleep."

The cabinet of death, which is a sort of anatomical museum in the house of Astragon, presents us with two stanzas, written with singular brevity and compression-the two lines in italics cannot be excelled.

"This dismall gall'ry, lofty, long, and wide,
Was hung with skelitons of ev'ry kind;
Humane, and all that learned humane pride
Thinks made t'obey man's high immortal mind.
Yet on that wall hangs he too, who so thought;
And she dry'd by him, whom that He obey'd;
By her an el'phant, that with herds had fought,

Of which the smallest beast made her afraid."

The temples of Penitence and of Prayer, attached to the house of Astragon, are finely contrasted. The former is an exact emblem-a material representation of the feeling, for the expression of which it is appropriated, in all the pomp and power of verse. It is, at once, grand and imposing-solemn and appalling.

"Since the requir'd extream of penitence

Seems so severe, this temple was design'd
Solemn and strange without, to catch the sense,
And dismal shew'd within, to awe the mind.
Of sad black marble was the outward frame,
(A mourning monument to distant sight)
But by the largeness when you near it came,
It seem'd the palace of eternal night.

Black beauty (which black Meroens had prais'd
Above their own) gravely adorn'd each part;
In stone, from Nyle's head quarries, slowly rais'd,
And slowlyer polish'd by Numidian art.

Hither a loud bell's tole, rather commands,
Than seems t' invite the persecuted ear;
A summons nature hardly understands;
For few, and slow are those who enter here.

Within a dismal majesty they find!

All gloomy great, all silent does appear!

As Chaos was, ere th' elements were design'd;
Man's evil fate seems hid and fashion'd here.

Here all the ornament is rev'rend black;

Here, the check'd sun his universal face
Stops bashfully, and will no entrance make;
As if he spy'd night naked through the glass.
Black curtains hide the glass; whilst from on high
A winking lamp still threatens all the room;
As if the lazy flame just now would die :

Such will the sun's last light appear at doom!

This lamp was all that here inform'd all eyes;
And by reflex, did on a picture gain

Some few false beams, that thence from Sodom rise;
Where pencils feign the fire which heav'n did rain.

This on another tablet did reflect,

Where twice was drawn the am'rous Magdaline;
Whilst beauty was her care, then her neglect;

And brightest through her tears she seem'd to shine.

Near her, seem'd crucifi'd, that lucky thief

(In heav'n's dark lot'ry prosp'rous, more than wise)
Who groap'd at last, by chance, for heav'n's relief,
And throngs undoes with hope, by one drawn prize.
In many figures by reflex were sent,

Through this black vault (instructive to the mind)
That early, and this tardy penitent;

For with Obsidian stone 'twas chiefly lin❜d.

The seats were made of Ethiops swarthy wood,
Abstersive ebony, but thinly fill'd;

For none this place by nature understood;

And practise, when unpleasant, makes few skill'd.

Yet these whom heav'n's mysterious choice fetch'd in,
Quickly attain devotion's utmost scope;

For having softly mourn'd away their sin,

They grow so certain as to need no hope."

It is not unusual to find a pleasing effect produced upon the mind by a skilful collocation of numerous words, although they may not have any very distinct idea attached to them. They cheat us by their melody into a belief, that "more is meant than meets the ear," and dispose us to think, that what sounds so nobly must have something in it. This effect is produced by parts of the description of the House of Praise, which

is a beautiful, splendid, and luminous building, adapted, by the
poet, with exquisite art and propriety, to its peculiar use. The
versification is more melodious than that of the greater part of
the poem. The language of Davenant is, indeed, very often
neither flowing nor perspicuous, and the careless reader will
have occasionally to turn back and reperuse a stanza before he
can comprehend its full force and beauty. His heroic poem is
full of weighty matter and divine philosophy, and he who reads
it with a kindred spirit will find in it a quick, bold, and excur-
sive fancy, and a moral sublimity about the conceptions, which
is but seldom met with. His principal defect is a want of pas-
sion, and the minor graces and gentler touches of poetry.
The House of Praise is thus described.

"Dark are all thrones to what this temple seem'd,
Whose marble veins out-shin'd heav'n's various bow;
And would (eclipsing all proud Rome esteem'd)
To northern eies, like eastern mornings show.

From Paros isle was brought the milkie white;

From Sparta came the green, which cheers the view;
From Araby, the blushing onichite;

And from the Misnian hills, the deeper blew.

The arched front dia on vast pillars fall,
Where all harmonious instruments they spie
Drawn out in boss, which, from the astrigall
To the flat frise, in apt resemblance lie.

Toss'd cymbals (which the sullen Jews admir'd)
Were figur'd here, with all of ancient choice
That joy did ere invent, or breath inspir'd,
Or flying fingers touch'd into a voice.

In statue o'er the gate, God's fav'rite king,
(The author of celestial praise) did stand;
His quire (that did his sonnets set and sing)
In niches rang'd, attended either hand.
From these, old Greeks sweet musick did improve;
The solemn Dorian did in temples charm,

The softer Lydian sooth'd to bridal love,
And warlike Phrygian did to battail warm:

They enter now, and, with glad rev'rence, saw
Glory, too solid great to taste of pride;
So sacred pleasant, as preserves an awe;
Though jealous priests it neither praise nor hide.