picture of most absolute loveliness and dove-like simplicity. Never was that denghtful passion portrayed with a more chaste and exquisite pencil."

CHARACTER AND LOVE OF BIRTHA.

To Astragon, heaven for succession gave

One only pledge, and Birtha was her name;
Whose mother slept, where flowers grew on her grave,
And she succeeded her in face and fame.

She ne'er saw courts, yet courts could have undone
With untaught looks and an unpractised heart;
Her nets, the most prepared could never shun;
For nature spread them in the scorn of art.

She never had in busy cities been,

Ne'er warm'd with hopes, nor e'er allay'd with fears;
Not seeing punishment, could guess no sin;

And sin not seeing, ne'er had use of tears.

But here her father's precepts gave her skill,
Which with incessant business fill'd the hours;
In Spring, she gather'd blossoms for the still;
In Autumn, berries; and in Summer, flowers.
And as kind nature with calm diligence

Her own free virtue silently employs,
Whilst she, unheard, does ripening growth dispense
So were her virtues busy without noise.

Whilst her great mistress, Nature, thus she tends,
The busy household waits no less on her;
By secret law, each to her beauty bends;
Though all her lowly mind to that prefer.

The just historians Birtha thus express,

And tell how, by her sire's example taught,
She served the wounded duke in life's distress,
And his fled spirits back by cordials brought;

Black melancholy mists, that fed despair

Through wounds' long rage, with sprinkled vervain clear'd;
Strew'd leaves of willow to refresh the air,

And with rich fumes his sullen senses cheer'd.

He that had served great Love with reverend heart,

In these old wounds worse wounds from him endures;

For Love makes Birtha shift with Death his dart,

And she kills faster than her father cures.

Her heedless innocence as little knew

The wounds she gave, as those from Love she took

1 "The longer we dwell upon this noble but unfinished monument of the genius of Sir William Davenant, the more does our admiration of it increase, and we regret that the unjust attacks which were made against it at the time, (or whatever else was the cause,) prevented its completion. It night then, notwithstanding the prophetical oblivion to which Bishop Hurd has, with some acrimony, condemned it, have been entitled to a patent of nobility, and had its name inscribed upon the roll of epic aristocracy."—Ret. Rev. ii 324.

And Love lifts high each secret shaft he drew;
Which at their stars he first in triumph shook!
Love he had lik'd, yet never lodg'd before;

But finds him now a bold unquiet guest;
Who climbs to windows when we shut the door;
And, enter'd, never lets the master rest.
So strange disorder, now he pines for health,

Makes him conceal this reveller with shame;
She not the robber knows, yet feels the stealth,
And never but in songs had heard his name.

She, full of inward questions, walks alone,
To take her heart aside in secret shade;
But knocking at her breast, it seem'd or gone
Or by confederacy was useless made;
Or else some stranger did usurp its room;
One so remote, and new in every thought,
As his behavior shows him not at home,

Nor the guide sober that him thither brought.

With open ears, and ever-waking eyes,

And flying feet, Love's fire she from the sight Of all her maids does carry, as from spies;

Jealous, that what burns her, might give them light.

Beneath a myrtle covert now does spend

In maids' weak wishes, her whole stock of thought; Fond maids! who love with mind's fine stuff would mend Which Nature purposely of bodies wrought.

She fashions him she loved of angels kind,
Such as in holy story were employ'd

To the first fathers from th' Eternal Mind,
And in short visions only are enjoy'd.

As eagles then, when nearest heaven they fly,
Of wild impossibles soon weary grow;
Feeling their bodies find no rest so high,

And therefore perch on earthly things below:

So now she yields; him she an angel deem'd
Shall be a man, the name which virgins fear;
Yet the most harmless to a maid he seem'd,
That ever yet that fatal name did bear.

Soon her opinion of his hurtless heart,

Affection turns to faith; and then love's fire
To heaven, though bashfully, she does impart;
And to her mother in the heavenly choir.

If I do love, (said she,) that love, O Heaven!
Your own disciple, Nature, bred in me;
Why should I hide the passion you have given,
Or blush to show effects which you decree?

And you, my alter'd mother, (grown above

Great nature, which you read and reverenced here,)
Chide not such kindness, as you once call'd love,
When you as mortal as my father were.

This said, her soul into her breast retires;
With Love's vain diligence of heart she dreams
Herself into possession of desires,

And trusts unanchor'd hope in fleeting streams:
Already thinks the duke her own spoused lord,
Cured, and again from bloody battle brought,
Where all false lovers perish'd by his sword,
The true to her for his protection sought.
She thinks how her imagined spouse and she
So much from heaven may by her virtues gain,
That they by time shall ne'er o'ertaken be,

No more than Time himself is overta’en.

She thinks of Eden-life; and no rough wind
In their pacific sea shall wrinkles make;
That still her lowliness shall keep him kind,
Her cares keep him asleep, her voice awake.

She thinks, if ever anger in him sway,

(The youthful warrior's most excused disease,) Such chance her tears shall calm, as showers allay The accidental rage of winds and seas.

Thus to herself in day-dreams Birtha talks:

The duke, (whose wounds of war are healthful grown,) To cure Love's wounds, seeks Birtha where she walks: Whose wandering soul seeks him to cure her own.

Yet when her solitude he did invade,

Shame (which in maids is unexperienced fear)

Taught her to wish night's help to make more shade,
That love (which maids think guilt) might not appear.

And she had fled him now, but that he came
So like an awed and conquer'd enemy,
That he did seem offenceless, as her shame;
As if he but advanced for leave to fly.

Of his minor pieces, we have room but for the following beautiful

SONG.

The lark now leaves his watery nest,

And, climbing, shakes his dewy wings;

He takes this window for the east;

And to implore your light, he sings,—
Awake, awake, the morn will never rise,
Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.

The merchant bows unto the seaman's star,
The ploughman from the sun his season takes
But still the lover wonders what they are

Who look for day before his mistress wakes.
Awake, awake, break through your veils of lawn,
Then draw your curtains, and begin the dawn.

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. Died 1673.

THIS lady was the daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, and was born about the end of the reign of James the First. She early manifested a fondness for literary pursuits, and the greatest care was bestowed upon her education. Having been appointed one of the maids of honor to Henrietta Maria, the queen of Charles the First, she attended her when she fled to France, during the civil commotions; and having met with the Marquis of Newcastle at Paris, she there became his wife in 1645. Her lord, soon after their marriage, went to Antwerp to reside, and found her a most faithful and affectionate companion of his long and honorable exile. At the Restoration they returned to England.

"The labors of no modern authoress can be compared, as to quantity, with those of our indefatigable duchess, who has filled nearly twelve volumes, folio, with plays, poems, orations, philosophical discourses, &c. Her writings show that she possessed a mind of considerable power and activity, with much imagination, but not one particle of judgment or taste."!

MIRTH AND MELANCHOLY.

As I was musing by myself alone,

My thoughts brought several things to work upon:
At last came two, which diversely were drest,

One Melancholy, t'other Mirth exprest;

Here Melancholy stood in black array,

And Mirth was all in colors fresh and gay.

Mirth.

Mirth laughing came, and running to me, flung
Her fat white arms about my neck, there hung,
Embraced and kiss'd me oft, and stroked my cheek,
Saying, she would no other lover seek:

I'll sing you songs, and please you every day,

Invent new sports to pass the time away;

I'll keep your heart, and guard it from that thief,

Dull Melancholy, Care, or sadder Grief,

And make your eyes with Mirth to overflow

With springing blood your cheeks soon fat shall grow;
Your legs shall nimble be, your body light,

And all your spirits, like to birds in flight.

Mirth shall digest your meat, and make you strong,

Shall give you health, and your short days prolong;

Refuse me not, but take me to your wife;

For I shall make you happy all your life.

But Melancholy, she will make you lean,

Your cheeks shall hollow grow, your jaws be seen;
Your eyes shall buried be within your head,
And look as pale as if you were quite dead;

1 Pev. Alexander Dyce's "Specimens of British Poetesses." Read, also, a very excellent notice of her in Sir Egerton Brydges's "Imaginative Biography," in which he remarks, "that considerable as is the alloy of absurd passages in many of her grace's compositions, there are few of them in which there are not proofs of an active, thinking, original mind. Her imagination was quick, copious, and sometimes even beautiful, yet her taste appears to have been not only uncultivated, but, perhaps, originally defective.

She'll make you start at every noise you hear,
And visions strange shall to your eyes appear,
Thus would it be, if you to her were wed:
Nay, better far it were that you were dead.
Her voice is low, and gives a hollow sound;
She hates the light, and is in darkness found
Or sits with blinking lamps, or tapers small,
Which various shadows make against the wall.
She loves nought else but noise which discord makes
As croaking frogs, whose dwelling is in lakes;
The raven's hoarse, the mandrake's hollow groan,
And shrieking owls, which fly in th' night alone;
The tolling bell, which for the dead rings out;
A mill, where rushing waters run about;
The roaring winds, which shake the cedars tall,
Plough up the seas, and beat the rocks withal.
She loves to walk in the still moonshine night,
And in a thick dark grove she takes delight;
In hollow caves, thatch'd houses, and low cells,
She loves to live, and there alone she dwells.
Then leave her to herself alone to dwell,
Let you and I in Mirth and Pleasure swell,
And drink long lusty draughts from Bacchus' bowl,
Until our brains on vaporous waves do roll;
Let's joy ourselves in amorous delights;
There's none so happy as the carpet knights.
Melancholy.

Then Melancholy, with sad and sober face,
Complexion pale, but of a comely grace,
With modest countenance thus softly spake
May I so happy be your love to take?
True, I am dull, yet by me you shall know
More of yourself, and so much wiser grow;
I search the depth and bottom of mankind,
Open the eye of ignorance that's blind;
All dangers to avoid I watch with care,
And do 'gainst evils that may come prepare;
I hang not on inconstant fortune's wheel,
Nor yet with unresolving doubts do reel;
I shake not with the terrors of vain fears,
Nor is my mind fill'd with unuseful cares;
I do not spend my time, like idle Mirth,
Which only happy is just at her birth;
And seldom lives so long as to be old,
But if she doth, can no affections hold

Mirth good for nothing is, like weeds doth grow,

Or such plants as cause madness, reason's foe.

Her face with laughter crumples on a heap,

Which makes great wrinkles, and ploughs furrows deep;

Her eyes do water, and her skin turns red,

Her mouth doth gape, teeth bare, like one that's dead;
She fulsome is, and gluts the senses all,

Offers herself, and comes before a call;
Her house is built upon the golden sands,
Yet no foundation has, whereon it stands;