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She ne'r saw courts, yet courts could have undone
With untaught looks and an unpractis'd heart;
Her nets, the most prepar'd could never shun;
For nature spred them in the scorn of art.

She never had in busie cities bin,

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

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

But here her father's precepts gave her skill,
Which with incessant bus'ness fill'd the hours;
In Spring, she gather'd blossoms for the still,
In Autumn, berries; and in Summer, flow'rs.
And as kind nature with calm diligence
Her own free virtue silently employs,
Whilst she, unheard, does rip'ning growth dispence,
So were her virtues busie without noise.

Whilst her great mistress, Nature, thus she tends,
The busie houshold 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 syre's example taught,
She serv'd 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 vervin cleer'd, Strew'd leaves of willow to refresh the air,

And with rich fumes his sullen senses cheer'd.

He that had serv'd great Love with rev'rend 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;
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.

Yet then it was, when she did smile at hearts

Which countrey lovers wear in bleeding seals;
Ask'd where his pretty godhead found such darts,
As make those wounds that onely Hymen heals.
And this, her ancient maid with sharp complaints
Heard and rebuk'd; shook her experienc'd head,
With tears besought her not to jest at saints,

Nor mock those martyrs, Love had captive led.
Nor think the pious poets ere would waste
So many tears in ink, to make maids mourn,
If injur'd lovers had in ages past

The lucky mirtle, more than willow, worn.

This grave rebuke, officious memory

Presents to Birtha's thought; who now believ'd

Such sighing songs, as tell why lovers die,

And prais'd their faith, who wept when poets griev'd.

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 confed'racie was useless made;

Or else some stranger did usurp its room;
One so remote, and new in ev'ry thought,
As his behaviour shews him not at home,

Nor the guide sober that him thither brought.
Yet with this foreign heart, she does begin

To treat of love, her most unstudy'd theam;
And like young conscienc'd Casuists, thinks that sin,
Which will by talk and practice lawfull seem.

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 mirtle 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.

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She fashions him she lov'd of angels kind,
Such as in holy story were employ'd
To the first fathers from th' Eternal Mind,
And in short vision onely are enjoy'd.

As eagles then, when nearest heaven they flie,
Of wild impossibles soon weary grow;
Feeling their bodies find no rest so high,
And therefore pearch 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 heav'n, though bashfully, she does impart;
And to her mother in the heav'nly quire.

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

And you, my alter'd mother (grown above

Great nature, which you read, and rev'renc'd 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 spous'd lord,
Cur'd, and again from bloody battel brought,
Where all false lovers perish'd by his sword,
The true to her for his protection sought,

She thinks how her imagin'd spouse and she,
So much from heav'n, may by her virtues gain;
That they by time shall ne'r o'ertaken be,

No more than Time himself is overta'ne.

Or should he touch them as he by does pass, Heav'n's favour may repay their summers gone, And he so mix their sand in a slow glass,

That they shall live, and not as two, but one.

She thinks of Eden-life; and no rough wind,
In their pacifique 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 youthfull warriour's most excus'd disease)
Such chance her tears shall calm, as showres allay
The accidental rage of winds and seas.

She thinks that babes proceed from mingling eyes,
Or heav'n from neighbourhood increase allows,
As Palm and the Mamora fructifies ;

Or they are got by close exchanging vows.

But come they (as she hears) from mother's pain,
(Which by th' unlucky first-maid's longing, proves
A lasting curse) yet that she will sustain,

So they be like this heav'nly man she loves.

Thus to herself in day-dreams Birtha talks:

The duke (whose wounds of war are healthfull grown)
cure Love's wounds, seeks Birtha where she walks ;
Whose wand'ring soul seeks him to cure her own.

Yet when her solitude he did invade,

Shame (which in maids is unexperienc'd 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 aw'd and conquer'd enemy,
That he did seem offenceless, as her shame;
As if he but advanc'd for leave to flie.

First with a longing seaman's look he gaz'd,

Who would ken land, when seas would him devour;

Or like a fearfull scout, who stands amaz'd

To view the foe, and multiplies their pow'r."

It will have been observed, that the author has made use of one piece of machinery, by introducing the ring which had the magical property of indicating the constancy or inconstancy of the donor. With this exception, he has relied on the fertile resources of his own mind, and, because he has dared to be original, he has been sneered at by those who start at innovation, as children at imaginary phantoms. His poem is full of most delectable teachings, and must be studied and not skimmed over as some poems may be, which, like the flute, give out a

sweet tone, and yet are empty. 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 (or whatever else was the cause) prevented its completion. It might 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 on the roll of epic aristocracy.

ART. VIII. The Informacyon for pylgrymes unto the holy lande. That is to wyte to Rome, to Iherusalem and to many other holy places. Imprynted at London in the Fletestrete at the signe of ye sonne by Wynkyn de Worde. The yere of God. m.cccc and xxiiii. the xxvi day of Julii, Reg. R. H. viiii. xvi. [This is copied from the Colophon, the title page of the copy before us being wanting.] BLACK LETTER. 4to.

Such is the extreme rarity of this singular little work, that we consider ourselves particularly fortunate in being enabled to give an account of its contents. It is mentioned both by Herbert and Mr. Dibdin ;* who, neither of them having seen the book, are indebted to Ames for their scanty notice of it; and if we may form a conclusion from the mistakes into which Ames appears to have fallen, it was perhaps never submitted even to his inspection. It is entitled, judging from the Colophon, Informacyon, and not Instructions, for Pilgrims, and is not written by one John Moreson, as he states. This John Moreson being a "marchaunte of Venyce," who was the owner of the ship in which the pilgrims sailed, whose journal is here given. After the title, there commences a table of routes and distances, measured in leagues and miles, to all those places to

*Dibdin's Typ. Ant. vol. 2, page 254.

345.—Instruction for pilgrims to the Holy Land, Imprynted, &c. viii. Hen. viii. M.CCCC. xxiiii. 26th July, quarto.

"It is a pity that Ames, from whom Herbert and myself borrow our meagre accounts of this volume, has not given a more particular description of a work, in all probability as curious and interesting as it is rare. According to Ames it is " a description of a voyage to Jerusalem by one John Moreson;" a traveller who has escaped Boucher in his " Bibliothèque Universelle des Voyages."

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