inscribed than that to Mrs. Elizabeth Filmer, possessed of a form fit index to a soul as fair :

Chaste as th' air whither she 's fled,
She making her celestial bed
In her warm alabaster lay
As cold as in this house of clay;
Nor were the rooms unfit to feast
Or circumscribe this angel-guest;
The radiant gem was brightly set
In as divine a carcanet;

For which the clearer was not known,
Her mind, or her complexion;

Such an everlasting grace,

Such a beatific face

Incloisters here this narrow floor
That possess'd all hearts before.

Thus, although this marble must,
As all things, crumble into dust,

And though you find this fair-built tomb
Ashes, as what lies in its womb;

Yet her saint-like name shall shine

A living glory to this shrine,

And her eternal fame be read,

When all but very virtue 's dead.9

To The King's Painter he gives the exact praise an artist would value, whatever the present age may think of its justice in the particular instance:

See! what a clouded majesty! and eyes

Whose glory through their mist doth brighter rise!
See! what an humble bravery doth shine,

And grief triumphant breaking through each line
How it commands the face! so sweet a scorn

Never did happy misery adorn!

Thou sorrow canst design without a tear,
And with the man his very hope or fear;
So that th' amazed world shall henceforth find

None but my Lily ever drew a mind.10

Even himself he can measure, worthily, not vainly :

Yet can I music too; but such
As is beyond all voice or touch;
My mind can in fair order chime,

Whilst my true heart still beats the time.
Take all notes with your skilful eyes,
Hark, if mine do not sympathize!

Sound all my thoughts, and see express'd
The tablature of my large breast;
Then you'll admit that I too can
Music above dead sounds of man;

Such as alone doth bless the spheres,
Not to be reach'd with human ears.11

A large heart indeed his, which was not ashamed of acknowledging gratitude to a benefactress, a living saint', and hymned old age as warmly, and as sweetly, as if it were youth and beauty:

Slow time with woollen feet make thy soft pace,

And leave no tracks i' th' snow of her pure face! 12

Although I will not lay stress on the barrack-room panegyric of Bacchus :

What of Elysium's missing?

Still drinking, and still kissing;
Adoring plump October;

Lord! what is man, and sober? 13

I cannot refrain from noting the humour of the addresses to the ant, a 'great good husband ',14 and the 'sage, compendious snail',

with the grave serenity of the Ode to the Grasshopper,16 from which I should like to quote, were not its ten stanzas of an excellence delightfully even.

Crown finally the whole with the two glorious songs,

Going to the Wars, and To Althea from Prison, which shine like stars in the firmament even of English Poesy. Apparently unconnected, they are one in essence; for they sum up a spirit, and a man. With what gay hopefulness he bids his mistress farewell as he rides forth to war! Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,

That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast, and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.

True; a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore ;

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Lov'd I not honour more.17

How, again, the courage leaps, and the inspiration flames, . as the Cavalier, persecuted and in prison, rejoices to have suffered for his King!

When love with unconfinèd wings

Hovers within my gates;

And my divine Althea brings

To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fetter'd to her eye:

The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round

With no allaying Thames,

Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames,
When thirsty grief in winé we steep,

When healths and draughts go free,

Fishes that tipple in the deep

Know no such liberty.

1

When-like committed linnets-I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud, how good
He is, how great should be ;
Enlarged winds that curl the flood
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free;
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.18

What a sense of buoyancy the verses give, of infinite space in the realm of poetry for fancy to disport itself without fear of collision with other winged things! The soldier had a flight of emotions to send abroad; he tossed them forth; and they fly and sing still. A thousand songs may contain the same ideas; yet Lovelace's will never be superseded or superannuated. As I recall the two, I am disposed to be indignant with myself for having ever questioned the title of the bright, generous, gracious, luckless soul to occupy an honoured place on the English Parnassus.

Blessings on the memory of Mr. Edmund Wyld, who, according to Aubrey's kindly, ungrammatical gossip, had, when the poet was dying in a cellar-in Gunpowder Alley, near Fetter Lane-a little before the Restoration, made collections for him, and given him money. He was of- in Kent, £500 or more. He was an extraordinary handsome man, but prowd. Geo. Petty, haberdasher, in Fleet Street, carryed twenty shillings to him every Munday

morning from SirMany and Charles Cotton, Esq., for months.' 19 And not the less blessed be he or they, that the doles escaped the bathos of being ever repayd'!

Lucasta Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, Songs: to which is added Alamantha, a Pastoral, by Richard Lovelace, Esq. New Edition. Chiswick : C. Whittingham, 1817; and Lucasta: Posthumous Poems of Richard Lovelace, Esq. With Poems to his Memory. New Edition. Chiswick : C. Whittingham, 1818.

1 Marvell's Poems (The Muses' Library).

2 Col. Francis Lovelace, Lucasta, xiv.

3 To Amarantha (Lucasta), stanza 4.

4 Gratiana Dancing and Singing (Lucasta), stanzas 3-4.

6

* Lucasta Weeping (Lucasta).

Amputor's Grove. His Chloris, Arigo, and Gratiana (Lucasta).

7 Love Made in the First Age: To Chloris (Lucasta: Posthum.

Poems).

s To Lucasta—The Rose (Lucasta).

On the Death of Mrs. Elizabeth Filmer (Lucasta)

10 To Mr. Peter Lilly, on the Picture of His Majesty and the Duke of York, Drawn by him at Hampton Court (Lucasta).

11 To a Lady who desired me I would bear my part with her in a Song (Lucasta).

12 The Lady A. L. My Asylum in a Great Extremity (Lucasta).

13 A Loose Saraband (Lucasta: Posthum. Poems).

14 The Ant (Lucasta: Posthum. Poems).

15 The Snail (ibid.).

16 The Grasshopper (Lucasta).

17 To Lucasta-Going to the Wars (Lucasta).

18 To Althea from Prison (Lucasta).

19 John Aubrey and Anthony à Wood: Athenae Oxonienses, ed. P. Bliss.