"Now, lovers, in a word to tell It is the pulse, by which we know "What you'll be in time we know What in time the buds will be: All the beauties of your mother: The following character "Of one who troubles himself with nothing," will make an excellent study: "He suffers none but gay and pleasant thoughts to enter his imagination, putting the rest off till to-morrow still; saying, "To-day is too soon: and then, quite dismissing them, saying, It is too late.' He is as great a master in the art of consolation, as he who, when he lost his eyes, comforted himself that there was so much saved in candle-light, was but a bungler at it, compared to him. He accounts nothing in this world his own, whence he is never afflicted for the loss of any thing; and, for the world itself, counts it but as a pilgrimage, and himself a pilgrim, that has no other business in it but only to pass through it unto the next, to which since all ways equally conduce, he laveers not by sea, but ever sails before the wind, and makes for the next port, be it where it will; and by land, knows all his easiest passages, and all his turnings to avoid uneasy ones; whilst, to beguile the tediousness of the way, he has still choice of the best company, and at relay. So passes he this vale of miseries, so easily, he scarcely feels its miseries; neither contracting so much wealth nor guiltiness in living, as may make him apprehend to leave the one behind him in this world, when he dies, nor find the punishment of the other in the next. Mean time, that neither the revolution of things, nor inconstancy of persons, may transport or trouble him, he has no tie to any thing, nor person; beauty, riches, nor honours, having never yet the power to make him quit his liberty, nor has the world chains strong enough to make him a slave, he wondering as much at courtiers as at galleyslaves; and for those who, for a little profit, sell their liberties, whilst they call it fishing for a golden fish, he calls it angling with a golden hook. So the splendour of a palace, and obscurity of a cottage, equally take his eyes; nor sees he any thing in the riches of the one to envy, nor in the other's poverty to pity, more than the means that the one has more than the other. Thus having provided against all trouble without himself, that nothing within himself may trouble him, (holding still the mean betwixt idleness and too great employ); he cultivates his mind rather like a garden than a field, delightfully, not laboriously; with studies which may rather render it gay and cheerful, than melancholy and sad: shunning all by-ways of doctrine, to avoid error; and all highways of the vulgar, to avoid ignorance and viciousness; nor puts he his mind so on the rack of hope to extend them farther than to possible and easy things; which, failing his expectation, he is no more troubled than at seeing juglers play fast and loose. Lastly, not to live stranger nor enemy to himself, he first makes compact with his genius to lead him to no ill, and then follows it, whatsoever it leads him to; doing just by it as by his horse, which he is not still putting upon new ways, but only spurs it when it goes on slowly in the old. So constituting his pleasure rather in content than voluptuousness, and in nothing fruition may lessen and destroy, or that may be rendered impotent by age. He can never be without pleasure in himself, nor can any thing out of himself ever molest and trouble him. Nor is this a happiness to be attained to but by long accustomance, and by doing by our mind just as we do by our bodies in time of pestilence, that is, by carefully avoiding all commerce with those that are sick; else, being once infected, all council is in vain, and you may as well bid one that is sick, be well, as one that is sad and grieved, be merry and comforted." His epigram on a rich miser is very good: "Thou boasts thy money, and if that be all, And pains, in time, boast that as well as thee: And the one" On Friends and Foes" is well turned : "Two painters, friend and foe, once went about Which t'one to shew, and t'other for to hide, The following rural dialogue is spirited and pointed: Shepherd. He who never takes a wife, Nymph. She her whole contentment loses, Shepherd. I, of women, know too much, Nymph. I, of men, too much do know, Shepherd. Since you are resolv'd, farewell; Nymph. Better lead apes thither, than Shepherd. They to Paradise would lead you, Nymph. To fool's paradise, 'tis true, Would they but be rul❜d by you. Chorus. Thus they parted as they met, Ambo. Love, what fools thou mak'st of men "The Commutation of Love and Death's Darts" is well worth a place here: "Love and Death o'th' way once meeting, Having past a friendly greeting, Sleep their weary eye-lids closing, Lay they down themselves reposing. Gently wounds instead of killing." The last extract, for which we can allow space, is also the best, and occurs in the play which was damned: σε Sacred silence, thou that art Frost o'th' mouth, and thaw o'th' mind. Leave thy desert shades among Reverend hermit's hallow'd cells, Cease this nymph, and strike her dumb." ART. VII.-The Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey, Cardinall: divided into three parts; his Aspiring, Triumph, and Death. By Thomas Storer, Student in Christchurch, Oxford. 1599. We hope, that the very interesting extracts from Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, which graced our last number, have left an impression on the minds of our readers so agreeable, as to render a recurrence to the subject far from being unacceptable. The private history of every man who, during life, has fixed the eyes of the world upon his public actions, can never fail to attract the notice and rivet the attention of the curious observer of mankind. It is from Cavendish and from similar works, alone, that a true idea of the "great Cardinal" can be formed; for, during his life and after his life, so various and powerful were the interests which, on either side, distorted every truth respecting him, that it is not surprising that, up to this time, there should be much of error connected with the popular opinions of both himself and his master. This, however, is matter of history, and the number of facts and details to be taken into consideration too numerous to be discussed here. The character of Wolsey is a noble subject for biography, and we regret to say, that it has not been taken up by abler hands than some of those who have already been employed upon it. The bulky life of Fiddes is a dry detail, interspersed with dull and trite remarks. Wolsey has since been much more fortunate in Mr. Galt, who, in 1812, published a quarto volume on The Life and Administration of Wolsey. But our business is at present with Storer. Poetry, in the time of Storer, still retained many marks of its original destination, for, when applied to matters of fact, the poet seems to have thought his duty was rather to record than to embellish; that his verse was rather intended for an assistance to the memory, than a pleasure to the imagination. We are not inclined to quarrel with this adherence to truth, but we have a right to find fault with the poet for chusing a subject, in which such adherence is necessary. To write a life in verse, is merely to say that in rhyme which had much better be said in prose. The real poetry which a man can introduce into such a subject must be small; and we conceive it no recommendation of a fact, to find it wrapped up in smooth lines, which depend upon expletives for their ease; or rugged metre, which mangles the story it would relate. These poems, however, when of ancient date, and nearly contemporary composition, acquire an adscititious value; and though the lover of poetry may turn from their uncouth measures, and coarse and even ludicrous expressions, with disgust, the antiquarian and historian find them valuable assistants. They sometimes convey the feeling of the times, and, at any rate, that of a single contemporary individual; they supply new facts, or confirm old ones; and when the historian has given them up, the antiquarian hunts them for ancient customs, and the grammarian for obsolete words. We are inclined to treat the little work before us in none of these characters. In this volume, as in many others, equally neglected, we discover indications of poetical feeling, rudiments of noble images, and |