He walked mannerly, he talked meekly, He heard three lectures and two sermons weekly; And in his speech he used no oath but truly; And zealously to keep the Sabbath's rest, This done (I scant can tell the rest for laughter) A captain of a ship came three days after, And brought three yards of velvet and three quarters, He, that precisely knew what was enough, SIR HENRY WOTTON, the miscellaneous poet who follows Fairfax and Harrington, was born at Bocton Hall, in Kent, on the thirtieth of March, 1568. His early education was conducted by private tutors at home, after which he was sent to Winchester school, whence he passed, in 1584, to New College, Oxford. He did not, however, long remain there, but soon entered Queen's College, where he became well versed in logic and rhetoric; and being also distinguished for various other learning, and for his wit, he was selected to write a tragedy for the private use of his college. The name of the tragedy was Tancredo, and Walton, Sir Henry's biographer, remarks that 'it was interwoven with sentences, and for the method and exact personating those humors, passions, and dispositions, which he proposed to represent, so performed, that the gravest of the society declared, he had in a slight employment, given an early and solid testimony of his future abilities.' Wotton having, in the twentieth year of his age, taken his master's degree, left the university, and after travelling a number of years on the continent, returned to England, and attached himself to the service of the Earl of Essex, the chief favorite of Queen Elizabeth. Having afterward gained the friendship of king James, by communicating the secret of a conspiracy formed against him, while yet only king of Scotland, he was employed by that monarch, when he ascended the English throne, as ambassador to Venice. A versatile and lively disposition qualified Sir Henry, in an eminent degree, for this situation, of the duties of which we have his own idea on the wellknown punning expression, in which he defines an ambassador to be an honest gentleman, sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.' Late in life Wotton took orders to qualify himself to be provost of Eton, and in 1600 A.D.] that situation he died, in 1639, in the seventy-second year of his age. The poems of this author are generally brief unstudied effusions, of very consid erable merit, and from them we select the following: A FAREWELL TO THE VANITIES OF THE WORLD. Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles; And torture free-born minds; embroider'd trains Inherited, not purchased, nor our own: Fame, honour, beauty, state, train, blood, and birth, * * * * * Welcome pure thoughts, welcome ye silent groves, And if Contentment be a stranger then, THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE. How happy is he born and taught, Whose passions not his masters are, Of public fame or private breath; Who God doth late and early pray, And entertains the harmless day With a religious book or friend; This man is freed from servile bands And having nothing yet hath all. SIR JOHN DAVIES, the poet to whom our attention is next directed, was of low origin, being the son of a tanner. He was born at Chisgrove in Wiltshire in 1570, and after careful preparation, became in 1585, a commoner of Queen's College, Oxford. He remained at the university until he had taken his bachelor's degree, immediately after which he repaired to London, and entered the Middle Temple, where he applied himself so closely to the study of the common law, that he was soon called to the bar. An unfortunate quarrel, however, the cause of which is not known, with a gentleman of the society to which he belonged, resulted in his expulsion thence, and he returned to Oxford and continued the prosecution of his studies there; but being eventually reinstated in the Temple, he returned thither and practiced, for some time, as a counsellor; and in 1601, he became a member of parliament. Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth, he accompanied lord Hunsdon into Scotland to congratulate king James upon his accession to the crown of England; and being introduced into his majesty's presence, he was particularly noticed by him; and when the king was informed by lord Hunsdon that Davies was the author of Nosce tiepsum, his majesty graciously embraced him, and assured him of his favor. The 'Nosce tiepsum,' a poem on the origin, nature, and immortality of the soul, was published in 1599, and dedicated to queen Elizabeth, by whom it was very favorably received. Davies, soon after the accession of James, published a small volume of poems containing Hymns of Astrea, in acrostic verse; Orchestra, or a poem expressing the antiquity and excellency of dancing, and other pieces, which not only placed him in a high rank among his contemporary poets, but so far increased the favor of the king toward him, that he appointed him, first, his solicitor, and then his attorney-general, in Ireland; where, in 1606, he became one of his majesty's sergeants at law; and was afterward speaker in the House of Commons in that kingdom. In 1607, Davies received the honor of knighthood from the king at Whitehall; and in 1612, he quitted the post of attorney-general in Ireland, and was made one of the king's English sergeants at law; and, soon after he settled in England, one of the judges of assize on the circuit. In 1626, he was appointed by Charles the First, lord chief-justice of the King's Bench; but, before his installation, he died suddenly of apoplexy in the fifty-seventh year of his age. Sir John Davies was a man of bold spirit, sharp and ready wit, and of most thorough and extensive learning; and among the minor poets of this period, he holds a very high rank. His philosophical poem, On the Soul of Man, and the Immortality thereof, is one of the earliest poems of that kind in the language. The author shows that he was a profound thinker, and close reasoner. In the happier parts of his poem,' says Campbell, 'we come to logical truths so well illustrated by ingenious similes, that we know not whether to call the thoughts more poetical or philosophically just. The judgment and the fancy are reconciled, and the imagery of the poem seems to start more vividly from the surrounding shades of abstraction.' From this poem, the versification of which was afterward copied by Davenant and Dryden, we extract the following passage : THE DIGNITY OF MAN. Oh! what is man, great Maker of mankind! Thou leav'st thy print in other works of thine, But it exceeds man's thought, to think how high And are astonish'd when they view the same : Nor hath he given these blessings for a day, In another production, the 'Orchestra, or Poem of Dancing, in a Dialogue between Penelope and one of her Wooers,' Davies is much more fanciful than in the previous poem. He there represents Penelope as declining to dance with Antinous, and the latter as proceeding to lecture her upon the antiquity of that elegant exercise, the merit of which he describes in verses partaking peculiarly of the flexibility and grace of the subject. Of this performance, the following is one of the most imaginative passages :— THE DANCING OF THE AIR. And now behold your tender nurse, the air, How many pictures and impressions fair Within her empty regions are there found, For when you breathe, the air in order moves, For all the words that from your lips repair, Hence is her prattling daughter, Echo, born, The airy pavement with her feet to wear: And thou, sweet Music, dancing's only life, The ear's sole happiness, the air's best speech, The soft mind's paradise, the sick mind's leech, With thine own tongue thou trees and stones can teach, Lastly where keep the Winds, their revelry, Their violent turnings, and wild whirling hays, But in the air's translucent gallery? Where she herself is turn'd a hundred ways, Davies wrote a number of pieces in prose also; and the first Reports of Law Cases, published in Ireland, proceeded from his able and accomplished pen. The preface to the volume containing these Reports is considered the best that was ever prefixed to a law-book. JOHN DONNE, the poet whom we are next to notice, was of respectable parentage, and was born in London, 1573. His mother was descended from the family of Sir Thomas More, and his parents being both rigidly attached to the Romish religion, had their son's education attended to at home until he reached the eleventh year of his age, when he was sent to the university of Oxford; where, such was the precociousness of intellect that he evinced, that one of his tutors, through admiration of his early genius, remarked, that he was rather born wise than made so by study. His acquirements in learning at the university realized all that his early mental developments had promised; so that at the expiration of three years he was prepared for the bachelor's degree-an honor which he was compelled to forego, as the religious sentiments of his parents would not allow him to take the oath of allegiance which the occasion required. Having passed three years at Oxford he entered the university of Cambridge, where he also remained for the same length of time; but as the difficulties in the way of obtaining university honors prevailed there also, which had existed at Oxford, he now relinquished collegiate studies, repaired to London, and entered Lincoln's Inn as a student of law. He had, however, no predilection for the legal profession; and as his father, who had been a merchant, died before he |