The world's a theatre, the earth a stage Which God and nature do with actors fill. Apology for Actors. 1612.

Seven cities warr'd for Homer being dead; Who living had no roofe to shrowd his head.1 The Hierarchie of the blessed Angells. Lond. 1635, p. 207.

SIR JOHN DENHAM. 1615 – 1668.

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,

Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold;
His genuine and less guilty wealth ť explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore.
Cooper's Hill, Line 165.
O, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not

dull;

Strong without rage; without o'erflowing full. Line 189.

Actions of the last age are like almanacs of the last year. The Sophy. A Tragedy. But whither am I strayed? I need not raise Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise; Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built;

1 Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead, Through which the living Homer begged his bread.

Anon.

Denham continued.]

Nor needs thy juster title the foul guilt

Of Eastern kings, who, to secure their reign, Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred

That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer; A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit. The first true gentleman that ever breathed.2

The Honest Whore. Part i. Act i. Sc. 12.

We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies. Ibid. Part ii. Act i. Sc. 2.

To add to golden numbers, golden numbers.

Patient Grissell. Act i. Sc. 1.

Honest labour bears a lovely face.

Ibid.

1 Poets are sultans, if they had their will;
For every author would his brother kill.

Orrery, "in one of his Prologues," says Johnson.
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear like the Turk, no brother near the throne.
Pope, Prologue to the Satires, Line 197.
2 Of the offspring of the gentilman Jafeth, come Habra-
ham, Moyses, Aron, and the profettys; and also the
Kyng of the right lyne of Mary, of whom that gentilman
Jhesus was borne. - Juliana Berners, Heraldic Blazonry.

ABRAHAM COWLEY. 1618-1667.

What shall I do to be for ever known,
And make the age to come my own?

The Motto.

His time is for ever, everywhere his place.

Friendship in Absence.

We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine; But search of deep philosophy,

Wit, eloquence, and poetry;

Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine. On the Death of Mr. William Harvey.

His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.1 On the Death of Crashaw.

We grieved, we sighed, we wept we never blushed before.

Discourse concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwell.

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair.

From Anacreon. Drinking.

Why

Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?

1 Cf. Pope, Essay on Man, Ep. iii. Line 306.

Ibid.

Cowley continued.]

Th' adorning thee with so much art

Is but a barb'rous skill;
'Tis like the poisoning of a dart,

Too apt before to kill.

The Waiting Maid.

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,

But an eternal now does always last.1

The monster London.

Davideis. Vol. i. Book 1.

Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,

A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.

Of Solitude.

God the first garden made, and the first city

Cain.2

The Garden. Essay v.

Hence ye profane, I hate ye all,

Both the great vulgar and the small.

Horace. Book iii. Ode 1.

SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. 1605-1668.

Th' assembled souls of all that men held wise. Gondibert. Book ii. Canto v. St. 37.

1 One of our poets (which is it?) speaks of an everlastSouthey, The Doctor, Ch. xxv. p 1.

ing now.
2 Cf. Cowper, p. 360.

EDMUND WALLER. 1605-1687.

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,1
Lets in new light thro' chinks that time has made.
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.

Verses upon his Divine Poesy.

Under the tropic is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath received our yoke.
Upon the Death of the Lord Protector.

A narrow compass! and yet there

Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair :
Give me but what this riband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.

On a Girdle.

How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

Go, lovely rose.

That eagle's fate and mine are one,
Which, on the shaft that made him die,
Espied a feather of his own,

Wherewith he wont to soar so high.2

To a Lady singing a Song of his Composing.

The yielding marble of her snowy breast.

On a Lady passing through a Crowd of People.

1 Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body. -Fuller, The Holy and the Profane State, Book i. Ch. ii. 2 Cf. Byron, p. 467.