On the fore-finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies, SIR HENRY WOTTON. SIR HENRY WOTTON. 1568-1639. 55 Wotton was less famed as a poet than as a political character. He was for a time in the service of the Earl of Essex, and was afterwards employed by James I. as ambassador to Venice. He finally took orders, and became Provost of Eton. A memoir of his curious life was written by Izaak Walton. A FAREWELL TO THE VANITIES OF THE WORLD. FAREWELL, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles; Beauty — the eye's idol — but a damasked skin; And torture freeborn minds; embroidered trains, Welcome, pure thoughts! welcome, ye silent groves! SIR JOHN DAVIES. 1570-1626. The principal poetical works of this author are a philosophical poem On the Soul of Man and the Immortality thereof; and a poem entitled, Orchestra, or a Poem of Dancing; in a Dialogue between Penelope and one of her Wooers. The fame of these introduced him to James I., who made him solicitor-general and attorney-general for Ireland. The following is from Antinous to Penelope, on her declining to dance with him. THE DANCING OF THE AIR. AND now behold your tender nurse, the air, Within her empty regions are there found, For when you breathe, the air in order moves, And then, sweet music, dancing's only life, The ear's sole happiness, the air's best speech, Loadstone of fellowship, charming rod of strife, The soft mind's paradise, the sick mind's leech, With thine own tongue thou trees and stones can teach, That when the air doth dance her finest measure, Then art thou born, the gods' and men's sweet pleasure. Lastly, where keep the Winds their revelry, Their violent turnings, their wild whistling lays, But in the air's translucent gallery? Where she herself is turned a hundred ways, REASONS FOR THE SOUL'S IMMORTALITY. AGAIN, how can she but immortal be, When, with the motions of both will and wit, She still aspireth to eternity, And never rests till she attain to it? All moving things to other things do move Of the same kind, which shows their nature such; So earth falls down, and fire doth mount above, Till both their proper elements do touch. And as the moisture which the thirsty earth Sucks from the sea to fill her empty veins, From out her womb at last doth take a birth, And runs, a lymph, along the grassy plains, Long doth she stay, as loth to leave the land Yet nature so her streams doth lead and carry Within whose watery bosom first she lay. E'en so the soul, which, in this earthly mould, At first, her mother earth she holdeth dear, And doth embrace the world and worldly things; Yet, under heaven, she cannot light on aught For who did ever yet, in honor, wealth, Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find? Then, as a bee, which among weeds doth fall, Which seem sweet flowers with lustre fresh and gay, But, pleased with none, doth rise and soar away And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take, Ben Jonson has generally been considered second to Shakspeare, (of whom he was ten years the junior,) in the dramatic literature of their time. The first part of his life was full of hardship and vicissitude. At an early age, he was taken from school, and put to the employment of brick-laying. He afterwards enlisted as a soldier, and was distinguished for his bravery. After this, for a very short period, he was a member of college. About the age of twenty, he is found married, and an actor, in London; but, as an actor, he completely failed. He quarrelled with another performer, killed him in a duel, in which he himself was severely wounded, was committed to prison on a charge of murder, but was released without trial. On regaining his liberty, he began writing for the stage. Some passages in a comedy entitled Eastward Hoe, written conjointly by Jonson and two others, and reflecting on the Scottish nation, caused James I. to throw the authors into prison, and to threaten them with the loss of their ears and noses; but they were soon set at liberty, without trial. He was afterwards appointed poet laureate, with a pension; was, with Shakspeare, Beaumont, and Fletcher, one of Raleigh's Mermaid Club, at which the guests "exercised themselves with wit combats' more bright and genial than their wine." He died, after being a long time confined to his house by attacks of palsy, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, the words, "O RARE BEN JONSON," being inscribed upon the stone which marked the spot. [From the "New Inn."] LOVE. Lovel. There is no life on earth but being in love! There are no studies, no delights, no business, |