The shepherd wept, and she was woe, and both did silence keep :

In troth, quoth he, I am not such as seeming I

profess,

But then for her, and now for thee, I from myself digress;

Her loved I, wretch that I am, a recreant to be,
I loved her that hated love, but now I die for

thee.

At Kirkland is my father's court, and Curan is my

name,

In Edel's court sometime in pomp, till love con troll'd the same;

But now what now? dear heart, how now, what aileth thou to weep?

The damsel wept, and he was woe, and both did silence keep.

I grant, quoth she, it was too much, that you did love so much,

But whom your former could not move, your second love doth touch;

Thy twice beloved Argentile submitteth her to

thee,

And, for thy double love, presents herself a single

fee;

In passion, not in person, changed; and I, my lord, am she;

Thus sweetly surfeiting in joy, and silent for a

space,

When as the ecstasy had end, did tenderly embrace.

BORN 1561.-DIED 1612.

A SPECIMEN of the poetry of Sir John Harrington's father has been already given in this volume, which is so polished and refined, as almost to warrant a suspicion that the editor of the Nugæ Antiquæ got it from a more modern quarter. The elder Harrington was imprisoned in the Tower, under Queen Mary, for holding a correspondence with Elizabeth; on whose accession his fidelity was rewarded by her favour. His son, the translator of Ariosto, was knighted on the field by the Earl of Essex, not much to the satisfaction of Elizabeth, who was sparing of such honours, and chose to confer them herself. He was created a knight of the bath in the reign of James, and distinguished himself, to the violent offence of the high church party, by his zeal against the marriage of bishops.

FROM SIR JOHN HARRINGTON'S EPIGRAMS.

OF A PRECISE TAILOR.

A TAILOR, thought a man of upright dealing-
True, but for lying-honest, but for stealing,
Did fall one day extremely sick by chance,
And on the sudden was in wond'rous trance;

The fiends of hell, mustering in fearful manner,
Of sundry colour'd silks display'd a banner
Which he had stolen, and wish'd, as they did tell,
That he might find it all one day in hell.
The man, affrighted with this apparition,
Upon recovery grew a great precisian :
He bought a Bible of the best translation,
And in his life he shew'd great reformation;
He walked mannerly, he talked meekly,
He heard three lectures and two sermons weekly;
He vow'd to shun all company unruly,
And in his speech he us'd no oath; but truly
And zealously to keep the sabbath's rest,
His meat for that day on the eve was drest;
And, lest the custom which he had to steal
Might cause him sometimes to forget his zeal,
He gives his journeyman a special charge,
That if the stuff, alllowance being large,
He found his fingers were to filch inclin❜d,
Bid him to have the banner in his mind.
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

ters,

To make Venetians down below the garters.
He, that precisely knew what was enough,
Soon slipt aside three quarters of the stuff;
His man, espying it, said, in derision,
Master, remember how you saw the vision!
Peace, knave! quoth he, I did not see one rag
Of such a colour'd silk in all the flag..

quar

FROM

HENRY PERROT'S BOOK OF EPIGRAMS, ENTITLED SPRINGES FOR WOODCOCKS. (EDIT. 1613).

PERROT, I suspect, was not the author, but only the collector of these trifles, some of which are claimed by other epigrammatists, probably with no better right. It is indeed very difficult to ascertain the real authors of a vast number of little pieces of the 16th and 17th centuries, as the minor poets pilfer from each other with the utmost coolness and apparent impunity.

AMBITIO FEMININI GENERIS.

MISTRESS Matrossa hopes to be a lady,
Not as a dignity of late expected;

But from the time almost she was a baby,
That hath your richest gentlemen rejected;
But yet not dubb'd at present as she should be,
Lives in expectance still-my lady Would-be.

NEC SUTOR ULTRA.

FROM THE SAME.

A COBBLER and a curate once disputed,
Before a judge, about the king's injunctions,
Wherein the curate being still confuted,

One said 'twere good if they two changed functions:
Nay, quoth the judge, I thereto would be loth,
But, an' you like, we'll make them cobblers both.

SIR THOMAS OVERBURY

Was born in 1581, and perished in the Tower of London, 1613, by a fate that is too well known. The compassion of the public for a man of worth, "whose spirit still walked unrevenged amongst them," together with the contrast of his ideal Wife with the Countess of Essex, who was his murderess, attached an interest and popularity to his poem, and made it pass through sixteen editions before the year 1653. His "Characters, or Witty Descriptions of the Properties of sundry Persons," is a work of considerable merit; but unfortunately his prose, as well as his verse, has a dryness and quaintness that seem to oppress the natural movement of his thoughts. As a poet, he has few imposing attractions: his beauties must be fetched by repeated perusal. They are those of solid reflection, predominating over, but not extinguishing, sensibility; and there is danger of the reader neglecting, under the coldness and ruggedness of his manner, the manly but unostentatious moral feeling that is conveyed in his maxims, which are sterling and liberal, if we can only pardon a few obsolete ideas on female education.