ritable silence, whose manners he reforms, not by invectives, but example. In prayer he is frequent, not apparent; yet as he labours not the opinion, so he fears not the scandal of being thought good. He every day travels his meditations up to Heaven, and never finds himself wearied with the journey; but when the necessities of nature return him down to earth, he esteems it a place he is condemned to. Το live he knows a benefit, and the contempt of it ingratitude, and therefore loves, but not dotes on life. Death, how deformed soever an aspect it wears, he is not frighted with, since it not annihilates but unclouds the soul. He, therefore, stands every moment prepared to die; and though he freely yields up himself when age or sickness summon him, yet he with more alacrity puts off his earth when the profession of faith crowns him a martyr. HENRY VAUGHAN was born in Wales, in 1621, and in his seventeenth year was entered of Jesus College, Oxford, from whence, after a residence of two years, he was removed by his father to one of the Inns of Court in London, where he studied the law, until the commencement of the civil war, when, we are told by Anthony Wood, "he was taken home by his friends, and followed the pleasant paths of poetry and philology." He afterwards applied himself to physic, and became an eminent practitioner in his native place. Thus his life glided harmlessly and beneficially away, at a distance from the miseries under which so many of his fellow-creatures were suffering. He lived in the neighbourhood of Brecknock; and in the Olor Iscanus are frequent invitations to his friends to partake of his rustic pleasures. He died, Wood thinks, on the 29th of April, 1695, and was buried in the parish-church of Llansenfried, about two miles from Brecknock. Vaughan's poetry has never received the praise it L deserves. Mr. Campbell pronounces him one of the harshest of the inferior order of the school of conceit; but to his sacred poems, a milder criticism is due: they show considerable originality and picturesque grace. He was an imitator of Herbert, of whom he makes affectionate mention, and whom he resembles in the negligence of his versification, and the inappropriateness of his imagery. But he occasionally swept the harp with a master's hand: what an affecting solemnity runs through these stanzas: They are all gone into the world of light! And I alone sit lingering here; It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest, I see them walking in an air of glory, Whose light doth trample on my days: My days, which are at best but dull and hoary, O holy Hope! and high Humility, High as the heavens above: These are your walks, and you have show'd them me Dear beauteous Death! the jewel of the just, Shining no where but in the dark; What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust, Could man outlook that mark! He that hath found some fledg`d bird's nest, may know At first sight if the bird be flown; But what fair well, or grove, it sings in now, That is to him unknown. O, Father of eternal life, and all Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall Either disperse these mists which blot and fill My perspective as they pass, Or else remove me hence unto that Hill Where I shall need no glass. The image of the bird, in the 6th stanza, is very charming. The last verse is imitated from Herbert's poem on Grace. THE RETREAT. HAPPY those early days, when I Oh, how I long to travel back, These lines will find an echo in many bosoms, for the same aspiration must have risen to the lips of every But we know that "the enlightened spirit" be one. longs more to the maturity of age than to the inexperienced innocence of childhood; and to the eye of the Christian pilgrim, in the most desolate path of his wanderings, "the shady City of Palm Trees" is visible, and the blackness of the remote horizon often glows with the orient light of the City of Paradise. THE WREATH. Addressed to the Redeemer. SINCE I in storms most used to be, The softer dressings of the spring, But a twined wreath of grief and praise, This day I bring for all Thy pain, Thy quickening breath, which gladly bears Where cloudless quires sing without tears, A pretty verse on the burial of an infant should not be omitted: Blest infant bud whose blossom-life, Did only look about and fall, Weary'd out with harmless strife 295 RICHARD CRASHAW. AFTER an anxious search in all the accessible sources of information, I am able to tell little of one of whom every lover of poetry must desire to know so much. The day of his birth and of his decease are involved in equal mystery. 1613-1649 Crashaw was born in London. His father was an eminent Divine, and Preacher at the Temple. His works, however, brought him more fame than profit, and he confessed that he had spent his patrimony in buying books, and his time in scribbling them. At the close of the reign of Elizabeth he had also been deprived of a "little vicarage*." But his learning and virtues procured for him the esteem of many learned and excellent men †, and particularly of Sir Randolph Crew, and Sir Henry Yelverton, by whom his son Richard was placed on A Discourse on Popishe Corruption Requiringe a Kingly Refor mation; among the MS. Books in the Royal Library. See Casly's Catalogue. He was intimate with Archbishop Usher, as an extract from a letter to that Prelate will show:-"I lent you Josseline de Vitis Archiep. Cant., in folio, which you said you lent to Dr. Mocket, and I believe it; yet I could never get it, and now I find my book at Mr. Edwards his shop, in Duke Lane, and he saith he bought it with Dr. Mocket's library, but I cannot have it. Happily you might, by your testimony, prevail to get it me, for I charged him not to sell it. I pray think of it as you go that way. Thus longing to see you, and till you send me word what day you will be here, I commend us unto God, and am, Yours in Christ, WILLIAM CRASHAW." Appendix to Parr's Life of Usher. Sir Henry Yelverton was appointed Solicitor-General soon after 1613, and Attorney-General in 1616. In 1625, he was one of the Judges of the King's Bench, and subsequently of the Common Pleas. A curious |