festivities of the day, probably tended to produce the antipathy which Mr. Gifford says subsisted between him and Ben Jonson. He was an unwearied student, being rarely absent from his study after three o'clock in the morning. The charm of his conversation was remembered by the bookseller Marriot, who said that it distilled pleasure, knowledge, and virtue, to all his acquaintance.

In his religious creed he was a zealous son of the established church; and it was his dying request to his friends, that they would make it universally known, that

as he was trained up and lived in the true protestant Religion, so in that religion he died." In the latter part of his life he underwent many persecutions, and he seems to allude to his own sufferings in the Persecuted Man. "No sooner had I made a covenant with my God, but the world made a covenant against me, scandalled my name, slandered my actions, derided my simplicity, and despised my integrity. For my profession's sake I have been reproached, and the reproaches of the world have failen upon me; if I chastened my soul with fasting, it styled me with the name of hypocrite; if I reproved the vanity of the times, it derided me with the name of puritan." His Prayers and Meditations form a lasting monument of his fervid piety. The following beautiful supplications cannot fail of being acceptable to all who can sympathize with the expression of unfeigned devotion:

"Lord, if thy mercy exceeded not my misery, I could look for no compassion; and if thy grace transcended not my sin, I could expect for nothing but confusion. Oh, thou that madest me of nothing, renew me, that have made myself far less than nothing; revive those

sparkles in my soul which lust hath quenched; cleanse thine image in me which my sin hath blurred; enlighten my understanding with thy truth; rectify my judgment with thy word; direct my will with thy spirit; strengthen my memory to retain good things; order my affections, that I may love thee above all things; increase my faith; encourage my hope; quicken my charity; sweeten my thoughts with thy grace; season my words with thy spirit; sanctify my actions with thy wisdom; subdue the insolence of my rebellious flesh; restrain the fury of my unbridled passions; reform the frailty of my corrupted nature; incline my heart to desire what is good, and bless my endeavours that I may do what I desire. Give me a true knowledge of myself, and make me sensible of mine own infirmities; let not the sense of those mercies which I enjoy, blot out of my remembrance those miseries which I deserve, that I may be truly thankful for the one, and humbly penitent for the other. In all my afflictions keep me from despair; in all my deliverances preserve me from ingratitude; that being truly quickened with the sense of thy goodness, and truly humbled by the sight of mine own weakness, I may be here exalted by the virtue of thy grace, and hereafter advanced to the kingdom of thy glory."

"O God, without the sunshine of whose gracious eye, the creature sits in darkness and in the shadow of death; whose presence is the very life and true delight of those that love thee; cast down thine eyes of pity upon a lost sheep of Israel, which has wandered from thy fold into the desert of his own lusts. What dangers can I choose but meet, that have run myself out of thy protection? What sanctuary can secure me, that have left the covert of thy wings? What comfort can I expect, O God, that

have forsaken thee, the God of comfort and consolation? Return thee, O great Shepherd of my soul, and with thy crook reduce me to thy fold; thou art my way, conduct me; thou art my light, direct me; thou art my life, quicken me. Disperse these clouds that stand betwixt thy angry face and my benighted soul; remove that cursed bar which my rebellion hath set betwixt thy deafened ear and my confused prayers, and let thy comfortable beams reflect upon me. Leave me not, O God, unto myself; O Lord, forsake me not too long, for in me dwells nothing but despair, and the terrors of Hell have taken hold of me. Remove this heart of stone, and give me, O good God, a heart of flesh, that it may be capable of thy mercies, and sensible of thy judgments; plant in my heart a fear of thy name, and deliver my soul from carnal security; order my affections according to thy will, that I may love what thou lovest, and hate what thou hatest; kindle my zeal with a coal from thine altar, and increase my faith by the assurance of thy love. O holy fire, that always burnest and never goest out, kindle me. O sacred light, that always shinest and art never dark, illuminate me. 0 sweet Jesus, let my soul always desire thee, and seck thee, and find thee, and sweetly rest in thee; be thou in all my thoughts, in all my words, in all my actions, that both my thoughts, my words, and my actions, being sanctified by thee here, I may be glorified by thee hereafter."

The portrait of Quarles is copied from an engraving by Marshall†, and does not realize the flattering account left by the poet's friends, of his personal appearance.

Lead back.

+ Bromley's Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits, p. 102.

Marriot says, that "his person and mind were both lovely;" but there is nothing in the warlike countenance before us to identify it with the author of the Emblems or the Meditations. Marshall also "wrought" his head, we learn from Aubrey, curiously in plaster, "and valued it for his sake. 'Tis pity it should be lost," adds the antiquary; "Mr. Quarles was a very good man."

In addition to the poems previously mentioned, he wrote Sion's Sonnets, an Elegy on his friend, Dr. Wilson*, &c. &c. And after his death were published Solomon's Recantation, a paraphrase on Ecclesiastes, the Virgin Widow, a comedy, and the Shepherd's Oracles, which bear internal proof of having been composed about the year 1632. The Virgin Widow was acted at Chelsea by a "company of young gentlemen," but has little humour to recommend it. Langbaine calls it an innocent production. In Fuller's Abel Redivivus are several poems, the "most part of which," we are told by the quaint Editor, were done by Master Quarles, father and son, sufficiently known for their abilities therein." The biographer of The Worthies entertained a very friendly feeling towards the poet, with whom he was probably acquainted, and he affirmed, that if Quarles had been contemporary with Plato, he would not only have allowed him to live, but advanced him to an office, in his Commonwealth.

"

Fuller's book is not of common recurrence, but the following lines on the gentle Melancthon and the martyr Ridley, deserve preservation:

ON MELANCTHON.

Would thy ingenious fancy soar and fly
Beyond the pitch of modern poesy?

There was something awful in the event which suggested this Elegy. Quarles sat by the side of Dr. Wilson only two hours before his death, at the table of Sir Julius Cæsar, Master of the Rolls.

1

Or wouldst thou learn to charm the conquer'd ear
With rhetoric's oily magic? Would'st thou hear,
The majesty of language? Wouldst thou pry
Into the bowels of philosophy,

Moral, or natural? Or would'st thou sound

The holy depth, and touch the unfathomed ground
Of deep theology?

Go, search Melancthon's tomes.

ON RIDLEY.

READ in the progress of this blessed story
Rome's cursed cruelty and Ridley's glory:
Rome's sirens' song; but Ridley's careless ear
Was deaf: they charm'd, but Ridley would not hear.
Rome sung preferment, but brave Ridley's tongue
Condemn'd that false preferment which Rome sung.
Rome whisper'd wealth; but Ridley (whose great gain
Was godliness) he wav'd it with disdain.
Rome threatened durance; but great Ridley's mind
Was too, too strong for threats or chains to bind.
Rome thunder'd death; but Ridley's dauntless eye
Star'd in Death's face, and scorn'd Death standing by:
In spite of Rome, for England's faith he stood,
And in the flames he seal'd it with his blood.

In these few verses the poet has presented a rapid and effective picture of Ridley's life; his frequent temptations, his sublime courage, and his holy resignation, are all recollected. No man "star'd in Death's face" (an image of wonderful power) with a more dauntless eye, than he who suffered and died with Latimer.

It would seem, from an Epigram addressed to F. Quarles, by Thomas Bancroft*, that he was at one time engaged on a poem descriptive of the life of our Saviour. If completed, it was never published.

• Two Bookes of Epigrammes and Epitaphs, &c., 1639.