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general rule (it surely is no uncharity to say this, since the annals of Jesuitism have confessedly been so stained with falsehood, treachery, every insidious art, and every detestable crime} seems to have belonged our poet. No proof was produced that he had any connexion with the treacherous and bloody designs of his party, although he had plied his priestly labours with unwearied assiduity. He was too sincere-minded a man to have ever been admitted to the darker secrets of the Jesuits.

His verses are ingenious, simpler in style than was common in his time-distinguished here by homely picturesqueness, and there by solemn moralising. A shade of deep but serene and unrepining sadness, connected partly with his position and partly with his foreseen destiny, (his larger works were written in prison,) rests on the most of his poems.

LOOK HOME.

Retired thoughts enjoy their own delights,
As beauty doth in self-beholding eye:
Man's mind a mirror is of heavenly sights,

A brief wherein all miracles summ'd lie;

Of fairest forms, and sweetest shapes the store,
Most graceful all, yet thought may grace them more.
The mind a creature is, yet can create,

To nature's patterns adding higher skill
Of finest works; wit better could the state,
If force of wit had equal power of will.
Device of man in working hath no end;
What thought can think, another thought can mend.

Man's soul of endless beauties image is,

Drawn by the work of endless skill and might:
This skilful might gave many sparks of bliss,
And, to discern this bliss, a native light,
To frame God's image as his worth required;
His might, his skill, his word and will conspired.

All that he had, his image should present; All that it should present, he could afford; To that he could afford his will was bent;

His will was follow'd with performing word. Let this suffice, by this conceive the rest, He should, he could, he would, he did the best.

THE IMAGE OF DEATH.

Before my face the picture hangs,
That daily should put me in mind
Of those cold names and bitter pangs
That shortly I am like to find;
But yet, alas! full little I

Do think hereon, that I must die.

I often look upon a face

Most ugly, grisly, bare, and thin; I often view the hollow place

Where eyes and nose had sometime been;

I see the bones across that lie,

Yet little think that I must die.

I read the label underneath,

That telleth me whereto I must;
I see the sentence too, that saith,
'Remember, man, thou art but dust.'

But yet, alas! how seldom I .
Do think, indeed, that I must die!

Continually at my bed's head

A hearse doth hang, which doth me tell That I ere morning may be dead,

Though now I feel myself full well;

But yet, alas! for all this, I
Have little mind that I must die!

The gown which I am used to wear,
The knife wherewith I cut my meat;
And eke that old and ancient chair,
Which is my only usual seat;
All these do tell me I must die,
And yet my life amend not I.

My ancestors are turn'd to clay,
And many
of my mates are gone;
My youngers daily drop away,
And can I think to 'scape alone?
No, no; I know that I must die,
And yet my life amend not I.

*

If none can 'scape Death's dreadful dart;
If rich and poor his beck obey;

If strong, if wise, if all do smart,
Then I to 'scape shall have no way:
Then grant me grace, O God! that I
My life
may mend, since I must die.

LOVE'S SERVILE LOT.

Love mistress is of many minds,
Yet few know whom they serve;
They reckon least how little hope
Their service doth deserve.

The will she robbeth from the wit,
The sense from reason's lore;
She is delightful in the rind,
Corrupted in the core.

May never was the month of love;

For May is full of flowers:
But rather April, wet by kind;,
For love is full of showers.

With soothing words, inthralled souls
She chains in servile bands!
Her eye in silence hath a speech
Which eye best understands.

Her little sweet hath many sours,
Short hap, immortal harms;
Her loving looks are murdering darts,
Her songs bewitching charms.

Like winter rose, and summer ice,
Her joys are still untimely;
Before her hope, behind remorse,

Fair first, in fine1 unseemly.

Plough not the seas, sow not the sands,
Leave off your idle pain;
Seek other mistress for your minds,
Love's service is in vain.

TIMES GO BY TURNS.

The lopped tree in time may grow again,
Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower;
The sorriest wight may find release of pain,

The driest soil suck in some moistening shower: Time goes by turns, and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

1 Fine:' end.

The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow;

She draws her favours to the lowest ebb: Her tides have equal times to come and go;

Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web:

No joy so great but runneth to an end,
No hap so hard but may in fine amend.

Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring,
Not endless night, yet not eternal day:
The saddest birds a season find to sing,

The roughest storm a calm may soon allay.
Thus, with succeeding turns, God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.

A chance may win that by mischance was lost;
That net that holds no great, takes little fish;
In some things all, in all things none are cross'd;
Few all they need, but none have all they wish.
Unmingled joys here to no man befall;

Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all.

THOMAS WATSON.

He was born in 1560, and died about 1592. All besides known certainly of him is, that he was a native of London, and studied the common law, but seems to have spent much of his time in the practice of rhyme. His sonnets-one or two of which we subjoin-have considerable merit; but we agree with Campbell in thinking that Stevens has surely overrated them when he prefers them to Shakspeare's.

THE NYMPHS TO THEIR MAY-QUEEN.

With fragrant flowers we strew the way,
And make this our chief holiday:

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