What does this cruelty create? Is 't the intrigue of love or fate? 8 Had friendship ne'er been known to men, The world had then a stranger been A FRIEND. 1 Love, nature's plot, this great creation's soul, 2 Friendship's an abstract of this noble flame, As strong in passion is, though not so gross: And is an heaven in epitome. 3 Essential honour must be in a friend, Not such as every breath fans to and fro; Where friendship's spoke, honesty's understood; 4 Thick waters show no images of things; Friends are each other's mirrors, and should be MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. THIS lady, if not more of a woman than Mrs Philips, was considerably more of a poet. She was born (probably) about 1625. She was the daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, and became a maidof-honour to Henrietta Maria. Accompanying the Queen to France, she met with the Marquis, afterwards Duke of Newcastle, and married him at Paris in 1645. They removed to Antwerp, and there, in 1653, this lady published a volume, entitled 'Poems and Fancies.' The pair aided each other in their studies, and the result was a number of enormous folios of poems, plays, speeches, and philosophical disquisitions. These volumes were, we are told, great favourites of Coleridge and Charles Lamb, for the sake, we presume, of the wild sparks of insight and genius which break irresistibly through the scholastic smoke and bewildered nonsense. When Charles II. was restored, the Marquis and his wife returned to England, and spent their life in great harmony. She died in 1673, leaving behind her some beautiful fantasias, where the meaning is often finer than the music, such as the 'Pastime and Recreation of Fairies in Fairyland.' Her poetry, particularly her contrasted pictures of Mirth and Melancholy, presents fine accumulations of imagery drawn direct from nature, and shewn now in brightest sunshine, and now in softest moonlight, as the change of her subject and her tone of feeling require. MELANCHOLY DESCRIBED BY MIRTH. Her voice is low, and gives a hollow sound; Or sits with blinking lamps, or tapers small, MELANCHOLY DESCRIBING HERSELF. I dwell in groves that gilt are with the sun; I walk in meadows, where grows fresh green grass; Walk up the hills, where round I prospects see, To hear how sheep do bleat, and cows do low; Thus am I solitary, live alone, Yet better loved, the more that I am known; THOMAS STANLEY. THOMAS STANLEY, like Thomas Brown in later days, was both philosopher and a poet; but his philosophical reputation at the time eclipsed his poetical. He was the only son of Sir Thomas Stanley of Camberlow Green, in Hertfordshire, and was born in 1625. He received his education at Pembroke College, Oxford; and after travelling for some years abroad, he took up his abode in the Middle Temple. Here he seems to have spent the rest of his life in patient and multifarious studies. He made translations of some merit from Anacreon, Bion, Moschus, and the 'Kisses' of Secundus, as well as from Marino, Boscan, Tristan, and Gongora. He wrote a work of great pretensions as a compilation, entitled 'The History of Philosophy,' containing the lives, opinions, actions, and discourses of philosophers of every sect, of which he published the first volume in 1655, and completed it in a fourth in 1662. It is rather a vast collection of the materials for a history, than a history itself. He is a Cudworth in magnitude and learning, but not in strength and comprehension, and is destitute of precision and clearness of style. Stanley also wrote some poems, which discover powers that might have been better employed in original composition than in translation. His style, rich of itself, is enriched to repletion by conceits, and sometimes by voluptuous sentiments and language. He adds a new flush to the cheek of Anacreon himself; and his grapes are so heavy, that not a staff, but a wain were required to bear them. Stanley died in 1678. CELIA SINGING. 1 Roses in breathing forth their scent, The winged chariot of the light, Or the slow, silent wheels of night; Or souls that their eternal rest do keep, 2 But if the angel which inspires This subtle flame with active fires, Should mould this breath to words, and those Into a harmony dispose, The music of this heavenly sphere Would steal each soul (in) at the ear, A life that cherubim would choose, And with new powers invert the laws of fate, Kill those that live, and dead things animate. SPEAKING AND KISSING. 1 The air which thy smooth voice doth break, Into my soul like lightning flies; My life retires while thou dost speak, 2 Lost in this pleasing ecstasy, I join my trembling lips to thine, |