SAMUEL SHEPPARD. Six books of Epigrams, "the Socratic Session," a sort of dramatic satire on Julius Scaliger, and "a Mausolean "Monument over his deceased parents, with three pasto"rals," were published by this writer, 1651, in a 12mo, volume, from whence the following stanzas are extracted, as the most favourable specimen of his abilities, In memory of our famous Shakspeare. SACRED spirit! whilst thy lyre Plautus sigh'd, Sophocles wept So bright a genius should appear; Who wrote his lines with a sun-beam, More durable than time or fate! Others boldly do blaspheme, Like those that seem to preach, but prate. Thou wert truly priest elect, By thy wit and skill divine, That, were all their other glories (Thine excepted) torn away, By thy admirable stories Their garments ever shall be gay. Where thy honour'd bones do lie, JOHN HALL, Author of a small volume of poems printed at Cambridge, 1646, and dedicated to "his truly noble, and worthily "honoured friend, Thomas Stanley, Esq." Wood tells us he was born in Durham, of genteel parents, 1627. Being kept from the University by the civil war, he studied at home till 1646, when he entered at St. John's, Cambridge, and, after a year's residence, removed in high credit to Lincoln's Inn. He published in favour of the Commonwealth, and was about 1650 called to the bar, and sometimes pleaded. In 1655 he left London in a bad state of health, and died at Durham 1656, in his 29th year. As to his character for abilities, Phillips says that, "besides his "juvenile poems, memorable only for their airy and youth"ful wit, he improved afterwards to a more substantial "reputation for what he wrote in verse as well as prose; "but a poem he began, of great and general expectation among his friends, had he lived to complete it, would ❝doubtless have very much advanced and completed his "fame." And Hobbes observes, that "had not his de"bauches and intemperance diverted him from the more "serious studies, he had made an extraordinary person: "for no man had ever done so great things at his age." For a list of his works vide Wood, Vol. I, 534, 5. THE CRYSTAL. THIS crystal here, That shines so clear, And carries in its womb a little day, Once hammer'd, will appear Impure as dust, as dark as clay. Even such will prove Thy face, my love, When age shall soil the lustre of thine And all that red remove That on thy spicy lip now lies! Nor can a hand Again command, By any art, these ruins into frame; But they will sever'd stand, And ne'er compose the former same. Such is the case Love, of thy face; Both desperate, in this you disagree; Thy beauty needs must pass : It, of itself, will constant be. eyes, SONG. DISTILL not poison in mine ears, Could I but follow where you lead, Disrob'd of earth, and plum'd by air, Then I my tenuous self might spread, As quick as fancy, every where. But I'll make sallies now and then; Yet on her crystal couch still lie. |