Reliques of Ancient English Poetry

She runs not now; the shoots no more;
Away fhe throws both shaft and bow
She feeks for what the shunn'd before,
She thinks the fhepherds hafte too flow.

Though mountains meet not, lovers may :
What other lovers do, did they:

The god of love fate on a tree,

And laught that pleafant fight to fee.

XI.

THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE.

This little moral poem was writ by Sir HENRY WOTTON, who died Provoft of Eaton in 1639. El. 72. It is printed from a little collection of his pieces, intitled, RELIQUIE WOTTONIANE, 1651, 12mo; compared with one or two other copies.

OW happy is he born or taught,

That ferveth not anothers will;
Whofe armour is his honest thought,
And fimple truth his highest fkill:

Whofe

Whose paffions not his masters are;

Whofe foul is fill prepar'd for death;

Not ty'd unto the world with care

Of princes ear, or vulgar breath:

Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whofe confcience is his strong retreat :
Whole state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruine make oppreffors great:

Who envies none, whom chance doth raise,
never understood

Or vice: Who ne
How deepest wounds are given with praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;

Who God doth late and early pray
More of his grace than gifts to lend ;
And entertaines the harmless day

With a well-chosen book or friend.

This man is freed from fervile bands
Of hope to rife, or feare to fall;
Lord of himselfe, though not of lands ;
And having nothing, yet hath all.

XII. GILDEROY,

XII.

GILDERO Y

was a famous robber, who lived about the middle of the last century, if we may credit the hiftories and storybooks of bighwaymen, which relate many improbable feats of him, as his robbing Cardinal Richlieu, Oliver Cromwell, &c. But thefe ftories have probably no other authority, than the records of Grub-freet: At least the GILDEROY, who is the hero of Scottish Song fters, feems to have lived in an earlier age; for, in Thompson's Orpheus Caledonius, Vol. II. 1733, Svo. is a copy of this ballad, which, tho' corrupt and interpolated, contains fome lines that appear to be of genuine antiquity: in thefe he is represented as contemporary with Mary 2. of Scots: ex. gr.

"The Queen of Scots poffeffed nought,

• That my love let me want:

"For cow and ew to me he brought,
And ein whan they were fcant."

Th fe lines perhaps might fafely have been inferted among the following Ranzas, which are given from a written copy, that appears to have received fome modern corrections. Indeed the common popular ballad contained fome indecent luxu iances that required the pruning-hook.