humble preparation of the mind, and a reverent disposition of the body; if thy knees be bent to the earth, thy hands and eyes lifted up to heaven; if thy tongue pray, and praise, and thine ears hearken to his answer; if all thy senses, and powers, and faculties be met with one unanime purpose to worship thy God, thou art, to this intendment, a church, thou art a congregation; here are two or three met together in his name, and he is in the midst of them, though thou be alone in thy chamber. The church of God should be built upon a rock, and yet Job had his church upon a dunghill; the church is to be placed upon the top of a hill, and yet the prophet Jeremy had his church in a miry dungeon; constancy and settledness belong to the church, and yet Jonah had his church in the whale's belly; the lion that roars, and seeks whom he may devour, is an enemy to this church, and yet Daniel had his church in the lion's den; the waters of rest in the Psalm were a figure of the church, and yet the three children had their church in the fiery furnace; liberty and life appertain to the church, and yet Peter and Paul had their church in prison, and the thief had his church upon the cross. Every particular man is himself a temple of the Holy Ghost; yea, destroy this body by death and corruption in the grave, and yet there shall be a renewing, a re-edifying of all those temples, in the general resurrection: when we shall rise again, not only as so many Christians, but as so many Christian churches, to glorify the apostle and high-priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, in that eternal Sabbath. Every person, every place is fit to glorify God in. THE GREATEST CROSS IS TO HAVE NO CROSS. I lack one There cannot be so great a cross as to have none. leaf of that daily bread that I pray for, if I have no cross; for flictions are our spiritual nourishment: I lack one limb of that ody I must grow into, which is the body of Christ Jesus, if I have no crosses; for, my conformity to Christ (and that is my being made up into his body) must be accomplished in my fulfilling his sufferings in his flesh. ANGER. Anger is not always a defect, nor an inordinateness in man; Be angry, and sin not: anger is not utterly to be rooted out of our ground and cast away, but transplanted; a gardener does well to grub up thorns in his garden; there they would hinder good herbs from growing: but he does well to plant those thorns in his hedges; there they keep bad neighbors from entering. In many cases, where there is no anger, there is not much zeal. MICHAEL DRAYTON. 1563-1631. THIS very voluminous and once popular writer has sunk into an oblivion which he does not deserve. His poems are mostly of an historical and topographical character. Such is his great work, his " Poly-Olbion,” 1 a work of stupendous labor and accurate information, on which he rested his hopes of immortality. It is a very singular poem, and certainly entirely original in its plan, describing the woods, mountains, valleys, and rivers of England with all their associations, traditional, historical, and antiquarian. That "it possesses many beauties which are poetically great, and is full of delineations which are graphically correct," is no doubt true; but, after all, it is a poem that will always be consulted rather for the information it conveys, than for the pleasure it produces. His other historical poems are his "Barons Warres," being an account of "The lamentable Civil Warres of Edward the Second and the Barons;” his "Legends;" his "Battle of Agincourt;" and " England's Heroical Epistles." But it is for his pastoral and miscellaneous poems that Drayton will continue to be known and valued. Some of these possess beauties of the highest order. Such, for instance, is the fairy poem called Nymphidia, than which a more exquisite creation of the fancy can hardly be found; and it has been well remarked, that " had he written nothing else he would deserve immortality." His "Shepherd's Garland" is a pastoral poem, first published under this title, but afterwards revised and reprinted under the name of Eclogues. His other miscellaneous poems consist of odes, elegies, sonnets, religious effusions, &c Drayton died December 23, 1631, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.? CHORUS OF THE BIRDS. When Phoebus lifts his head out of the winter's wave, 1 From the Greek roλda (polla), “many things;" that is, many things about Albion, or England. 2 Read-a notice of Drayton in Drake's "Shakspeare and his Times ;" another, in the third volume of D'Israeli's "Amenities of Literature;" and another, in Sir Egerton Brydges's "Imaginative Biography." For, with their vocal sounds, they sing to pleasant May: To Philomel, the next the linnet we prefer; And by that warbling bird the wood-lark place we then, And of these chanting fowls, the goldfinch not behind, THE PARTING. Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part; That we one jot of former love retain.- Poly-Olbion When his pulse failing, passion speechless lies, When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And Innocence is closing up his eyes, Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, PALACE OF THE FAIRIES: QUEEN MAB'S CHARIOT AND JOURNEY This palace standeth in the air, By necromancy placed there, Which way soe'er it blow it: And somewhat southward toward the noon, The walls of spiders' legs are made, It curiously that builded; With moonshine that are gilded. * * * # * * The queen her maids doth call, And bids them to be ready all, Her chariot ready straight is made, Upon the coach-box getting. Her chariot of a snail's fine shell, I trow, 'twas simple trimming. The wheels composed of crickets' bones, For all her maidens much did fear, If Oberon had chanc'd to hear, That Mab his queen should have been there, She mounts her chariot with a trice, Until her maids, that were so nice, But ran herself away alone; Which when they heard, there was not one But hasted after to be gone, As she had been diswitted. Hop, and Mop, and Drap so clear, Her special maids of honor; The train that wait upon her. From the Nymphidia. BEN JONSON. 1574-1637. BENJAMIN JONSON, or Ben Jonson, as he signed his own name, was the son of a clergyman in Westminster, and born in 1574, about a month after his father's death. He was educated at Westminster, but his mother, having taken a bricklayer for her second husband, removed him from school, where he had made extraordinary progress, to work under his step-father. Disgusted with this occupation, he escaped, enlisted in the army, and went to the Netherlands. On his return to England, he entered Cambridge; but the failure of pecuniary resources obliging him to quit the university, he applied to the theatre for employment. Though at first his station was a low one, he soon, by his own industry and talent, rose to distinction, and gained great celebrity as a dramatic writer. His works altogether consist of about fifty-four dramatic pieces, but by far the greater part of them are masques and interludes, for which his genius seemed better fitted, being too destitute of passion and sentiment for the regular drama. "His tragedies," says a critic, "seem to bear about the same resemblance to Shakspeare's, that sculpture does to actual life."2 There are, however, interspersed throughout his works, many lyrical pieces that have peculiar neatness and beauty of diction, and will bear a comparison with any in our language. Of these, the following may be taken as specimens: CUPID. Beauties, have ye seen this toy, Almost naked, wanton, blind, Cruel now, and then as kind? If he be amongst ye, say! He is Venus' run-away. He hath of marks about him plenty, You shall know him among twenty: And his breath a flame entire, That, being shot like lightning in, He doth bear a golden bow, Dian's shafts, where, if he have Any head more sharp than other, With that first he strikes his mother. 1 The four best comedies of Jonson are, "Every Man in his Humor," "The Silent Woman,” “Volpone or The Fox," and the "Alchemist." Two of his best tragedies are entitled, "Catiline," and "The Fall of Sejanus." 2"Many were the wit-combats betwixt Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, which two I beheld like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow in his performances. Shakspeare, with the English man-of-war, Jesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention."--Fuller's Worthies. |