Peace, good reader, do not weep; Peace, the lovers are asleep! They, sweet turtles, folded lie A happy soul, that all the way In the last knot that love could tie. 10 now, Go and with some daring drug, Go, poor man, think what shall be Hark hither, reader; would'st thou see A man whose sober soul can tell 10 20 Leonard Lessius was not a physician, but a famous Jesuit. He 3 born near Antwerp in 1554, taught philosophy and theology Louvain, and died in 1623, aged sixty-nine. Two books of his on tice and law, and on the Papal authority, in which he sustained its hest pretensions, were proscribed by the French parliaments. wrote on the existence of God, and on the immortality of the soul, and his colleague Hamelius also sustained, in 1586, theses on ce and predestination, that excited wide discussion. They were sured by the Universities of Louvain and Douay, and were brought he notice of Popes Sixtus V. and Innocent XI., who took no action inst them. Among the books of Lessius was one on the True Rule Health (“Hygiasticon, seu Vera Ratio Valetudinis"). An English islation of this book by T. S. Cambridge, "Hygeasticon, or the rse of Preserving Life and Health to Extreme Old Age," was lished in 1634, and the lines by Crashaw, bidding the reader hear d counsel and be what it would make him, were written in comidation of it. Mystic bills, prescriptions. A bill is properly a signed and sealed rument, from Latin "bulla," a seal. From the seal affixed, a al rescript was called a "bull," and a bill in Parliament, a bill of hange, or any other official writing or authenticated list- as "Bill Rights,” “bill of lading," "bill of health," "bill of fare"-is so ed from the association of sealing and signing with official work. this way the signed prescriptions of physicians were formerly ed their "bills." Wanton. This word is from the Celtic. In Welsh "gwantu" is sever, and "gwantan' "is that which easily separates itself, is To heaven hath a summer's day? Would'st see a man whose well-warm'd blood Bathes him in a genuine flood? A man whose tunéd humours be A seat of rarest harmony? Would'st see blithe looks, fresh cheeks beguile Age? Would'st see December smile? In a bed of reverend snow? Warm thoughts, free spirits, flattering In sum, would'st see a man that can Whose latest and most leaden hours And, when life's sweet fable ends, Soul and body part like friends : No quarrels, murmurs, no delay; A kiss, a sigh, and so away? This rare one, reader, would'st thou see, 40 50 William Habington, born in 1605, was a Roman Catholic. He was of a family that owned Hindlip Hall, four miles from Worcester, was educated at St. Omer's and Paris, and after his return to England married the lady, Lucy, daughter of William Herbert, first Lord Powis, who is the "Castara" of his volume of poems published in 1634. He died in 1654. These poems are his :— DESCRIPTION OF CASTARA. For she's to herself untrue, Who delights i'the public view. variable, quick in shifting place. In this sense it was applied to the eels in" King Lear," act ii., scene 4: Lear. Oh me! my heart, my rising heart!-but, down. Fool. Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels, when she put them i' the paste alive; she rapp'd 'em o' the coxcombs with a stick, and cried, "Down, wantons, down!" In Milton's "L'Allegro" ("quips and cranks and wanton wiles"), the word is used to express the quick variable playfulness of innocent and happy youth. In Crashaw's poem above quoted, the word indicates the light variable movement of a muslin veil. It is only in later English that the use of the word has been restricted to a bad sense. • Tuned humours. The "harmony of the tuned humours" is here a reference to the doctrine, once dominant in medicine for many generations, that health and character depended very much upon the nature and relation to one another of the "humours" of the body. There were four humours said to have their four seasons of predomi nance:-(1) The red bile, choler, in summer; where that generally predominated, the temper or temperament (which means the mixture, as in tempering of mortar, &c.) was choleric. (2) The lymph in winter; where that predominated in the mixture of the humours, it caused the lymphatic temperament. (3) The blood (Latin "sanguis") in spring; whenever that predominated, men were "sanguine." (4) Black bile (Greek μéλawa xoλ), melancholy in autumn; and general predominance of that gave rise to the melancholic temperament. When all the humours are harmoniously blended, there was “good temper " or "good humour." When there was inward disturbance caused by movement of vapours from these fluid humours-which were affected easily by heat and cold-people suffered, as ladies were often said to suffer, from "the vapours." Lively dread of the sudden condensation of such vapour in so delicate an organ as the brain, She holds that day's pleasure best, O'er that darkness whence is thrust She her throne makes Reason climb, Her pure thoughts to heaven fly: And her love she vows to me. STARLIGHT. When I survey the bright Celestial sphere, So rich with jewels hung, that night My soul her wings doth spread Th' Almighty's mysteries to read For the bright firmament Shoots forth no flame So silent, but is eloquent In speaking the Creator's name. No unregarded star Contracts its light Into so small a character, Remov'd far from our human sight, 20 30 40 10 caused some to fear too rash an application of cold water to the head, for which reason they often washed their beards only, and dry-rubbed their faces. Dr. Lemnius, a physician of note, whose "Occulta Naturæ Miracula " were published at Antwerp in 1564, warned men against venturing to wash their feet without advice from a physician. General "tubbing" would have seemed to this prudent man an institution only for a people with strong tendencies to suicide. Some nation yet shut in With hills of ice May be let out to scourge his sin 'Till they shall equal him in vice: And then they likewise shall For as yourselves your empires fall, Thus those celestial fires, Though seeming mute, The fallacy of our desires 30 George Herbert, twelve years older than Habington, was the fifth son of a good family, and born in Montgomery Castle. He was educated at Westminster School and at Cambridge, where in 1615 he became Fellow of Trinity, and he was from 1619 to 1627 Public Orator. James I. liked him much, gave him a small sinecure, and encouraged him to look for advancement at Court; but on the change of reign he abandoned his ambition to become one day a Secretary of State, took orders, and obtained a prebend in the diocese of Lincoln. He married in 1630 a kinswoman of the Earl of Danby, and three months afterwards was inducted into the living of Bemerton, a mile from Salisbury, where he spent the last three years of his life, for he died of consumption in 1633, when he was not quite forty years old. The poems that won for him the title of "Holy George Herbert " were published in the year after he had settled at Bemerton. They will be more fully represented in the volume of this Library designed to illustrate English religion. But here are two : VIRTUE. Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave And thou must die. A sister of John Hampden, who had married Robert Waller, of Agmondesham, in Buckinghamshire, became the mother of Edmund Waller, the poet. Edmund Waller was born in 1605, and inherited a large fortune, by the death of his father, while he was still young. His mother sent him to Eton and to Cambridge, and he was member for Agmondesham, when yet but a youth of seventeen, in the last Parliament of James I. In the earlier years of Charles I., Edmund Waller, who, when in the country, was living at Beaconsfield, shone at Court, and married a lady of great fortune. She added to his wealth and died. Then as a widower of five-and-twenty he sang of the beauty of the Lady Dorothy Sidney, who afterwards was married to the Earl of Sunderland. She is celebrated as Waller's Sacharissa. Waller married a lady named Bresse, and had thirteen children. Both he and Lady Sunderland, his Sacharissa, lived to be very old, and were friends in old age. "When, Mr. Waller," Imping a hawk's wing was repairing it by inserting a strong feather in place of a broken or a weak one, to secure a bolder flight. From the same root came the word "imp" as a graft, or offspring from a stock. See Notes 2, page 30; 4, page 190. 1 Musidorus' flame. Pamela. The references are to Sir Philip Sidney's romance of " Arcadia." In this romance two cousins, Musidorus, Prince of Thessaly, and Pyrocles, Prince of Macedon, were shipwrecked together, when Musidorus was about twenty years old and Pyrocles seventeen. Musidorus was saved by two shepherds on the Laconian shore, and carried by them to the home of a noble old Arcadian named Kalander. Kalander's son Clitophon was made prisoner in the Spartan war against the Helots. Musidorus, grateful to Kalander for his kindness, at once raised an army of Arcadians, attacked the Helots, and was astonished by the valour of their captain. But their captain, when at last he had struck off the helmet of Musidorus, and had seen his face, knelt to him: for it was Pyrocles who had become leader of the Helots. In consequence of this discovery Clitophon was released; Musidorus returned with his friend Pyrocles to the house of Kalander;" and presently the two young men resolved to seek Philoclea and Pamela, the two daughters of Basileus, king of Arcadia, and his wife Gynecia. They were jealously shut up from the world, and are, of course, the heroines of the romance. Pyrocles loved Philoclea, "Musidorus' flame" was Pamela. As for their charms, which Waller says were joined by Lady Dorothy in the blood of the Sidneys, Sir Philip had said of them, "Methought there was (if, at least, such perfections may receive the word of more) more sweetness in Philoclea, but more majesty in Pamela. Methought love played in Philoclea's eyes, and threatened in Pamela's; methought Philoclea's beauty only persuaded, but so persuaded as all hearts must yield; Pamela's beauty used violence, and such violence as no heart could resist. And it seems that such proportion is between their minds. Philoclea, so bashful, as though her excellences had stolen in to her before she was aware; so humble, that she will put all pride out of countenance; in sum, such proceeding as will stir hope, but teach hope good manners. Pamela of high thoughts, who avoids not pride by not knowing her excellences, but by making it one of her excellences to be void of pride." This kind of parallel Waller imitates in the poem "To Amoret." Lady Dorothy Sidney, Waller's Sacharissa, was Sir Philip's niece, daughter to Philip's brother Robert, who became the second Earl of Leicester. She married Lord Spencer, afterwards Earl of Sunderland. TO AMORET. Fair, that you may truly know Joy salutes me, when I set If sweet Amoret complains, All that of myself is mine, And, those scorching beams to shun, |