And may they be fed from above By him which first ordain'd your love! Fresh as the hours may all your pleasures be, Sweet as the flower's first breath, and close And makes his bosom the sun's bed. Like the day's warmth may all your comforts be, Yet free and full, as is that sheaf And his cool'd locks breathe milder fires. RICHARD FLECKNO. "He was," says Langbaine," as famous as any in his age for ❝ indifferent metre ;" and adds "his acquaintance with the "nobility was more than with the muses." He is said to have been originally a Jesuit, and was the author of five dramatic pieces: but is less indebted to them than to the satire of Dryden for the celebrity of his name. Farther particulars may be met with in Langbaine and the Biogr. Dram. The following specimens are taken from his "Miscellania," &c. London, 1653. 12mo. THE ANT. LITTLE think'st thou, poor ant, who there Nor is 't such wonder now in thee, No more of th' world nor things dost know, That all thy thoughts o' th' ground should be, And mind on things so poor and low. 'But that man so base mind should bear, Nor greater worlds for to be found! He so much of the man does want Whilst thou'rt but man turn'd groveling ant, Extempore in praise of drinking Wine. THE fountains drink caves subterrene, And them some river gliding by. Of th' ocean then does drink the sky, And plants do drink up that again. By this who does not plainly see, How down our throats at once is hurl'd (Whilst merrily we drinking be) The quintessence of all the world? Whilst all drink then in land, air, sea, Let us too drink as well as they. INVOCATION OF SILENCE. STILL-born silence! thou that art Secrecy's confident, and he Seize our tongues, and strike us dumb! MATTHEW STEVENSON, Author of "Poems, or a miscellany of Sonnets, Satyrs, "Drollery, Panegyricks, Elegies, &c." London, 1673, 12mo. a book which sometimes occurs with the title of "Norfolk "Drollery;" and in 1685 was called "the Wits, in Poems "and Songs on various Occasions." A different volume of "Poems by Matthew Stevenson," appeared in 1665, and "Bellum Presbyteriale," an heroic poem, in 1661. In 1654, he printed a 12mo. miscellany, styled "Occa"sion's Offspring." Stevenson seems to have resembled Fleckno as a poet and publisher. The following song (from the first-mentioned) is tolerable. CAROLINA. SONG. SHOULD I sigh out my days in grief, |