There does it breathe a mystic song to Thee,
A melody unlike all earthly sound;
That bird alone to this pure nest may flee,
This nest alone worthy the bird is found.

IN CETUM OMNIUM SANCTORUM.
Felices animæ ! quas cœlo debita virtus
Jam potuit vestris inseruisse polis.
Hoc dedit egregii non parcus sanguinis usus,
Spesque per obstantes expatiata vias.
O ver! O longæ semper seges aurea lucis,
Nocte nec alternâ, dimidiata dies-

O quæ palma manu ridet! quæ fronte corona!
O nix virgineæ non temeranda togæ !
Pacis inocciduæ vos illic ora videtis:

Vos Agni dulcis lumina: vos-quid ago?

TO THE ASSEMBLY OF ALL THE SAINTS.
Thrice happy souls, to whom the prize is given,
Whom faith and truth have lifted into heaven,—
Gift of the heavenly Martyr's dying breath,
Gift of a Faith that burst the Gates of Death!
O Spring! O golden harvest of glad light,
Sweet day, whose beauty never fades in night!
The palm blooms in each hand, the garland on each brow,
The raiment glitters in its undimm'd snow!

The regions of unfading Peace ye see,

And the meek brightness of the Lamb-how different from me!

66

The name of Cowley is associated with the history of Crashaw; he spoke of himself as one whom Crashaw was so humble to esteem, so good to love." And Crashaw, when he sent "two green apricots" to his friend, poured out the sincere praise of his attachment. He was considered an imitator of Cowley, but they resembled each other only in their love of conceits. Cowley's boyish rhymes, a modern critic cannot be

Of

required to say any thing; for even the author professed himself unwilling to be obliged to read them all over. Yet his Poetical Blossoms were the offspring of a tree that might have produced golden fruit, if he had not liked better to carve its branches into quaint devices, than suffer them to spread into verdant strength. His was, indeed, a case of mental perversion; the ruggedness of his lines, and the eccentricity of his imagery, are affirmed by his flattering biographer, Dr. Sprat, to have been "his choice, not his fault." The writer of the raciest and clearest prose sank into a mysterious expounder of the idlest trifles.

His sacred poetry has been criticised by Johnson. The Davideis, his most ambitious attempt, was composed while he was a student at Cambridge. No one ever dreams that it was inspired by the Faery Queen, which used to lie in the window-seat of his father's house, or that Milton deemed the poet worthy of being admitted into the triumvirate, of which Spenser and Shakspeare were members. Fuller said of an ornamental writer, that the extravagance of his fancy had introduced a new alphabet; and Cowley sought to effect a similar change in the language of poetry. He had wandered in the labyrinth until he preferred it to the open country. Difficulty was become essential to his amusement. But we lose sight of the faults of the bard, in the truth and generosity of the Christian; Chertsey, where

The last accents flowed from Cowley's tongue,

and

will continue to draw many footsteps to its honoured neighbourhood.

326

MORE, NORRIS, BEAUMONT, FLATMAN.

Or the fellow-collegian and friend of Milton, a notice will not be uninteresting.

HENRY MORE was born at Grantham, in Lincolnshire, on the 12th of October, 1614. His parents, who were rigid Calvinists, placed him under the care of a private tutor of their own persuasion, with whom he remained till his fourteenth year, when, by the advice of his uncle, he was removed to Eton, with strict injunctions to preserve his religious tenets. But More soon began to manifest an antipathy to the doctrines of Calvin. These symptoms of dissatisfaction did not escape the observation of his uncle, who expressed his displeasure

in very angry terms. More was not an ordinary boy,

and the threats of his relation only stimulated him to a deeper investigation of the belief in which he had been educated. Often, he tells us, while he took his solitary walk in the play-ground of the school, with his head on one side, and kicking the stones with his feet, as he was wont to do, the subject of religion occupied his thoughts; for even in my first childhood, he continues, an inward sense of the Divine Presence was so strong upon my mind, that I did then believe that there could no deed, word, or thought, be hidden from Him. From Eton, where he stayed three years, he was sent to Christ's College, Cambridge, and to his great delight was admitted under a tutor who was not a Calvinist. Here he immersed himself head over ears* in the study of philosophy, and devoted nearly four years to the *His own phrase.

perusal of Aristotle, Cardan, Scaliger, &c., but he reaped no harvest for his toil.

After he had taken his Bachelor's degree, he entered on a new course of study, replacing his former favourites with the platonic writers. He was also captivated by the Theologia Germanica of John Tauler, which he styled a golden little book. The writings of this individual were admired by Luther and Melancthon; and some of his sermons were approved by Bossuet, who considered him one of the most solid and correct of the mystics. More laboured with indefatigable perseverance, and the effects of his researches were quickly visible in a mind exalted to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, and a frame attenuated to skin and bone. He indulged in a belief that his soul had communicated some of its newlyacquired ethereality to his body, which, he assured his friends, at particular seasons exhaled the perfume of violets. His theory of the divine body is developed in his Dialogues. "The oracle of God," he said, “is not to be heard but in his Holy Temple, that is to say, in a good and holy man, thoroughly sanctified."

In 1640, he began to form his mystical speculations into the Psycho Zoia, a picture of platonic life in the soul, to the composition of which he thought himself impelled by some heavenly impulse. He was now in his twenty-sixth year, and appears to have been regarded as a melancholy student, for some opposition was at first offered to his election to a fellowship, on the score of his sad and uncheerful disposition. He was, however, by nature inclined to excessive mirth, which he accounted one of his greatest infirmities.

In the civil war, More was allowed to retain his fellowship; and the severe inquisitors who ejected

Crashaw and Cowley, left the philosopher to dream with Plato in his academic bower*. But he was not without anxiety for the fate of his country; and once, on being informed of a great defeat sustained by the royal army, in the words of his biographer, his spirit sat itself down, and with tears bewailed the evils of his native land.

He occasionally passed a few days at Ragley, in Warwickshire, the residence of his enthusiastic friend, Lady Conway, where he wrote several of his treatises. In 1675 he was presented, by the brother of this lady, to a Prebend in the Church of Gloucester; but he quickly resigned it in favour of Dr. Fowler, for whose sake alone he is supposed to have accepted it. Preferment, indeed, was almost thrust upon him. Ward says, he had seen letters courting him to occupy some of the highest ecclesiastical offices in Ireland. The Deanery of Christ Church, and the Provostship of Trinity College, were among the number. He was, however, inexorable in declining them. One nobleman, after tempting him in vain with two Bishoprics, prayed him not to be so morose or humoursome as to refuse all things he had not known so long as Christ's College. And when an English Bishopric had been procured for him, and his friends had succeeded in bringing him to Whitehall to kiss the King's hand, on discovering their real object, he resolutely insisted on returning to Cambridge immediately. These anecdotes show the simple and contented nature of the man.

The evening of his life was as peaceful as the dawn. Having his mind enlightened with the noblest views in the morning of his years, he went on shining more

* Campbell.