either side; but it delights, above all things, in a train behind, ay, and a cheer too before it. And the greatest part of men are so far from the opinion of that noble Roman, that if they chance to be at any time without company, they are like a becalmed ship; they never move but by the wind of other men's breath, and have no oars of their own to steer withal."

The whole Essay "Of Liberty" is full of the happiest adaptations of classical examples to Cowley's peculiar views. He speedily dismisses the public side of the question, and enlarges on the slavery to which ambitious men (Catiline unfortunate in his ambition, Cæsar prosperous) voluntarily subject themselves in the pursuit of their object. There are in this eloquent discourse many felicitous translations from Cicero and Sallust, which, taken with the specimens of Anacreon (which my readers will find further on), may lead us to lament deeply that in that age of translators, Cowley did not devote his cherished leisure to versions of some of the great masters of antiquity, especially the orators and historians.

I prefer, however, to give an extract from the curious fragment which he has entitled, "On the Government of Oliver Cromwell;" a strange vision, of which the whole tenor is strongly against the Great Protector; but into the midst of which, put, it is true, into the mouth of a bad angel, the following character of Cromwell is introduced, as if by an instinct of truth and candor which the writer found it impossible to resist. Hume has inserted this character" altered," as he says, "in some particulars," in his history. Why altered? The Scottish historian is a most clear and pleasant narrator, but surely he does not pretend to improve Cowley's prose. I give it from the original. The spokesman is the evil angel :

"And pray, countryman," said he, very kindly and very flatteringly, for I would not have you fall into the general error of the world, that detests and decries so extraordinary a virtue, what can be more extraordinary than that a person of mean birth, no fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which have sometimes, or of mind which have often, raised men to the highest dignities, should have the courage to attempt, and the happiness to succeed in so improbable a design as the destruction of one of the most ancient and most solidly-founded monarchies upon the earth? that he should have the power or boldness to put his Prince and

master to an open and infamous death; to banish that numerous and strongly-allied family; to do all this under the name and wages of a Parliament; to trample upon them too as he pleased, and spurn them out of doors when he grew weary of them; to raise up a new and unheard-of monster out of their ashes; to stifle that in the very infancy, and set up himself above all things that ever were called Sovereigns in England; to oppress all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterward by artifice; to serve all parties patiently for awhile, and to command them victoriously at last; to overrun each corner of the three nations, and overcome with equal facility both the riches of the south and the poverty of the north; to be feared and courted by all foreign princes, and adopted a brother to the gods of the earth; to call together Parliaments with a word of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of his mouth; to be hourly and daily petitioned that he would please to be hired at the rate of two millions a-year to be the master of those who had hired him before to be their servant; to have the estates and lives of three kingdoms as much at his disposal as was the little inheritance of his father, and to be as noble and liberal in the spending of them; and lastly (for there is no end of all the particulars of his glory), to bequeath all this with one word to his posterity; to die with peace at home and triumph abroad; to be buried among kings and with more than regal solemnity, and to leave a name behind him not to be extinguished but with the whole world; which as it is now too little for his praises, so it might have been too for his conquests, if the short time of his human life could have been stretched out to the extent of his immortal design."

Such is Cowley as a prose writer. And yet one of the most accomplished persons whom I have ever known assured me the other day that, excepting among a few men of very refined taste, he believed the Essays to be little read. They will rise in demand soon I hope, for my friend Mr. Willmott, a writer deservedly popular, has praised them in one of his charming volumes just as they ought to be praised. It would be difficult to say

more.

The poems are singularly unequal. But as I for my own private recreation am wont to resort to such innocent gayeties as the fathers of song have bequeathed to us, so I seldom fail to present them to my readers; and it happens that this philosopher,

whom we have seen dealing with high and lofty thoughts, descanting like a hermit on the joys of solitude and the delights of the country,—and in this respect his odes are nothing inferior to his Essays; it happens that this identical Cowley hath left be hind him the pleasantest of all pleasant ballads, which could hardly have been produced by any one except a thorough man of the world. It is entitled "The Chronicle," and contains a catalogue of all the fair ladies with whom he had at different times been enamored. Never was list more amusing. It abounds in happy traits,—especially the one, which tells to half an hour how long a silly beauty may hope to retain the heart of a man of sense. The expression when the haughty Isabella, unconscious of her conquest, and marching on to fresh triumphs, beats out Susan "by the bye" has passed into one of those proverbs, of which doubtless, as of many other by-words, they who use them little guess the origin.

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The Chronicle" was written two hundred years ago. Ladies, dear ladies, if one could be sure that no man would open this book, if we were altogether in (female) parliament assembled, without a single male creature within hearing, might we not acknowledge that the sex, especially that part of it formerly called coquette, and now known by the name of flirt, is very little altered since the days of the Merry Monarch? and that a similar list compiled by some gay bachelor of Belgravia might, allowing for differences of custom and of costume, serve very well as a companion to Master Cowley's catalogue? I would not have a man read this admission for the world.

THE CHRONICLE.-A BALLAD.

Margarita first possessed,

If I remember well, my breast,

Margarita first of all;

But when awhile the wanton maid,
With my restless heart had played,
Martha took the flying ball.

Martha soon did it resign,

To the beauteous Catherine:

Beauteous Catherine gave place, (Though loth and angry she to part With the possession of my heart,)

To Eliza's conquering face.

Eliza to this hour might reign,
Had she not evil counsels ta'en:
Fundamental laws she broke,
And still new favorites she chose,
Till up in arms my passions rose,
And cast away her yoke.

Mary then, and gentle Anne,
Both to reign at once began;
Alternately they swayed,

And sometimes Mary was the fair,
And sometimes Anne the crown did wear,
And sometimes both, I obeyed.

Another Mary then arose,
Who did rigorous laws impose,
A mighty tyrant she!
Long, alas! should I have been
Under that iron-sceptered queen,

Had not Rebecca set me free.

When fair Rebecca set me free,
'Twas then a golden time with me,
But soon those pleasures fled;

For the gracious princess died,
In her youth and beauty's pride,

And Judith reigned in her stead.

One month three days and half an hour, Judith held the sovereign power: Wondrous beautiful her face,

But so weak and small her wit,

That she to govern was unfit,

And so Susannah took her place.

But when Isabella came,
Armed with a resistless flame;

By the artillery of her eye,

While she proudly marched about,
Greater conquests to find out,

She beat out Susan, by the bye.

But in her place, I then obeyed
Black-eyed Bess, her viceroy-maid,
To whom ensued a vacancy.
Thousand worse passions then possessed,
The interregnum of my breast,—

Bless me from such an anarchy !

Gentle Henrietta then,

And a third Mary next began;
Then Joan and Jane, and Audria,
And then a pretty Thomasine,
And then another Catherine,

And then a long et cetera.

But should I now to you relate,
The strength and riches of their state,
The powder, patches, and the pins,
The ribbons, jewels, and the rings,
The lace, the paint, and warlike things,
That make up all their magazines.

If I should tell the politic arts,
To take and keep men's hearts,

The letters, embassies, and spies,
The frowns, the smiles, the flatteries,
The quarrels, tears, and perjuries,

Numberless, nameless mysteries!

And all the little lime-twigs laid,
By Machiavel the waiting-maid;

I more voluminous should grow,
Chiefly if I, like them should tell,
All change of weather that befell,
Than Hollinshed or Stowe.

But I will briefer with them be,
Since few of them were long with me.

An higher and a nobler strain

My present empress doth claim,

Heleonora first o' the name,

Whom God grant long to reign!

I add a few original stanzas, which show Cowley's characteristic merits and defects;-very few, since I must find room for some of those translations from Anacreon, which for grace, spirit, and delicacy, will never be surpassed.