greater poets had extinguished his early popularity, or, as he expresses it himself, that he had

outlived the date

Of former grace, acceptance, and delight,

he retired to a farm in Somersetshire, where he died in 1619. In addition to his poems and plays, Daniel wrote a History of England, which he carried down to the end of the reign of Edward III. His reputation as a poet rests chiefly on the ponderous cantos of the Civil Wars, a poem now little read, although it occupies a place of some mark in our literature. At the close of his career, when he was relinquishing a Muse that no longer smiled upon his labours, he appears to have formed a very accurate estimate of the qualities to which he was indebted for his success :

And I, although among the latter train,

And least of those that sung unto this land,
Have borne my part, though in an humble strain,
And pleased the gentler that did understand;
And never had my harmless pen at all
Distained with any loose immodesty,
Nor ever noted to be touched with gall,
To aggravate the worst man's infamy;

But still have done the fairest offices

To virtue and the time.-Dedication of Philotas.

unable to He always

The great defect of his poetry is want of imagination, which his naturally languid constitution was remedy by vigour or boldness of treatment. writes with good sense; and his diction, which seldom rises above the level of prose, is generally pure and appropriate. But his narrative is lifeless and tedious, and fails to sustain the attention. He is more successful in his smaller pieces, where neatness and delicacy of expression make a distinct impression, and atone for the absence of higher qualities. It has been said by some of his critics that he anticipated the improvements of a more refined age, because he wrote with a perspicuity and directness not common amongst his contemporaries. But these merits are not in themselves sufficient to project a poet beyond his own time; a truth strikingly illustrated in his case. He lived in an

age that produced the noblest examples of English poetry, and he has not survived it either in the closet or on the stage.

His plays are planned strictly on the classical model, which he lacked the power to fill up. Deficient in the essential of action, and didactic rather than dramatic, they are for the most part very flat and dreary. The tragedy of Cleopatra, his first play, from which the following piece is taken, may, perhaps, be considered the best of them.]

THE INFLUENCE OF OPINION.

OPINION, how dost thou molest

The affected mind of restless man?
Who following thee never can,
Nor ever shall attain to rest,
For getting what thou sayst is best.
Yet lo, that best he finds far wide
Of what thou promisedst before:
For in the same he looked for more,
Which proves but small when once 'tis tried.
Then something else thou findst beside,

To draw him still from thought to thought:
When in the end all proves but nought.
Farther from rest he finds him then,
Than at the first when he began.

O malcontent seducing guest,
Contriver of our greatest woes:

Which born of wind, and fed with shows,
Dost nurse thyself in thy unrest;
Judging ungotten things the best,

Or what thou in conceit designest;
And all things in the world dost deem,
Not as they are, but as they seem;
Which shows their state thou ill definest :
And livest to come, in present pinest.

For what thou hast, thou still dost lack:
O mind's tormentor, body's wrack,
Vain promiser of that sweet rest,
Which never any yet possessed.

If we unto ambition tend,

Then dost thou draw our weakness on,
With vain imagination

Of that which never had an end.
Or if that lust we apprehend,

How dost that pleasant plague infest? O what strange forms of luxury, Thou straight dost cast to entice us by? And tellest us that is ever best Which we have never yet possessed. And that more pleasure rests beside, In something that we have not tried. And when the same likewise is had, Then all is one, and all is bad. This Anthony can say is true, And Cleopatra knows 'tis so, By the experience of their woe. She can say, she never knew But that lust found pleasures new, And was never satisfied: He can say by proof of toil, Ambition is a vulture vile,

That feeds upon the heart of pride, And finds no rest when all is tried. For worlds cannot confine the one, The other, lists and bounds hath none. And both subvert the mind, the state, Procure destruction, envy, hate. And now when all this is proved vain, Yet opinion leaves not here, But sticks to Cleopatra near, Persuading now, how she shall gain Honour by death, and fame attain;

And what a shame it were to live,
Her kingdom lost, her lover dead:
And so with this persuasion led,
Despair doth such a courage give,
That nought else can her mind relieve,
Nor yet divert her from that thought:
To this conclusion all is brought.

This is that rest this vain world lends,
To end in death that all things ends.

DABRIDGECOURT BELCHIER.

15- 1621.

[THE author of Hans Beer-Pot's Invisible Comedy was a Northamptonshire gentleman, who, after completing his education at Cambridge and Oxford, settled at Utrecht, where he died in 1621. In his dedication to Sir John Ogle, governor of the town and garrison of Utrecht, he describes the play as being neither comedy nor tragedy, but a plain dialogue, or conference, between certain persons, consisting of three acts and no more. No division into acts, however, appears in the only edition of this curious piece that is known to exist. The title-page informs us that it was acted in the Low Countries by an honest company of health-drinkers,' and was printed in London in 1618. Coxeter speaks of it as a translation [by inference from the Dutch]; but it is distinctly described in the dedication as an original production, that cost the author 'not above sixteen days' labour.' It is written with considerable humour, and displays such ease and mastery of versification as to occasion regret that he who possessed so quaint and fluent a vein should not have given his powers more ample employment.]

HANS BEER-POT, HIS INVISIBLE COMEDY OF SEE ME AND SEE ME NOT. 1618.

THE CONFESSION.

WALKING in a shady grove,

Near silver streams fair gliding,

Where trees in ranks did grace the banks,

And nymphs had their abiding;

Here as I stayed I saw a maid,

A beauteous lovely creature,

With angel's face and goddess grace,
Of such exceeding feature.

Her looks did so astonish me,
And set my heart a-quaking,

Like stag that gazed was I amazed,

And in a stranger taking.

Yet roused myself to see this elf,

And lo a tree did hide me;

Where I unseen beheld this queen
Awhile, ere she espied me.

Her voice was sweet melodiously,

She sung in perfect measure;

And thus she said with trickling tears;

Alas, my joy, my treasure,

I'll be thy wife, or lose my life,

There's no man else shall have me;

If God so, I will say no,

Although a thousand crave me.

'Oh! stay not long, but come, my dear,

And knit our marriage knot;

Each hour a day, each month a year,
Thou knowest, I think, God wot.
Delay not then, like worldly maiden,
Good works till withered age;
'Bove other things, the King of kings
Blessed a lawful marriage.