Let exercise a vigorous health maintain,
Without which all the composition's vain.
In the same weight prudence and innocence take;
Ana of each does the just mixture make.
But a few friendships wear, and let them be
By nature and by fortune fit for thee.
Instead of art and luxury in food,

Let mirth and freedom make thy table good.
If any cares into thy day-time creep,

At night, without wine's opium, let them sleep.
Let rest, which nature does to darkness wed,
And not lust, recommend to thee thy bed.
Be satisfied, and pleased with what thou art,
Act cheerfully and well the allotted part;

Enjoy the present hour, be thankful for the past, And neither fear, nor wish, the approaches of the last.

ME, who have lived so long among the great,
You wonder to hear talk of a retreat ;

And a retreat so distant, as may show
No thoughts of a return, when once I go.
Give me a country, how remote soe'er,
Where happiness a moderate rate does bear,
Where poverty itself in plenty flows,
And all the solid use of riches knows.

The ground about the house maintains it there,
The house maintains the ground about it here.

Here even hunger's dear; and a full board
Devours the vital substance of the lord.

The land itself does there the feast bestow,
The land itself must here to market go.

Three or four suits one winter here does waste,
One suit does there three or four winters last.
Here every frugal man must oft be cold,
And little luke-warm fires are to you sold;
There fire's an element, as cheap and free,
Almost as any of the other three.

Stay you then here, and live among the great,
Attend their sports, and at their tables eat.
When all the bounties here of men you score,*
The place's bounty there shall give me more.

EPITAPHIUM VIVI AUCTORIS.†

"Hic, o viator, sub lare parvulo,
Couleius hîc est conditus, hîc jacet;
Defunctis humani laboris

Sorte, supervacuâque vitâ.

* —of men you score.] He might have said, of friends, as his original does.

-" quidquid non præstat amicus."

But then the application would have been more pointed and satirical than he wished it to be. He therefore drops the idea of friends, and says delicately, but with less force— "When all the bounties here of men you score."-Hurd.

+ Epitaphium Vivi Auctoris.] The conceit of a living death, was altogether in the taste of our author; but so happily pursued in this agreeable epitaph, that the play of wit takes nothing from the weight and pathos of the sentiment.-Hurd.

Non indecorâ pauperie nitens,
Et non inerti nobilis otio,
Vanoque dilectis popello

Divitiis animosus hostis.

Possis ut illum dicere mortuum.

En terra jam nunc quantula sufficit !
Exemta sit curis, viator,

Terra sit illa levis, precare.

Hîc sparge flores, sparge breves rosas;
Nam vita gaudet mortua floribus :*
Herbisque odoratis corona

Vatis adhuc cinerem calentem."

EPITAPH ON THE LIVING AUTHOR.

HERE, stranger, in this humble nest,
Here Cowley sleeps; here lies,
Scaped all the toils that life molest,
And its superfluous joys.

Here, in no sordid poverty,
And no inglorious ease,

He braves the world, and can defy
Its frowns and flatteries.

*-vita gaudet mortua floribus.] The application is the juster and prettier, because of the poet's singular passion for gardens and flowers (on which subject he had written a Latin poem in six books): and then, according to the poetical creed,

-vivo quæ cura

-eadem sequitur tellure repôstum.

Virg. Æn. vi. 564.-Hurd.

The little earth, he asks, survey.

Is he not dead, indeed?

"Light lie that earth," good stranger, pray, "Nor thorn upon it breed!"

With flowers, fit emblem of his fame,

Compass your poet round;
With flowers of every fragrant name
Be his warm ashes crown'd!

DISCOURSE,

BY WAY OF VISION,

CONCERNING THE GOVERNMENT OF

OLIVER CROMWELL.

The sub

This is the best of our author's prose works. ject, which he had much at heart, raised his genius. There is something very noble, and almost poetical, in the plan of this Vision; and a warm vein of eloquence runs quite through it.-Hurd.

It was the funeral day of the late man who made himself to be called protector: and though I bore but little affection, either to the memory of him, or to the trouble and folly of all public pageantry, yet I was forced by the importunity of my company to go along with them, and be a spectator of that solemnity, the expectation of which had been so great, that it was said to have brought some very curious persons (and no doubt singular virtuosos) as far as from the Mount in Cornwall, and from the Orcades. I found there had been much more cost bestowed than either the dead man, or indeed death itself, could deserve. There was a mighty train of black assistants, among which, too, divers princes, in the persons of their ambassadors, (being