Nor honour held a fruitless, golden dream,
Nor riches a bewitching swallowing stream,
Nor learning laughed at, as the beggar's dower,
Nor beauty's painted cheek a summer flower;
No, no: life endless was, yet without loathing,
Honour and greatness were immortal clothing,
Riches were subject to no base consuming,
Learning burnt bright without contentious fuming,
Beauty no painting bought, but still renew'd:
Each one had here his full beatitude.

That face, whose picture might have ransomed kings,

Yet put up spittings, bafflings,' buffetings,—
That head, which could a crown of stars have worn,
Yet spitefully was wrenched with wreaths of thorn,—
Those hands and feet, where purest stamps were set,
Yet nail'd up like to pieces counterfeit,-

Those lips, which, though they had command o'er all,

Being thirsty, vinegar had to drink, and gall,— That body, scourged and torn with many a wound, That his dear blood, like balm, might leave us sound,

The well of life, which with a spear being tried, Two streams mysterious gushed out from his side;

Messias, great Jehovah, God on high,

Yet hail'd King of the Jews in mockery,-
The manger-cradled babe, the beggar born,
The

poorest worm on earth, the height of scorn ;That Lord, by his own subjects crucified, Lo, at this grand assize, comes glorified,

1 Insults, mockeries. To baffle, (baffule) was commonly used in the sense of-to mock or treat insultingly and injuriously.

H

With troops of angels, who his officers are,
To call by sound of trump his foes to a bar.
Thus stood he armed-justice his breastplate was,
Judgment his helmet, stronger far than brass;
On his right arm truth's shield he did advance:
And turned his sharpened wrath into a lance;
Out of his mouth a two-edged sword did fly,
To wound body and soul eternally :

Armed cap-a-pie thus, who 'gainst him durst fight?

There was no ground for strength nor yet for flight.
At this, methought, all graves that ever held
Dead corses, yawn'd wide open, and compell❜d
The bones of dead men up, with flesh, to rise;
Yea, those on whom the seas did tyrannize,
And drown'd in wrecks, and which were piece-
meal eaten,

With lively bodies to the shores were beaten;
Whom sword or fire, gibbets or wheels had torn,
Had their own limbs again, and new were born;
From the first man God made to the last that died,
The names of all were here exemplified:

Emperors and kings, patriarchs, and tribes forgot

ten,

The conquerors of the world-moulder'd and rot

ten

Lords, beggars, men and women, young and old, Up, at a bar set forth, their hands did hold.

The Judge being set, in open court were laid Huge books, at sight of which all were dismay'd, Would fain have shrunk back, and fell down with fear;

In sheets of brass all stories written were

(Which those great volumes held) charactered deep With pens of steel, eternal files to keep

Of every nation since the world began,

And every deed, word, thought, of every man.
Sins hatched in caves, or such whose bawd was
night,

The minutes of the act, were here set right;
Great men, whose secret, damn'd sins vizards wore
So close, that none upon their brows could score
The least black line--because none durst-had
here

A bill of items in particular,

What their souls owed for sin to death and hell;
Or, if it happened that they e'er did well,

In these true journals it at large was found,
And with rich promise of reward was crown'd.

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT.

BORN 1582; DIED 1628.

IN the first volume of the "Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century," a remark occurred respecting the fecundity of the poetic vein, in the family of Fletcher it is singular, that the same remark applies with equal force to that of Beaumont-imperishably joined with it in our literature. No less than seven writers of verse, of the latter family, are known to the readers of English poetry.

The present writer was the elder brother of Francis Beaumont, the celebrated colleague of Fletcher. His known poetical remains are comprised in a small volume of miscellaneous pieces, of which the longest is on the battle of "Bosworth Field;" but besides these, a poem, in eight books, called the "Crown of Thorns," is spoken of as his production by contemporary wriThe poems of Sir J. Beaumont are by no means destitute of literary merit; but his estimable little volume has a farther, and, for those times, a far more uncommon recommendation, in being wholly free from indelicate terms or allusions, and dedicated in every part to the service of virtue and piety.

ters.