Rich hated : wise suspected: scorn'd if poor:
Great fear’d: fair tempted: high still envy'd more:

I have wish'd all; but now I wish for neither
Great, high, rich, wise nor fair; poor I'll be rather.

Would the world now adopt me for her heir,
Would beauty's queen

entitle me

The Fair,'
Fame speak me Fortune's minion, could I vie
Angels with India *; with a speaking eye
Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike Justice dumb,
As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue
To stones by epitaphs: be call'd great master
In the loose rhymes of every poetaster;
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives ;
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign,
Than ever fortune would have made them mine,

And hold one minute of this holy leisure
Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.

Welcome pure thoughts, welcome ye silent groves,
These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves :
Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing
My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring:
A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet virtue's face.
Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace-cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-fac'd fears :

. could I vie Angels with India.] An angel is a piece of coin, value ten shil. lings. The words to vie angels, are a periphrasis, and signify to compare wealth. See Sir J. Hawkins's note on the passage, Walton's Angler, p. 264. Cartwright uses the word angels :

You shall ne'er know what angels, pieces, pounds,
These names of want and beggary mean.

The Ordinary, Act II. Sc. iii,

Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly,
And learn t affect an holy melancholy;

And if Contentment be a stranger then,
I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven again.

SIR H. WOTTON.

THE

SHORTNESS OF LIFE.

My glass is half unspent? forbear t arrest
My thriftless day too soon: my poor request
Is that iny glass may run but out the rest.

My time-devouring minutes will be done
Without thy help; see! see how swift they run;

thread before my

Cut not my

thread be spun.

The gain's not great I purchase by this stay;
What loss sustain'st thou by so small delay,
To whom ten thousand years are but a day?

a

My following eye can hardly make a shift
To count my winged hours; they fly so swift,
They scarce deserve the bounteous name of gift.

The secret wheels of hurrying time do give
So short a warning, and so fast they drive,
That I am dead before I seem to live.

a

And what's a life? a weary pilgrimage,
Whose glory in one day doth fill the stage
With Childhood, Manhood, and decrepit Age.

a

And what's a life? the flourishing array
Of the proud summer-meadow, which to-day
Wears her green plush, and is to-morrow hay.

Read on this dial *, how the shades devour
My short-lived winter's day t! hour eats up hour;
Alas! the total's but from eight to four.

Behold these lillies, which thy hands have made
Fair copies of my life, and open laid
To view, how soon they droop, how soon they fade!

Shade not that dial night will blind too soon;
My non-aged day already points to noon;
How simple is my suit! how small my boon!

* Read on this dial, &c.] No poet whatever has introduced this circumstance with the happiness of Shakspeare, who compares the silent and almost imperceptible flight of beauty to the stealing shadow of a sun-dial. As the lines are in one of his minor poems, they may probably have escaped the notice of common readers :

Ah yet doth beauty like a dial hand
Steal from his figure, and no place perceiv'd;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv’d.

Poems, Constant Affection, Edit. 1640. The verses are incorrect, but the idea is fine : the shadow steals from the dial's hand, and not the dial's hand from the shadow.

+ My short-lived winter's day.) Dyer, in his well-known Grongar Hill, well denominates the smile of Fate,

A sun-beam in a winter's day. For further observations on this piece, see Jackson's very elegant and sensible Letters, Vol. II. Let. xix.

Nor do I beg this slender inch, to wile
The time away, or falsely to beguile
My thoughts with joy; here's nothing worth a smile.

a

Quarles' Emblems, B. III. Emb. xii.

O THAT THOU WOULDST HIDE ME IN THE GRAVE,

THAT THOU WOULDST KEEP ME IN SECRET UNTIL THY WRATH BE PAST.

PSALMS.

Ah! whither shall I Aly? what path untrod
Shall I seek out to 'scape the flaming rod
Of my offended, of my angry God?

Where shall I sojourn? what kind sea will hide
My head from thunder? where shall I abide,
Until his flames be quench'd or laid aside?

What if my feet should take their hasty flight,
And seek protection in the shades of night?
Alas! no shades can blind the God of light.

What if my soul should take the wings of day,
And find some desert; if she spring away,
The wings of Vengeance clip as fast as they.

What if some solid rock should entertain
My frighted soul? can solid rocks restrain
The stroke of Justice and not cleave in twain:

Nor sea, nor shade, nor shield, nor rock, nor cave,
Nor silent deserts, nor the sullen grave,
Where flame-ey'd Fury * means to smite, can save.

"Tis vain to flee; 'till gentle Mercy show
Her better eye, the further off we go,
The swing of Justice deals the mightier blow.

Th’ ingenuous child, corrected, doth not fly
His angry mother's hand, but clings more nigh,
And quenches with his tears her flaming eye.

Great God! there is no safety here below;
Thou art my fortress, thou that seem'st my foe,
'Tis thou, that strik'st the stroke, must guard the blow t.

Quarles' Emblems.

ALL THINGS ARE VAIN.

Although the purple morning, brags in brightness of the

sun

As though he had of chased night, a glorious conquest won: The time by day, gives place again to force of drowsy night, And every creature is constrain’d to change his lusty plight.

flame-ey'd Fury.] An epithet highly original and fine. Shakspeare uses fire-ey'd Fury in his Romeo and Juliet.

+ For further observations, see Jackson's Letters, Vol. II. Let. XXX. where both these particular pieces of Quarles were first more immedlately brought forward to the public eye.