So, when thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done blabbing;
75 Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing;
Yet stab at thee who will,

No stab the Soul can kill.

35. Samuel Daniel.

1562-1619.

(History, p. 56.)

RICHARD II. ON THE MORNING BEFORE HIS MURDER.

[From the Third Book of the Civil Wars.]

The morning of that day which was his last,
After a weary rest, rising to pain,

Out at a little grate his eyes he cast

Upon those bordering hills and open plain,

5 Where others' liberty makes him complain
The more his own, and grieves his soul the more,
Conferring captive crowns with freedom poor.

O happy man, saith he, that lo I see,
Grazing his cattle in those pleasant fields,
10 If he but knew his good. How blessed he
That feels not what affliction greatness yields!
Other than what he is he would not be,

Nor change his state with him that sceptre wields.
Thine, thine is that true life: that is to live
15 To rest secure, and not rise up to grieve.

Thou sitt'st at home safe by thy quiet fire,
And hear'st of others' harms, but fearest none;
And there thou tell'st of kings, and who aspire,
Who fall, who rise, who triumph, who do moan.

15. Secure, free from care-its derivative sense. Of late this word has become a loose synonym for safe, but there was once a clearly marked distinction between them. Shakespeare, in Richard II., says

"We see the wind sit sore upon our sails, And yet, we strike not, but securely perish,"

i.e., perish, fancying ourselves perfectly

safe.

20 Perhaps thou talk'st of me, and dost inquire
Of my restraint, why here I live alone,
And pitiest this my miserable fall;
For pity must have part-envy not all.

Thrice happy you that look as from the shore,
25 And have no venture in the wreck you see;
No interest, no occasion to deplore

Other men's travels, while yourselves sit free.
How much doth your sweet rest make us the more
To see our misery and what we be:

30 Whose blinded greatness, ever in turmoil,
Still seeking happy life, makes life a toil.

30. Turmoil: usually taken from turn and moil, to labour; but an at

tempt has been made to refer it to the same root as Lat. tremere, to tremble.

Michael Drayton. 1563-1631. (History, p. 57.)

36. From the NYMPHIDIA.

PIGWIGGEN ARMING.

And quickly arms him for the field,
A little cockle-shell his shield,
Which he could very bravely wield,

Yet could it not be pierced :

5 His spear a bent both stiff and strong,
And well near of two inches long:
The pile was of a horse-fly's tongue,

Whose sharpness nought reversed.

And puts him on a coat of mail,
10 Which was of a fish's scale,

That when his foe should him assail,
No point should be prevailing.

5. Bent, a stalk of grass; the full form is bent-grass, or meadow-grass, bent being a meadow or field in M. E.

7. Pile, the point of a spear or arrow. 9. Mail, Fr. maille, It. maglia, Lat. macula, the mesh of a net; connected,

says Mr. Garnett, with W. magl, a stitch in knitting.

10. Scale and shell are really the same word; but the first owes its form to having passed through It. scaglia and Fr. écaille, whilst the second is of native origin.

His rapier was a hornet's sting,
It was a very dangerous thing;
15 For if he chanc'd to hurt the king,
It would be long in healing.

His helmet was a beetle's head,
Most horrible and full of dread,
That able was to strike one dead,
20 Yet it did well become him:

And for a plume, a horse's hair,
Which being tossed by the air,
Had force to strike his foe with fear,
And turn his weapon from him.

25 Himself he on an earwig set,

Yet scarce he on his back could get,
So oft and high he did curvet,

Ere he himself could settle:

He made him turn, and stop, and bound,
30 To gallop, and to trot the round,
He scarce could stand on any ground,
He was so full of mettle.

27. Curvet comes through It. corvetta from Lat. curvus.

32. Mettle: this word is simply another form of metal. We still say, on the one

hand, that a man has the true ring in him; and on the other, that a blade has the finest temper.

37. From the POLY-OLBION.

Those quiristers are percht with many a speckled breast. Then from her burnisht gate the goodly glitt'ring east Gilds every lofty top, which late the humorous night Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning's sight: 5 On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats, Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes, That hills and vallies ring, and even the echoing air Seems all compos'd of sounds, about them everywhere.

1. Quiristers, members of a quire or band of singers. Quire in this sense is Fr. chœur, Lat. chorus; but quire, a collection of paper, comes through Fr. cahier, quaier, O. E. quair ("King's Quair"), from Lat. quaternio, or, as Diez,

from codicarium.

3. Humorous, humid, moist. Shakespeare, in Romeo and Juliet, has"To be consorted with the humorous night."

38. Sir John Davies. 1570-1626. (History, p. 57.)

From the NOSCE TEIPSUM.

As spiders, touch'd, seek their web's inmost part;
As bees, in storms, back to their hives return;
As blood in danger gathers to the heart;

As men seek towns when foes the country burn.

5 If aught can teach us aught, affliction's looks
(Making us pry unto ourselves so near),
Teach us to know ourselves beyond all books,
Or all the learned schools that ever were.

She within lists my ranging mind hath brought,
10 That now beyond myself I will not go :
Myself am centre of my circling thought:
Only myself I study, learn, and know.

I know my body's of so frail a kind,
As force without, fevers within can kill;
15 I know the heavenly nature of my mind,
But 'tis corrupted both in wit and will.

I know my soul hath power to know all things,
Yet is she blind and ignorant in all;

I know I'm one of nature's little kings,
20 Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

I know my life's a pain, and but a span;
I know my sense is mock'd in every thing:
And, to conclude, I know myself a man,
Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.

9. Lists, fixed limits; literally, the border of anything, but used more especially of tournaments :

"Confine yourself within a patient list." -Othello, iv. i.

11. Centre, properly a point, puncture,

Gk. KévтρоV. Shakespeare and Milton use the word to mean in particular the centre of the earth.

20. Thrall, in subjection to. See note, line 12, extract 12.

22. Mock, O. Fr. mochar, Sp. mueca, a grimace, comes from Gk. μwkąν (Diez).

39. Giles Fletcher. (History, p. 57.)

[From Christ's Victory in Heaven.]

JUSTICE ADDRESSING THE CREATOR.

Upon two stony tables, spread before her,
She leant her bosom, more than stony hard;
There slept th' impartial judge and strict restorer
Of wrong or right, with pain or with reward;

5 There hung the score of all our debts-the card
Where good, and bad, and life, and death, were painted:

Was never heart of mortal so untainted,

But, when that scroll was read, with thousand terrors fainted.

Witness the thunder that Mount Sinai heard,

10 When all the hill with fiery clouds did flame,
And wand'ring Israel, with the sight afear'd,
Blinded with seeing, durst not touch the same,
But like a wood of shaking leaves became.
On this dead Justice, she, the living law,

15 Bowing herself with a majestic awe,

All heaven, to hear her speech, did into silence draw.

Sleep, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest,
Prince, whose approach peace to all mortals brings,
Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,
Sole comforter of minds with grief oppress'd;

1. Silence', genit. sing., as in "for conscience' sake."