"that has reduced him to a brute? I was more angry "(if poffible) than compassionate, to see him at Fer"rara in fo pitiful a condition furvive himself; for"getting both himself and his works, which (with*out his knowledge, though before his face!) have "been published deformed and incorrect."*** The ingenious tranflator thought his author in this place had described Ariosto, a very pardonable mistake! fince many flights in his Orlando seem to have been the dreams of an overheated imagination. I cannot find how long Taffo continued in this deplorable condition; but, it is faid, by the care that was taken of him in an hofpital, he recovered the use of his reason; and Thaunus informs us, that in his lucid intervals he wrote like one infpirited with a divine fury, and was mafter of a judgment fedate and cool enough to correct what he compofed. At last he was invited to Rome to receive the laurel with the publick solemnities with which it is ufually conferred in that city; but whilft the pageantry was preparing, he was feized by a fever, and died in the fifty-first year of his age; and being privately interred in the church dedicated to St. Humphrey, a plain marble was laid over his grave, with this epitaph; Hie jacet Torquatus Taffus; where, fome years after, Cardinal Bevilaqua erected a handfome monument, with a Latin infcription, longer indeed than the former, but so unequal to the perfon it commemorates, that it is not worth my tranfcribing.

The country, to my Lady of Carlifle,. p. 6.

THE Lady Lucy Percy, whom the best English poets of that age, and Voiture, the politeft wit of France, celebrated under the title of The Countess of Carlifle, was a younger daughter of Henry Earl of Northumberland; who, upon a fufpicion of his not having been entirely ignorant of the gunpowder plot, was for many years imprisoned in the Tower. During his confinement the Lady Lucy was married to James Hay, created Viscount Doncaster, and Earl of Carlisle, by K. James I.; with which alliance her father was fo highly offended, that with extreme difficulty fhe obtained his forgiveness, but could never regain his affection In conjunction with a wonderful vivacity of wit, and all the graces peculiar to her fex in a noit eminent degree, fhe was bleffed with a mafculine vigour of mind, but is cenfured for having abused it to the perplexing King Charles's affairs with the par liament; on which account a late learned and ingeni. ous writer calls her, "the Helen of her country."

But here it will be more decent to draw a veil over her

political errours, and view her only in that agrecable light in which Mr. Waller and Sir Toby Mathews have placed her The latter of these gentlemen has given us her description in profe, which is alluded to by Sir John Suckling in his Seffion of the Poets. I only fay it is alluded to, but believe it was originally

mentioned; for I am perfuaded that, in the verfe on which I ground my conjecture, for the word care we fhould read,

For had not her Character furnish'd you out

With fomething of handsome, &c.

A small number of Suckling's plays were printed for himself, to prefent to the quality when they were acted at court; but his poems and letters were published by his friend the Earl of Denbeigh after his death, from fuch imperfect copies as his Lordship could haftily collect; and therefore it is not strange if many of them still retain their original corruption, In the poem I have just quoted (to inftance in no more) Shillingsworth, Walter, Cid, have been conflantly misprinted for Chillingworth, Waller, and Sid, i. e. Sidney Godolphin. But it is time to let the character itself atone for this digression which it occafioned.

This lady's birth is noble, from a high and ancient defcent, and in it her blood is kept pure by often alliance with great and princely families. Time “has allowed it a line of longer measure than almof

to any by continuance, and so, as we cannot with ❝eafe give an account of the first greatness and eleva❝tion of her ancestors; but yet it leaves certain marks by which we may (asby a kind of back-light) point at many of them, whofe courage and virtues have dignified both their good fortunes and their ill.

She is of too high a mind and dignity not only to “seek, but almost to wish, the friendship of any crea"ture; they whom she is pleased to chufe are fuch as

are of the most eminent condition both for power " and employments; not with any design towards her own particular, either of advantage or curiosity, but her nature values fortunate perfons as virtuous "who, if they be not fo by this opinion, they have * an advantage of them who are fo, by this choice.

It may be the doth this by way of gratitude to Fortune, who hath taken fo much care of her, as that from a doubtful, and, I might say, a kind of fear❝ful condition, fhe hath placed and fecured her, as "it were, in her own very arms; from whence this

great lady might yet perhaps have removed her felf by the carelefs use of those benefits, of the provifions which Fortune hath made for her, were they not too abundant. They who are even as it were "in her very veins, as brothers and fifters, the ex

tremely loves, but she values them more as they are "fo to her; he wants not alfo kindness for their "children. But fuch as are more removed from her "The confiders no otherwise than as ftreams, which AL run too far to have any participation of her excel

lencies. She has as much fenfe and gratitude for "the actions of friendship as fo extreme a beauty will give her leave to entertain; and from our fex fhe may expect all expreffions of fervitude by the very