From whence, so lately, I did burne,

With all my powers, my selfe to loose ? What bird, or beast, is knowne so dull,

That fled his cage, or broke his chaine,
And tasting aire, and freedome, will

Render his head in there againe ?
If these, who have but sense, can shun

The engines that have them annoy'd ;
Little, for me, had reason done,

If I could not thy ginnes avoid.

SONG OF NIGHT.

IN THE MASQUE OF THE VISION OF DELIGHT.

BREAK, Phant'sie, from thy cave of cloud,

And spread thy purple wings; Now all thy figures are allow'd,

And various shapes of things ; Create of airy forms a stream, It must have blood, and nought of phlegm ; And though it be a waking dream,

Cho. Yet let it like an odour rise

To all the senses here,
And fall like sleep upon their eyes,

Or music in their ear.

SONG FROM THE MASQUE OF BEAUTY.
So Beauty on the waters stood,
When Love had sever'd earth from flood !
So when he parted ayre from fire,
He did with concord all inspire !
And then a motion he them taught,
That elder than himselfe was thought.
Which thought was yet the child of earth,
For Love is elder than his birth.

RICHARD CORBET.

BORN 1582-DIED 1635.

This jovial and facetious prelate, who might have sat for the his wares. Corbet stripped off his gown, assumed the bal. lad-singer's leathern jacket, went into the street, and soon drew around him a circle of liberal admirers. When he wished “to make a night of it,'' he used to shut himself up in his well-filled cellars with his jolly chaplain, first throw off his gown, exclaiming, "There goes the doctor!” and next his episcopal hood," and there the bishop!” It is not to be expected that the Bishop of Norwich was very eminent as a divine.

FAREWELL TO THE FAERIES.

FAREWELL rewards and Faeries,

Good houswives now may say, For now foule slutts in daries

Doe fare as well as they. And though they sweepe theyre hearths no less

Then maydes were wont to doe, Yet who of late for cleanliness,

Finds sixe-pence in her shoe ?

Lament, lament, old abbies,

The Faeries lost command ;
They did but change priests' babies,

But some have chang'd your land :
And all your children sprung from thence

Are now growne Puritanes ; Who live as changelings ever since

For love of your demaines.

At morning and at evening both

You merry were and glad, So little care of sleepe or sloth

These prettie ladies had ;

When Tom came home from labour,

Or Ciss to milking rose,
Then merrily went theyre tabor,

And nimbly went theyre toes.

Wittness those rings and roundelayes

Of theirs, which yet remaine, Were footed in queene Marie's dayes

On many a grassy playne ; But since of late, Elizabeth,

And later, James came in, They never daunc'd on any heath

As when the time hath bin.

By which we note the Faries

Were of the old profession; Theyre songs were Ave Maryes ;

Theyre daunces were procession : But now, alas ! they all are dead,

Or gone beyond the seas; Or farther for religion fled,

Or elce they take theyre ease.

A tell-tale in theyre company

They never could endure, And whoe so kept not secretly

Theyre mirth was punisht sure; It was a just and Christian deed

To pinch such blacke and blew : O how the common-wealth doth need

Such justices as you !

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

BORN APRIL 23, 1564-DIED APRIL 23, 1616.

By a singular and happy coincidence the BARD OF ENGLAND

was born on the festival of St George, the patron saint of England. He died on his birth-day, at the age of fiftytwo. Very little is known of the family or personal history of the “ myriad-minded" Shakspeare. In life, as in the drama, he stood nearly alone. It is only known, that the greatest dramatic poet the world ever saw was the son of a wool-comber at Stratford-upon-Avon. He was the eldest of ten children; and his education, such as it was, he received at the free-school of his native town. It is conjectured (for of the history of Shakspeare all is nearly mere conjecture,) that his education did not go beyond reading and writing, and that he spent a few months in the office of some country attorney, or with the seneschal of some manor-court-an office akin to the ancient baron-bailie of Scotland--and that in this situation he picked up those few bald legal phrases which he puts into the mouths of such worthies as Shallow and Dogberry. It is thought by Warton, that when a boy he might have seen the courtly masques and stately pageants represented before Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth, and there have received the germ of dramatic genius afterwards so wonderfully developed. But none of Shakspeare's numer. ous and zealous commentators advert to this probability,

-nor is it of much importance. At the age of eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, a maiden

considerably older than himself, the daughter of a neighbouring yeoman. It is believed that from this time he maintained his family by carrying on the business of woolcombing jointly with his father. But whatever were his