Her arrow sharp, much like a blade
Of a rose-mary leaf is made;

And when the moon doth hide her head,
Their day is gone, she goes to bed.
Meteors do serve, when they are bright,
As torches do, to give her light.
Glow-worms, for candles lighted up,
Stand on her table, while she doth sup :-
But women, that inconstant kind,
Can ne're fix in one place their mind;
For she impatient of long stay,
Drives to the upper earth away"."

• A folio volume was printed in 1676, containing Letters and Poems in honour of the incomparable Princess Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle. These consist of such inflated eulogies on her grace's parts, from the rector magnificus of Leyden and academical caput of Cambridge, to the puffs of Tom Shadwell, that it must have been enough to turn any brain previously diseased with a cacoëthes scribendi. The members of Trinity college closed their hyperbole on the lady Margaret, with this lapidary legend:

"To Margaret the first;

Princess of philosophers:
Who hath dispell'd errors;

Appeased the difference of opinions;

And restored peace

To learning's commonwealth."

The following stanza on her death has so little of gravity in comparison to its bombast, that it might be taken for a PeterPindaric effusion:

"Had she but liv'd when blind antiquity

Call'd what it pleas'd a deity!

She would have quite engross'd the worship-trade,

Jove and his kindred had been bankrupts made;

They must have starv'd without relief,

Pin'd to mortality, and dy'd with grief."

By way of contrast to the preceding specimen of her grace's happier efforts, the following "Epistle to her Braine," may be cited as an aggregate of much metrical obscurity, that teemed from the same fruitful

source:

"I wonder, braine, thou art so dull, when there
Was not a day, but wit past, through the yeare:
For seven yeares 't is, since I have married bin ;
Which time, my braine might be a magazine
To store up wise discourse, naturally sent
In fluent words, which free and easy went.
If thou art not with wit inrich'd thereby,
Then uselesse is the art of memory:

But thou, poor braine, hard frozen art with cold,
Words, seales of wit, will neither print nor hold 3."

At the close of the same volume, her grace gives the following candid epitome of female ratiocination for becoming so voluminous a publisher:

"I begun a booke about three years since, which I intend to name The World's Olio,' and when I come into Flaunders, where those papers are, I will (if GOD give me life and health) finish it, and send it forth in print. I imagine all those that have read my former books, will say, that I have writ enough, un

• Prefixed to her "Philosophicall Fancies," 1653, 12mo. * One of her grace's adulators said, with more truth than he intended, "You do not always confine your sense to verse, nor your verses to rhythme, nor your rhythme to the quantity and sounds of syllables. Your poetical fancies rather brave than instruct our capacities." Letters, &c. ut sup. p. 117.

Printed in folio, 1655.

less they were better; but say what you will, it pleaseth me, and since my delights are harmlesse, I will satisfie my humour:

"For had my braine as many fancies in 't
To fill the world, I'd put them all in print;
No matter whether they be well or ill exprest,
My will is done, and that please woman best *."]

It is not always, says Dr. Lort', that one would depend on authors for characters of their own works; but I think her grace's may be admitted:

"You will find my works like infinite nature, that hath neither beginning nor end, and as confused as the chaos wherein is neither method nor order, but all mixed together without separation, like evening-light and darkness," &c. Letter cxxxi.

We are farther informed by Wood', that the James Bristow, mentioned by lord Orford in p. 137, was of C. C. college, Oxon, a man of admirable parts, who had begun to translate into Latin some of the Philosophy of Margaret, duchess of Newcastle, upon the desire of those whom she had appointed to inquire out a fit person for such a matter; but he, finding great difficulties therein, through the confusedness of the subject, gave over, as being a matter not to be well performed by any. Her grace's philosophical speculations certainly constitute the most vulnerable part of her literary character. Dr. Birch records a resolution of the royal society, May 23, 1667, "that the duchess of Newcastle, having intimated her desire to be present at one of the meetings of the society, be entertained with some experiments at the next meeting, and that lord Berkeley and Dr. Charlton be desired to give notice of it to her grace, and to attend her to the meeting on the Thursday following." This ceremonial and the subjects allotted for the entertainment were referred to a subsequent council.

JOHN POULETT,

MARQUIS OF WINCHESTER,

GRANDSON of the marquis mentioned above2; an imitator of the earl of Monmouth, whom I may call The Translator; like the preceding lord, a prodigious sufferer for the royal cause, and not more bountifully rewarded. Indeed one does not know how to believe what our histories record, that his house at Basing3, which he defended for two years together, and which the parliamentarians burned in revenge, contained money, jewels, and furniture, to the value of two hundred thousand pounds. Of what was composed the bed valued at fourteen thousand pounds? In every window the marquis wrote with a diamond, Aimez Loyauté. His epitaph was the composition of Dryden.

His lordship translated from French into English,

[The journal of the siege of Basing-house, is one of the most eventful pieces of history during the civil war. It was printed at Oxford in 1645. Several circumstances concerning the deliverance of Basing from open force, and secret conspiracy, are narrated by lord Clarendon, in his valuable History, vol. ii. 8vo. edit.]

"The Gallery of Heroick Women 4." Lond. 1652, folio.

Howell wrote a sonnet in praise of this work 5.

"Talon's Holy History." Lond. 1653, 4to. And other books, which, says Anthony Wood, I have not yet seen o.

[The translator's address before his Gallery of Heroic Women, is inscribed "to the ladies of this nation," and the following reasons are adduced for so general a form of dedication:

"These gallant heroesses repaired first from all the regions of history to the court of France, to lay down their crowns at the queen regent's feet. This ceremonie and duty performed, they had a desire to passe the sea, and inform themselves of the condition and state of this island. And finding no queen here to whom they might render the same obedience, they resolved to address themselves to you, hoping to finde amongst

4

* ["Written in French by Peter Le Moyne, of the society of Jesus. Translated into English by the Marquesse of Winchester."]

' Vide his Letters, book iv. let. 49. [Howell's sonnet (as lord Orford, and not the author, denominates it) consists of eighteen lines, which were written at the instigation of earl Rivers, brother-in-law to the marquis of Winchester, "on that gallant piece called The Gallery of Ladies."]

Vol. ii. p. 525.