JOSEPH HALL.

BORN 1574-DIED 1656.

BISHOP HALL was one of the twelve children of the Governor of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. He was educated at Cambridge, and at the age of twenty-three published his first Satires. He afterwards taught a school at Tiverton, and, through various gradations of preferment, rose to be Bishop of Norwich. Hall shared with the other prelates in the calamities of the civil wars, and ended a long life in obscurity and poverty, at Higham, near Norwich. Though deprived of all temporal emoluments, he faithfully discharged his ministerial functions to the end of his life. Hall is approximated to Dryden by Mr Campbell in vigour and volubility. In reading his Satires one certainly forgets the sixteenth century.

A TRAVELLED GENTLEMAN.

SEEST thou how gaily my young master goes,
Vaunting himself upon his rising toes;
And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side;
And picks his glutted teeth since late noon-tide?
'Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he dined to-day?
In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humfrày. (a)
Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer,
Keeps he for every straggling cavalier.

(a) A proverbial phrase for going without a dinner, arising from the circumstance of St Paul's, where Duke Humphrey's tomb was supposed to stand, being the common resort of loungers.

And open house, haunted with great resort;
Long service mixt with musical disport.
Many fair younker with a feather'd crest,
Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest,
To fare so freely with so little cost,

Than stake his twelvepence to a meaner host.
Hadst thou not told me,
should surely say

He touch'd no meat of all this live-long day.
For sure methought, yet that was but a guess,
His eyes seem'd sunk for very hollowness;
But could he have (as I did it mistake)

So little in his purse, so much upon his back?
So nothing in his maw ? yet seemeth by his belt,
That his gaunt gut not too much stuffing felt.
Seest thou how side it hangs beneath his hip?
Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip.
Yet for all that, how stiffly struts he by,
All trapped in the new-found bravery.
The nuns of new-won Calais his bonnet lent,
In lieu of their so kind a conquerment.

What needed he fetch that from farthest Spain,
His grandame could have lent with lesser pain?
Though he perhaps ne'er pass'd the English shore,
Yet fain would counted be a conqueror.

His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head, One lock amazon-like dishevelled,

As if he meant to wear a native cord,

If chance his fates should him that bane afford.
All British bare upon the bristled skin,
Close notched is his beard both lip and chin;
His linen collar labyrinthian set,

Whose thousand double turnings never met:
His sleeves half hid with elbow pinionings,
As if he meant to fly with linen wings.

But when I look, and cast mine eyes below,
What monster meets mine eyes in human shew?
So slender waist with such an abbot's loin,
Did never sober nature sure conjoin.
Lik'st a straw scare-crow in the new-sown field,
Rear'd on some stick, the tender corn to shield.
Or if that semblance suit not every deal,
Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel.

A DESERTED MANSION.

BEAT the broad gates, a goodly hollow sound,
With double echoes, doth again rebound;
But not a dog doth bark to welcome thee,
Nor churlish porter canst thou chafing see.
All dumb and silent, like the dead of night,
Or dwelling of some sleepy Sybarite;
The marble pavement hid with desert weed,
With house-leek, thistle, dock, and hemlock seed.

Look to the tower'd chimnies, which should be

The wind-pipes of good hospitality,

Through which it breatheth to the open air,
Betokening life and liberal welfare,

Lo, there th' unthankful swallow takes her rest,
And fills the tunnel with her circled nest.

THE DOMESTIC TUTOR.

A GENTLE Squire would gladly entertaine
Into his house some trencher-chaplaine;

Some willing man that might instruct his sons,
And that would stand to good conditions.
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,
Whiles his young maister lieth o'er his head.
Second, that he do, on no default,
Ever presume to sit above the salt.

Third, that he never change his trencher twice.
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies;
Sit bare at meales, and one halfe rise and wait.
Last, that he never his young maister beat,
But he must aske his mother to define,

How manie jerkes she would his breech should line.
All these observ'd, he could contented bee,
To give five markes and winter liverie.

PHINEAS AND GILES FLETCHER.

THESE poetical brothers lived between the last thirty years of the sixteenth century and the first thirty of the sevenAlmost nothing is known of their private his

teenth.

tory.

DESCRIPTION OF PARTHENIA.

A BED of lilies flow'r upon her cheek,
And in the midst was set a circling rose ;
Whose sweet aspect would force Narcissus seek
New liveries, and fresher colours choose

PHINEAS AND GILES FLETCHER. 161

To deck his beauteous head in snowy 'tire; But all in vain: for who can hope t' aspire To such a Fair, which none attain, but all admire ?

Her ruby lips lock up from gazing sight

A troop of pearls, which march in goodly row: But when she deigns those precious bones undight, Soon heav'nly notes from those divisions flow, And with rare musick charm the ravish'd

ears,

Daunting bold thoughts, but cheering modest fears:

The spheres so only sing, so only charm the spheres.

Her dainty breasts, like to an April rose
From green silk fillets yet not all unbound,
Began their little rising heads disclose,

And fairly spread their silver circlets round: From those two bulwarks love doth safely fight;

Which swelling easily, may seem to sight To be enwombed both of pleasure and delight.

Yet all these stars which deck this beauteous sky

By force of th' inward sun both shine and move; Thron'd in her heart sits love's high majesty ; In highest majesty the highest love.

As when a taper shines in glassy frame,

The sparkling crystal burns in glitt'ring flame,

So does that brightest love brighten this lovely

dame.