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 portrait of the Clerk of Copmanhurst, was a native of Ewell in Surrey. His talents were of the kind which, in certain circumstances, promote a man's interest independently of principles, or the strict decencies of the sacred office. From being made one of the chaplains of James I., he was successively promoted to the deanery of Christ Church and the bishoprics of Oxford and Norwich. His poems strongly indicate great constitutional gaiety, and a flow of high animal spirits not devoid of a certain warmth and heartiness, which almost resembles the careless ebullition of genius. Whatever were the failings of this convivial prelate, he was no hypocrite. After he was in orders, and, indeed, doctor of divinity, it is related, that a ballad-singer, at Abingdon, came into the house where he was, complaining that nobody would buy

his wares. Corbet stripped off his gown, assumed the ballad-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!

H

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 numerous 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

regular occupations, he found leisure to engage in what were probably in his time considered rather as youthful frolics than serious crimes; and having broken the deerpark of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, and libelled the proprietor in a ballad for his severity in punishing this merely juvenile prank, Shakspeare found it necessary to leave the country, and in 1586 he went to London. Why should a living man despair? This youth, so friendless, and in circumstances so desperate that his only resource was the meanest offices about the theatre, or the lowest and most precarious employments of the stage, was déstined, not merely to extend and refine, but almost to create and consummate the drama of his country-to become the wonder, the boast, and the envy of nations; such an one, that they who feast their minds with his enchantments" till the sense aches," begin to wonder in their dazzled or bewildered thoughts if he were indeed created of kindred mould with their own.

From the office of prompter, scene-shifter, or, as is even said, link-boy, Shakspeare rose to fill some humble stageparts, though his highest character never went beyond the Ghost in his own Hamlet. Yet, if another proof of his mental supremacy were wanted, it might be found in his directions to the players. His natural taste is there shewn to have been as exquisite, and as far beyond his ranting contemporaries in the histrionic art as in the dramatic. Shakspeare's first-written play is supposed to have been Romeo and Juliet, which was printed about ten years after he came to London. Imagination loves this order of chronology; yet it is very doubtful, and some of his biographers not only place the historical plays first in order, but assign his earliest dramatic effort to a period so early as 1589, when he had been only three years in London. Whatever may have been the real order of succession in his dramas, it is certain that they were all composed before 1614, at which time he retired to his native town, to