thankful for small mercies if he can find anything to admire in the first-quoted couplet. The third quotation is the baldest prose. A much more favourable specimen of Quarles's poetry may be found in the third Emblem of Book I., which runs as follows:

"Alas, fond child,

How are thy thoughts beguil'd

To hope for honey from a nest of wasps?
Thou may'st as well

Go seek for ease in hell,

A sprightly nectar from the mouths of asps.

"The world's a hive,

From whence thou canst derive

No good, but what thy soul's vexation brings:
But case thou meet

Some pretty-pretty sweet,

Each drop is guarded with a thousand stings.

"Why dost thou make

These murm'ring troops forsake

The safe protection of their waxen homes?
Their hive contains

No sweet that's worth thy pains;

There's nothing here, alas! but empty combs.

"For trash and joys

And grief-engend'ring joys,

What torment seems too sharp for flesh and blood;
What bitter pills,

Compos'd of real ills,

Men swallow down to purchase one false good!

"The dainties here

Are least what they appear;

Though sweet in hopes, yet in fruition sour;
The fruit that's yellow

Is found not always mellow;

The fairest tulip's not the sweetest flow'r,

"Fond youth, give o'er,

And vex thy soul no more,

In seeking what were better far unfound;
Alas! thy gains

Are only present pains

To gather scorpions for a future wound.

"What's earth? or in it,

That longer than a minute

Can lend a free delight that can endure?
O who would droil

Or delve in such a soil,

Where gain's uncertain, and the pain is sure?"

Something should be said as to the manner in which the "Emblems" are arranged. They are divided into five books, each book containing fifteen emblems, and each emblem consisting first of the pictorial representation, then the text, then the poetical illustration, then one or more quotations from some of the fathers, and then a poetical epigram. Thus the complete order of number six of Book V. is thus :

PSALM lxxiii. 25.

"Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee?"

"I love (and have some cause to love) the earth;
She is my Maker's creature, therefore good:

She is my mother, for she gave me birth;
She is my tender nurse; she gave me food:

But what a creature, Lord, compar'd with thee?
Or what's my mother, or my nurse, to me?

"I love the air; her dainty sweets refresh
My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me;
Her shrill-mouth'd choir sustain me with their flesh,
And with their Polyphonian notes delight me:

But what's the air, and all the sweets, that she
Can bless my soul withal, compar'd to thee?

"I love the sea; she is my fellow-creature,
My careful purveyor; she provides me store:
She walls me round; she makes my diet greater;
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore:

But, Lord of oceans, when compar'd with thee,
What is the ocean, or her wealth to me?

"To Heaven's high city I direct my journey,
Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,
Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky:

But what is Heav'n, great God, compar'd to thee?
Without thy presence, Heav'n's no Heav'n to me.

"Without thy presence, earth gives no refection; Without thy presence, sea affords no treasure; Without thy presence, air's a rank infection; Without thy presence, Heav'n itself's no pleasure; lf not possess'd, if not enjoy'd in thee,

What's earth, or sea, or air, or Heav'n, to me?

"The highest honours that the world can boast
Are subjects far too low for my desire;
The brightest beams of glory are (at most)
But dying sparkles of thy living fire:

The proudest flames that earth can kindle be
But nightly glow-worms, if compar'd to thee.

"Without thy presence, wealth are bags of care;
Wisdom, but folly; joy, disquiet, sadness:
Friendship is treason, and delights are snares;
Pleasure's but pain, and mirth but pleasing madness;
Without thee, Lord, things be not what they be,
Nor have they being, when compar'd with thee.
"In having all things, and not thee, what have I ?
Not having thee, what have my labours got?
Let me enjoy but thee, what farther crave I?
And having thee alone, what have I not?
I wish nor sea, nor land; nor would I be
Possess'd of Heav'n, Heav'n unpossess'd of thee.

"S. BONAVENT. Soliloq. cap. 1.

"Alas! my God, now I understand (but blush to confess) that the beauty of thy creatures hath deceived mine eyes, and I have not observed that thou art more amiable than all thy creatures; to which thou hast communicated but one drop of thy inestimable beauty: for who hath adorned the heavens with stars? who hath stored the air with fowl, the waters with fish, the earth with plants and flowers? but what are all these but a small spark of divine beauty.

"S. CHRYS. Hom. v. in Ep. ad Rom.

"In having nothing, I have all things, because I have Christ. Having therefore all things in Him, I seek no other reward; for He is the universal reward.

"EPIG. 6.

"Who would not throw his better thoughts about him,
And scorn this dross within him; that, without him?
Cast up, my soul, thy clearer eye; behold,

If thou be fully melted, there's the mould."

It would appear from the dedication of the "Em

blems," that they were written, if not at the suggestion, at least with the encouragement of Edward Bendlowes, the author of "Theophila," whom Pope describes as "propitious to blockheads," and of whom Warburton said that he was "famous for his own bad poetry and for patronising bad poets." "You," says Quarles, "have put the theorbo into my hand, and I have played: you gave the musician the first encouragement; the music returneth to you for patronage. Had it been a light air, no doubt but it had taken the most, and among them the worst; but being a grave strain, my hopes are, that it will please the best, and among them you. Toyish airs please trivial ears; they kiss the fancy and betray it. They cry, Hail, first; and, after, Crucify. Let daws delight to immerse themselves in dung, whilst eagles scorn so poor a game as flies. Sir, you have art and candour; let the one judge, let the other excuse your most affectionate friend, Fra. Quarles."

So much to Bendlowes. To the reader Quarles has this to say: "An emblem is but a silent parable: Let not the tender eye check to see the allusion to our blessed Saviour figured in these types. In Holy Scriptures He is sometimes called a Sower, sometimes Fisher, sometimes a Physician; and why not presented so, as well to the eye as to the ear? Before the knowledge of letters, God was known by hieroglyphics. And, in deed what are the heavens, the earth, nay, every creature, but Hieroglyphics and Emblems of his glory? I have no more to say, I wish thee as much pleasure in the reading, as I had in writing. Farewell, reader."

BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI."

THE popular conception of Sir Thomas Browne is probably to the effect that he was a writer who, of his own free will and choice, was accustomed to choose dismal subjects for his works, and whose treatment of those subjects was not of the liveliest or most inspiriting character. "Religio Medici," "Hydrotaphia,' "Pseudodoxia Epidemica," "The Garden of Cyrus : these are not titles calculated to reassure the ordinary student who has already but a faint idea of what Browne really wrote. And we must not be surprised, therefore, if he is emphatically one of those great English authors whose reputation is wider than the knowledge of their writings, and with whom the acquaintance even of the best read men is often of the most superficial character. He is certainly not a lively writer. Indeed, it is to be doubted if any of the prose writers of his age were lively writers in our modern sense of the term; and Sir Thomas Browne was especially predisposed to look upon things in general with a solemn eye. No man was probably less affected than he by the stirring events that were enacted round him through the greater part of his lifetime. Whilst Puritan and