RICHARD ALISON.

There is a garden in her face,

Where roses and white lilies show;
A heavenly paradise is that place,

Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow.
There cherries hang, that none may buy,
Till cherry ripe themselves do cry.

An Howres Recreation in Musike. 1606.1

Those cherries fairly do enclose

Of orient pearl a double row;

Which when her lovely laughter shows,

They look like rosebuds filled with snow. Ibid.

His golden locks time hath to silver turned;
O time too swift! O swiftness never ceasing!
His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned,
But spurned in vain; youth waneth by encreasing.
Sonnet ad fin. Polyhymnia.

His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And lovers' songs be turned to holy psalms;

A man at arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are old age's alms. Ibid.
My merry, merry, merry roundelay

Concludes with Cupid's curse:

They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods, they change for worse!

Cupid's Curse.

1 Oliphant's La Musa Madrigalesca, p. 229.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 1568-1639.

How happy is he born or taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!

The Character of a Happy Life.

Who God doth late and early pray
More of his grace than gifts to lend;

And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend.

Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And, having nothing, yet hath all.

You meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfy our eyes

More by your number than your light,
You common people of the skies;

Ibid.

Ibid.

What are you when the moon1 shall rise?
On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia.2

He first deceased; she for a little tried

To live without him, liked it not, and died.

Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton's Wife.

I am but a gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff.
Preface to the Elements of Architecture.

Hanging was the worst use man could be put to.
The Disparity between Buckingham and Essex.

1 'sun' in Reliquia Wottonianæ, Eds. 1651, 1672, 1685.

2 This was printed with music as early as 1624, in Est's Sixth Set of Books, &c., and is found in many MSS. - Hannah, The Courtly Poets.

SIR THOMAS OVERBURY.

1581-1613.

In part to blame is she,
Which hath without consent bin only tride:
He comes to neere that comes to be denide.1
A Wife. Stanza 36.

JOHN FLETCHER. 1576-1625.

Man is his own star, and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man
Commands all light, all influence, all fate.
Nothing to him falls early, or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.

Upon an "Honest Man's Fortune."
All things that are

Made for our general uses are at war,-
Even we among ourselves.

Man is his own star, and that soul that can
Be honest is the only perfect man.2

Ibid.

Ibid.

Pope, Essay on Man, Ep. iv. Line 248.

8 The following well-known catch, or glee, is formed on this

He who goes to bed, and goes to bed sober,
Falls as the leaves do, and dies in October;
But he who goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow,
Lives as he ought to do, and dies an honest fellow.

Three merry boys, and three merry boys,
And three merry boys are we,1

As ever did sing in a hempen string
Under the gallows-tree.

Rollo, Duke of Normandy. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Hide, O, hide those hills of snow,
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears!
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.

Hence, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights

Wherein you spend your folly!
There's naught in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see 't,
But only melancholy;

O sweetest Melancholy!

Act v. Sc. 2.

The Nice Valour. Act iii. Sc. 3.

Fountain heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!

Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan,
Sorrow calls no time that 's

gone:
Violets plucked, the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again.2

Ibid.

The Queen of Corinth. Act iii. Sc. 2.

1 See Peele's Old Wives Tale, 1595; "Three merry men be we," quoted in Westward Hoe, by Dekker and Webster, 1607.

2 Weep no more, lady, weep no more,

Thy sorrow is in vain;

For violets plucked the sweetest showers

Will ne'er make grow again.

Percy's Reliques, The Friar of Orders Gray.

FRANCIS BEAUMONT. 1586-1616.

What things have we seen

Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtile flame,

As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,

And resolved to live a fool the rest

Of his dull life.

Letter to Ben Jonson.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

(FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER.)

A soul as white as heaven.

The Maid's Tragedy. Act iv. Sc. 1.

There is a method in man's wickedness,

It grows up by degrees.1 A King and no King. Act v. Sc. 4.

Calamity is man's true touchstone.2

Four Plays in One: The Triumph of Honour. Sc. 1.

1 Nemo repente venit turpissimus. -Juvenal, ii. 83.

2 Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes viros.

Seneca, De Prov. v. 9.