My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring;
A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet Virtue's face;
Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears:
Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly,
And learn to affect a holy melancholy;

And if Contentment be a stranger then,
I'll ne'er look for it but in heaven again.

A MEDITATION.

O thou great Power! in whom we move,
By whom we live, to whom we die,
Behold me through thy beams of love,
Whilst on this couch of tears I lie,
And cleanse my sordid soul within
By thy Christ's blood, the bath of sin.

No hallow'd oils, no gums I need,
No new-born drams of purging fire;
One rosy drop from David's seed

Was worlds of seas to quench thine ire:
O precious ransom! which once paid,
That Consummatum est was said.

And said by him, that said no more,
But seal'd it with his sacred breath:
Thou then, that has dispurged our score,
And dying wert the death of death,
Be now, whilst on thy name we call,
Our life, our strength, our joy, our all!

RICHARD CORBET.

THIS witty and good-natured bishop was born in 1582. He was the son of a gardener, who, however, had the honour to be known to and sung by Ben Jonson. He was educated at Westminster and Oxford; and having received orders, was made successively Bishop of Oxford and of Norwich.

He was a most facetious and rather too convivial person; and a collection of anecdotes about him might be made, little inferior, in point of wit and coarseness, to that famous one, once so popular in Scotland, relating to the sayings and doings of George Buchanan. He is said, on one occasion, to have aided an unfortunate balladsinger in his professional duty by arraying himself in his leathern jacket and vending the stock, being possessed of a fine presence and a clear, full, ringing voice. Occasionally doffing his clerical costume he adjourned with his chaplain, Dr Lushington, to the wine-cellar, where care and ceremony were both speedily drowned, the one of the pair exclaiming, 'Here's to thee, Lushington,' and the other, 'Here's to thee, Corbet.' Men winked at these irregularities, probably on the principle mentioned by Scott, in reference to Prior Aymer, in 'Ivanhoe,'—' If Prior Aymer rode hard in the chase, or remained late at the banquet, men only shrugged up their shoulders by recollecting that the same irregularities were practised by many of his brethren, who had no redeeming qualities whatsoever to atone for them.' Corbet, on the other hand, was a kind as well as a convivial—a warmhearted as well as an eccentric man. He was tolerant to the Puritans and sectaries; his attention to his duties was respectable; his talents were of a high order, and he had in him a vein of genius of no ordinary kind. He died in 1635, but his poems were not published till 1647. They are of various merit, and treat of various subjects. In his 'Journey to France,' you see the humorist, who, on one occasion, when the country people were flocking to be confirmed, cried, 'Bear off there, or I'll confirm ye with my staff.' In his lines to his son Vincent, we see, notwithstanding all his foibles, the good man; and in his 'Farewell to the Fairies' the fine and fanciful poet.

DR CORBET'S JOURNEY INTO FRANCE.

1 I went from England into France, Nor yet to learn to cringe nor dance, Nor yet to ride nor fence;

Nor did I go like one of those

That do return with half a nose,
They carried from hence.

2 But I to Paris rode along,

Much like John Dory in the song,
Upon a holy tide;

I on an ambling nag did jet,
(I trust he is not paid for yet,)
And spurr'd him on each side.

3 And to St Denis fast we came,
To see the sights of Notre Dame,

(The man that shows them snuffles,)
Where who is apt for to believe,
May see our Lady's right-arm sleeve,
And eke her old pantofles;

4 Her breast, her milk, her very gown That she did wear in Bethlehem town,

When in the inn she lay;

Yet all the world knows that's a fable,
For so good clothes ne'er lay in stable,
Upon a lock of hay.

5 No carpenter could by his trade Gain so much coin as to have made. A gown of so rich stuff;

Yet they, poor souls, think, for their credit,
That they believe old Joseph did it,
'Cause he deserved enough.

6 There is one of the cross's nails,
Which whoso sees, his bonnet vails,
And, if he will, may kneel;

Some say 'twas false, 'twas never so,
Yet, feeling it, thus much I know,
It is as true as steel.

7 There is a lanthorn which the Jews,
When Judas led them forth, did use,

It weighs my weight downright;
But to believe it, you must think
The Jews did put a candle in 't,
And then 'twas very light.

8 There's one saint there hath lost his nose, Another's head, but not his toes,

His elbow and his thumb;

But when that we had seen the rags,
We went to th' inn and took our nags,
And so away did come.

9 We came to Paris, on the Seine,
'Tis wondrous fair, 'tis nothing clean,
'Tis Europe's greatest town;
How strong it is I need not tell it,
For all the world may easily smell it,
That walk it up and down.

10 There many strange things are to see,
The palace and great gallery,

The Place Royal doth excel,

The New Bridge, and the statutes there,
At Notre Dame St Q. Pater,

The steeple bears the bell.

11 For learning the University, And for old clothes the Frippery, The house the queen did build. St Innocence, whose earth devours Dead corps in four-and-twenty hours, And there the king was kill'd.

12 The Bastille and St Denis Street, The Shafflenist like London Fleet,

The Arsenal no toy;

But if

you

'll see the prettiest thing, Go to the court and see the king

Oh, 'tis a hopeful boy!

13 He is, of all his dukes and peers,
Reverenced for much wit at 's

years,
Nor must you think it much;
For he with little switch doth play,
And make fine dirty pies of clay,
Oh, never king made such!

14 A bird that can but kill a fly,
Or prate, doth please his majesty,

"Tis known to every one;

The Duke of Guise gave him a parrot,
And he had twenty cannons for it,
For his new galleon.

15 Oh that I e'er might have the hap To get the bird which in the map Is call'd the Indian ruck!