must also admit that, despite
his study of simplicity, he could not refrain from hunting
(as the manner was) after far-fetched outrageous conceits."

Browne is a poet's poet. Drayton, Wither, Herbert, and John Davies of
Hereford, wrote his praises. Mrs. Browning includes him in her 'Vision
of Poets,' where she says:--

"Drayton and Browne,--with smiles they drew
From outward Nature, still kept new
From their own inward nature true."

Milton studied him carefully, and just as his influence is perceived in
the work of Keats, so is it found in 'Comus' and in 'Lycidas.' Browne
acknowledges Spenser and Sidney as his masters, and his work shows that
he loved Chaucer and Shakespeare.

CIRCE'S CHARM

Song from the 'Inner Temple Masque'

Son of Erebus and night,
Hie away; and aim thy flight
Where consort none other fowl
Than the bat and sullen owl;
Where upon thy limber grass,
Poppy and mandragoras,
With like simples not a few,
Hang forever drops of dew;
Where flows Lethe without coil
Softly like a stream of oil.
Hie thee hither, gentle sleep:
With this Greek no longer keep.
Thrice I charge thee by my wand,
Thrice with moly from my hand
Do I touch Ulysses's eyes,
And with the jaspis: then arise,
Sagest Greek!

_CIRCE_.

Photogravure from a Painting by E Burne-Jones.

[Illustration]

THE HUNTED SQUIRREL

From 'Britannia's Pastorals'

Then as a nimble squirrel from the wood
Ranging the hedges for his filbert food
Sits pertly on a bough, his brown nuts cracking,
And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking;
Till with their crooks and bags a sort of boys
To share with him come with so great a noise
That he is forced to leave a nut nigh broke,
And for his life leap to a neighbor oak,
Thence to a beach, thence to a row of ashes;
Whilst through the quagmires and red water plashes
The boys run dabbling through thick and thin;
One tears his hose, another breaks his shin;
This, torn and tattered, hath with much ado
Got by the briars; and that hath lost his shoe;
This drops his band; that headlong falls for haste;
Another cries behind for being last:
With sticks and stones and many a sounding holloa
The little fool with no small sport they follow,
Whilst he from tree to