d invoke the spirit of the
author to lead me through it. Besides, who would not be curious to see the
lineaments of a man who, having himself been twice married, wished that
mankind were propagated like trees! As to Fulke Greville, he is like
nothing but one of his own 'Prologues spoken by the ghost of an old king
of Ormus,' a truly formidable and inviting personage: his style is
apocalyptical, cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie;
and for the unravelling a passage or two, I would stand the brunt of an
encounter with so portentous a commentator!"--"I am afraid in that case,"
said A----, "that if the mystery were once cleared up, the merit might be
lost;"--and turning to me, whispered a friendly apprehension, that while
B---- continued to admire these old crabbed authors, he would never become
a popular writer. Dr. Donne was mentioned as a writer of the same period,
with a very interesting countenance, whose history was singular, and whose
meaning was often quite as _uncomeatable_, without a personal citation
from the dead, as that of any of his contemporaries. The volume was
produced; and while some one was expatiating on the exquisite simplicity
and beauty of the portrait prefixed to the old edition, A---- got hold of
the poetry, and exclaiming, "What have we here?" read the following:--

"Here lies a She-Sun and a He-Moon there,
She gives the best light to his sphere,
Or each is both and all, and so
They unto one another nothing owe."

There was no resisting this, till B----, seizing the volume, turned to the
beautiful "Lines to his Mistress," dissuading her from accompanying him
abroad, and read them with suffused features and a faltering tongue.

"By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires which thereof did ensue,
By our long starving hopes, by that remorse
Which my words' masculine persuasive force
Begot in thee, and by the memory
Of hurts, which spies and rivals threaten'd me,
I calmly beg. But by thy father's wrath,
By all pains which want and divorcement hath,
I conjure thee; and all the oaths which I
And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy
Here I unswear, and overswear them thus.
Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous.
Temper, oh fair Love! love's impetuous rage,
Be my true mistress still, not my feign'd Page;
I'll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind
Thee! only worthy to nurse it in my mind.
Thirst to come back; o