Seneca,
London 1614. This learned gentleman died in the year 1625, and had
tributes paid to his memory by many of his cotemporary poets, who
characterised him as a man of very considerable genius. Winstanley has
preserved an amorous sonnet of his, which we shall here insert.

If I must die, O let me chuse my death:
Suck out my soul with kisses, cruel maid!
In thy breasts crystal balls, embalm my breath,
Dole it all out in sighs, when I am laid;
Thy lips on mine like cupping glasses clasp;
Let our tongues meet, and strive as they would
sting:
Crush out my wind with one straight-girting grasp,
Stabs on my heart keep time while thou dost sing.
Thy eyes like searing irons burn out mine;
In thy fair tresses stifle me outright:
Like Circe, change me to a loathsome swine,
So I may live forever in thy sight.
Into heaven's joys can none profoundly see,
Except that first they meditate on thee.

When our author wishes to be changed into a loathsome swine, so he
might dwell in sight of his mistress, he should have considered, that
however agreeable the metamorphosis might be to him, it could not be
so to her, to look upon such a loathsome object.

[Footnote 1: Langbaine's Lives of the Poets.]

[Footnote 2: There is a coarseness of dialogue, even in their
genteelest characters, in comedy, that appears now almost
unpardonable; one is almost inclined to think the language and manners
of those times were not over-polite, this fault appears so frequent;
nor is the great Shakespear entirely to be acquitted hereof.]

[Footnote 3: May not this be owing to envy? are not most wits jealous
of their cotemporaries? how readily do we pay adoration to the dead?
how slowly do we give even faint praise to the living? is it a wonder
Beaumont and Fletcher were more praised and versified than Shakespear?
were not inferior wits opposed, nay preferred, to Dryden while living?
was not this the case of Addison and Pope, whose works (those authors
being no more) will be read with admiration, and allowed the just
pre-eminence, while the English tongue is understood.]

[Footnote 4: Preface to Fletcher's plays.]

* * * * *

Sir JOHN DAVIES

Was born at Chisgrove, in the parish of Tysbury in Wiltshire, being
the son of a wealthy tanner of that place. At fifteen years of age he
became a Commoner in Queen's-college, Oxford 1585, where having
made great progress in academical learnin