Disordered, tremble, fawn, and creep;
Postures which render him despised,
Where he endeavours to be prized.
For women-born to be controlled--
Stoop to the forward and the bold;
Affect the haughty and the proud,
The gay, the frolic, and the loud.
Who first the gen'rous steed opprest,
Not kneeling did salute the beast;
But with high courage, life, and force,
Approaching, tamed th' unruly horse.
Unwisely we the wiser East

Pity, supposing them opprest
With tyrant's force, whose law is will,
By which they govern, spoil, and kill;
Each nymph, but moderately fair,
Commands with no less rigour here.
Should some brave Turk, that walks among
His twenty lasses, bright and young,
Behold as many gallants here,
With modest guise and silent fear,
All to one female idol bend,

While her high pride does scarce descend
To mark their follies, he would swear
That these her guard of eunuchs were,
And that a more majestic queen,
Or humbler slaves, he had not seen.
All this with indignation spoke,
In vain I struggled with the yoke
Of mighty Love: that conqu'ring look,
When next beheld, like lightning strook
My blasted soul, and made me bow
Lower than those I pitied now.

So the tall stag, upon the brink
Of some smooth stream about to drink,
Surveying there his armed head,
With shame remembers that he fled
The scorned dogs, resolves to try
The combat next; but if their cry
Invades again his trembling ear,
He straight resumes his wonted care;
Leaves the untasted spring behind,
And, winged with fear, outflies the wind.

THE BRITISH NAVY.

WHEN Britain, looking with a just disdain
Upon this gilded majesty of Spain,

And knowing well that empire must decline
Whose chief support and sinews are of coin,
Our nation's solid virtue did oppose

To the rich troublers of the world's repose.
And now some months, encamping on the main,
Our naval army had besieged Spain:

They that the whole world's monarchy designed,
Are to their ports by our bold fleet confined,
From whence our Red Cross they triumphant see,
Riding without a rival on the sea.

Others may use the ocean as their road, Only the English make it their abode, Whose ready sails with every wind can fly, And make a covenant with the inconstant sky: Our oaks secure, as if they there took root, We tread on billows with a steady foot.

AT PENSHURST.

WHILE in this park I sing, the list'ning deer
Attend my passion, and forget to fear;
When to the beeches I report my flame,
They bow their heads, as if they felt the same.
To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers
With loud complaints, they answer me in showers.
To thee a wild and cruel soul is given,

More deaf than trees, and prouder than the heav'n!
Love's foe professed! why dost thou falsely feign
Thyself a Sidney? from which noble strain
He sprung, that could so far exalt the name
Of Love, and warm our nation with his flame;
That all we can of love or high desire,
Seems but the smoke of amorous Sidney's fire.
Nor call her mother who so well does prove
One breast may hold both chastity and love.
Never can she, that so exceeds the spring
In joy and bounty, be supposed to bring
One so destructive. To no human stock
We owe this fierce unkindness, but the rock;

That cloven rock produced thee, by whose side
Nature, to recompense the fatal pride

Of such stern beauty, placed those healing springs
Which not more help than that destruction brings.
Thy heart no ruder than the rugged stone,

I might, like Orpheus, with my num'rous moan
Melt to compassion; now my trait'rous song
With thee conspires to do the singer wrong;
While thus I suffer not myself to lose
The memory of what augments my woes;
But with my own breath still foment the fire,
Which flames as high as fancy can aspire!

This last complaint the indulgent ears did pierce
Of just Apollo, president of verse;

Highly concerned that the Muse should bring
Damage to one whom he had taught to sing:
Thus he advised me: "On yon aged tree
Hang up thy lute, and hie thee to the sea,
That there with wonders thy diverted mind
Some truce, at least, may with this passion find."
Ah, cruel nymph! from whom her humble swain
Flies for relief unto the raging main,

And from the winds and tempests does expect
A milder fate than from her cold neglect !
Yet there he'll pray that the unkind may prove
Blest in her choice; and vows this endless love
Springs from no hope of what she can confer,

But from those gifts which Heav'n has heaped on her.

John Milton.

Born 1608.
Died 1674.

THIS, the most illustrious of the whole line of English poets, was born in his father's house, the Spread Eagle, in Bread Street, London, on the 9th December 1608. His father was a scrivener, or money-broker, who had embraced the Protestant faith, and who appears to have been a man of considerable parts. The scrivener seems to have been most anxious to give his son a good education, and placed him early under private tuition; from thence he was sent to St Paul's School, and afterwards to Christ's College, Cambridge. It is believed that his intense study at college laid the seeds of his future blindness. After leaving Cambridge he retired to Horton, in Buckinghamshire, where his father had purchased a small estate. Here he composed some of his beautiful minor pieces. At twenty-one he composed his magnificent Hymn on the Nativity," and at twenty-six he produced his "Comus," founded on an occurrence to the family of the Earl of Bridgewater. It is a dream

of Fairyland. When about thirty he went to Italy, where he was received with the greatest honour. On the breaking out of the civil wars he returned to England, and ranged himself on the side of the Parliament; and as the literary champion of the Commonwealth, he published many controversial pieces. In 1645 he published his Allegro and Penseroso. The poet's eyesight had been failing for some years past, and at last in 1652 he became totally blind. Milton had married in 1643 Mary Powel, the daughter of a Royalist gentleman, but who seems to have been disgusted with his spare diet and ascetic life; she left him in a month and returned to her father. They again came together about a year after, and Milton was of great use to her family when the successes of Cromwell brought them into poverty and danger. She died in 1652, leaving three daughters, who survived their father, and of whom Milton says they were often "undutiful and unkind." In 1656 he married Katherine Woodcock, a London lady, with whom he lived happily, but who died in 1658. The Restoration, in 1660, changed completely the position and prospects of Milton, who was deprived of all his public employments. He was also placed in some danger from the prominent part he had taken in Cromwell's government. It does not appear, however, that he was molested; and at last his name was included in the general amnesty. Milton now devoted himself to a great work which he had for sometime contemplated, and which he had lately commenced,-"Paradise Lost," which appeared in 1667. For this immortal poem he only received L.15. In 1671 appeared "Paradise Regained," the subject of which was suggested by a remark of Thomas Ellwood, a quaker, who said, "Thou hast said much upon Paradise lost, what hast thou to say upon Paradise regained." Milton had in 1663 contracted a third marriage -Elizabeth Marshall, his own cousin, was the lady. She was only twenty-four when she was married, and survived the poet fifty-three years. She had no children by Milton. The poet's career was now drawing to a close. He had been for some time suffering from hereditary disease, and tranquilly passed away from this life in Artillery Walk, Bunhill Row, on 8th November 1674, in his sixty-sixth year. He was buried in the parish church of St Giles', Cripplegate.

FROM HYMN ON THE NATIVITY.

Ir was the winter wild,

While the heaven-born Child

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to him

Had doffed her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathise :

It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fair

She woos the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow;
And on her naked shame,

Pollute with sinful blame,

The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; Confounded, that her Maker's eyes

Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

But he her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek-eyed Peace;

She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphere,

His ready harbinger,

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing : And, waving wide her myrtle wand,

She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

No war, or battle's sound,

Was heard the world around:

The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked chariot stood

Unstained with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye,

As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by.

But peaceful was the night,

Wherein the Prince of Light

His reign of peace upon the earth began: The winds, with wonder whist,

Smoothly the waters kist,

Whispering new joys to the mild ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

The shepherds on the lawn,

Or ere the point of dawn,

Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;

Full little thought they then,

That the mighty Pan

Was kindly come to live with them below;

Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,

Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

When such music sweet

Their hearts and ears did greet,

As never was by mortal finger strook;

Divinely warbled voice

Answering the stringed noise,