a meeting of so many bodies that makes a church; if thy soul and body be met together, an humble preparation of the mind, and a reverent disposition of the body; if thy knees be bent to the earth, thy hands and eyes lifted up to heaven; if thy tongue pray and praise, and thine ears hearken to his answer; if all thy senses, and powers, and faculties, with one unanime purpose to worship thy God, thou art, to this intendment, a church, thou art a congregation; here are two or three met together in his name, and he is in the midst of them though thou be alone in thy chamber. The church of God should be built upon a rock, and yet Job had his church upon a dunghill; the church is to be placed upon the top of a hill, and yet the prophet Jeremy had his church in a miry dungeon; constancy and settledness belong to the church, and yet Jonah had his church in the whale's belly; the lion that roars and seeks whom he may devour, is an enemy to this church, and yet Daniel had his church in the lion's den; the waters of rest in the Psalms were a figure of the church, and yet the three children had their church in the fiery furnace; liberty and life appertain to the church, and yet Peter and Paul had their church in prison, and the thief had his church upon the cross. Every particular man is himself a temple of the Holy Ghost; yea, destroy his body by death and corruption in the grave, and yet here shall be a renewing, a re-edifying of all those temples, in the general resurrection; when we shall rise again, not only as so many Christians, but as so many Christian churches, to glorify the apostle and high-priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, in that eternal Sabbath. Every person, every place is fit to glorify God in. We shall close our present remarks with a brief notice of the poet Corbet, Bishop of Oxford, and afterward of Norwich. RICHARD CORBET was the son of a gardener, and was born at Ervill in Surrey, in 1582. He pursued his early studies at Westminster school, and thence passed, in 1598, to Christ-church College, Oxford, where he remained till he obtained his master's degree, immediately after which he took orders and soon became an eminent preacher. His wit and eloquence recommended him to the favor of James the First, by whom he was appointed one of his chaplains in ordinary, and in 1628, made dean of Christ-church. In 1629, Charles the First raised him to the see of Oxford, and in 1632, transferred him to that of Norwich. Corbet died on the twenty-eighth of July, 1638, and was buried in the Cathedral church at Norwich, where a freestone monument was erected to his memory. Bishop Corbet's poems are comparatively few in number, and those best known are a Journey into France, the Farewell to the Fairies, and Lines to his son Vincent Corbet; the second and third of which follow: FAREWELL TO THE FAIRIES. Farewell rewards and fairies, Good housewives now may say, For now foul sluts in dairies Do fare as well as they. And, though they sweep their hearth no less Than maids were wont to do, Yet who of late, for cleanliness, Finds sixpence in her shoe? Lament, lament old Abbeys, The fairies' lost command; They did but change priests' babies, Who live as changelings ever since, For love of your domains. At morning and at evening both, These pretty ladies had; When Tom came home from labour, Then merrily went their labour, And nimbly went their toes. Witness those rings and roundelays By which we note the fairies A tell-tale in their company Their mirth, was punish'd sure: TO HIS SON. What I shall leave thee none can tell, But all shall say I wish thee well; I wish thee, Vin, before all wealth, Both bodily and ghostly health Nor too much wealth, nor wit come to thee, So much of either may undo thee. I wish thee learning not for show, I wish thee all thy mother's graces, I wish thee friends, and one at court Lecture the Ninth. SIR JOHN BEAUMONT-PHINEAS FLETCHER-GILES FLETCHER-THOMAS CAREW- FRANCIS QUARLES THE remaining English miscellaneous poets connected with the period which we are at present considering, though numerous, will not generally require notices so extended as those who have already passed in review before us. Of these poets, those who in the order of time first present themselves are, Beaumont, the Fletchers, Carew, Wither, Browne, King, and Quarles. JOHN BEAUMONT was the son of Sir Francis Beaumont, and elder brother of the celebrated dramatic poet, Francis Beaumont. He was born at GraceDieu, in Leicestershire, in 1582, and admitted gentleman commoner of Broadgate Hall, Oxford, in 1596. After having passed three years at the university, he removed to one of the Inns of Court, London, but he soon relinquished the study of the law, and retired to the family estate in Leicestershire. In 1626, he was knighted by Charles the First, and died two years after, in the forty-seventh year of his age. Sir John Beaumont wrote a number of pieces, the principal of which are Bosworth Field, and Lines to the Memory of Ferdinando Pulton. These poems are both in heroic verse--a measure which Beaumont wrote with great ease and correctness. 'Bosworth Field' is generally cold and unimpassioned, though there are in it occasional spirited passages; but the 'Lines to the Memory of Pulton' contain many passages of rare excellence, such as the following: Why should vain sorrow follow him with tears, N Yet this large time no greater profit brings, The shortest space, which we so lightly prize No realms, no worlds, can purchase it again : When winged time, which fixed the prints, is past. To the above extract we feel constrained to add the following fine epitaph upon Sir John's son, Gervase Beaumont : Can I, who have for others oft compiled The songs of death, forget my sweetest child, PHINEAS and GILES FLETCHER were brothers, and were sons of the celebrated Doctor Giles Fletcher, who stood so high in the favor of Queen Elizabeth that she employed him on various important foreign embassies. Both these brothers were clergymen, and their lives, therefore, afford little variety of incident. PHINEAS FLETCHER was born in 1584; and after passing through preparatory studies at Eton, he entered the university of Cambridge, whence being graduated, he took orders, and soon after settled at Kilgay, in Norfolk, where he passed his life in the quiet of the country. He died in 1650, in his sixty-seventh year. The principal poems of Phineas Fletcher are, the Purple Island, or the Isle of Man, and Piscatory Eclogues. The name of the former poems suggests images of poetical and romantic beauty, such as we may suppose an admirer and follower of Spenser to have drawn ; but a perusal of the work |