[SIR HENRY WOTTON was born at Bocton Hall, in Kent, in 1568 and was educated at Oxford. After leaving that University, he travelled on the Continent, and when he returned to England, became secretary to the Earl of Essex; but, perceiving the approaching fall of that nobleman he again left the kingdom, only just in time to secure his own safety James I. employed him in several embassies, but he lost that monarch's confidence by writing in a friend's album, as a definition, "An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country," which was quoted eight years after by an adversary of the king, as one of the principles on which he acted. An ingenious and eloquent apology at length satisfied James, and Wotton was restored to favour. He was afterwards made Provost of Eton, and, to comply with the statutes, took holy orders. He died in 1639.]

You meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfy our eyes

More by your number than your light!

Do but mark, her forehead's smoother

Than words that soothe her!

And from her arch'd brows such a grace

Sheds itself through the face,

As alone there triumphs to the life

All the gain, all the good of the elements' strife.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,

Before rude hands have touch'd it?

Have you mark'd but the fall of the snow,

Before the soil hath smutch'd it?

Have you felt the wool of the beaver,
Or swan's down ever?

Or have smell'd of the bud o' the brier?

Or the 'nard in the fire?

Or have tasted the bag of the bee?

O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!

[SIR HENRY WOTTON was born at Bocton Hall, in Kent, in 1568 and was educated at Oxford. After leaving that University, he travelled on the Continent, and when he returned to England, became secretary to the Earl of Essex; but, perceiving the approaching fall of that nobleman he again left the kingdom, only just in time to secure his own safety James I. employed him in several embassies, but he lost that monarch's confidence by writing in a friend's album, as a definition, "An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country," which was quoted eight years after by an adversary of the king, as one of the principles on which he acted. An ingenious and eloquent apology at length satisfied James, and Wotton was restored to favour. He was afterwards made Provost of Eton, and, to comply with the statutes, took holy orders. He died in 1639.]

You meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfy our eyes

More by your number than your light

You common people of the skies!

What are you, when the sun shall rise?

You curious chanters of the wood,

That warble forth dame Nature's lays, Thinking your voices understood

By your weak accents! what's your praise When Philomel her voice shall raise ?

You violets that first appear,

By your pure purple mantles known, Like the proud virgins of the year,

As if the spring were all your own? What are you, when the rose is blown?

So, when my mistress shall be seen

In form and beauty of her mind; By virtue first, then choice, a Queen! Tell me, if she were not design'd Th' eclipse and glory of her kind?

BY THOMAS CAREW.

[THOMAS CAREW was born in Gloucestershire, in 1589, and was educated at Oxford. He received some appointments in the household of Charles I. and devoted himself to the pleasures and frivolities of the Court, a weakness which he greatly deplored at the close of his life. He died in 1639.

His poems are too often sullied by indelicacies, which were unhappily the characteristics of the age in which he lived..]

THINK not, 'cause men flatt'ring say,

Y' are fresh as April, sweet as May,