Chapter 17

4 When of the dew, which the eye and ear do take, From flowers abroad, and bring into the brain, She doth within both wax and honey make: This work is hers, this is her proper pain.

5 When she from sundry acts, one skill doth draw; Gathering from divers fights one art of war; From many cases like, one rule of law; These her collections, not the senses' are.

6 When in the effects she doth the causes know; And seeing the stream, thinks where the spring doth rise; And seeing the branch, conceives the root below: These things she views without the body's eyes.

7 When she, without a Pegasus, doth fly Swifter than lightning's fire from east to west; About the centre, and above the sky, She travels then, although the body rest.

8 When all her works she formeth first within, Proportions them, and sees their perfect end; Ere she in act doth any part begin, What instruments doth then the body lend?

9 When without hands she doth thus castles build, Sees without eyes, and without feet doth run; When she digests the world, yet is not fill'd: By her own powers these miracles are done.

10 When she defines, argues, divides, compounds, Considers virtue, vice, and general things; And marrying divers principles and grounds, Out of their match a true conclusion brings.

11 These actions in her closet, all alone, Retired within herself, she doth fulfil; Use of her body's organs she hath none, When she doth use the powers of wit and will.

12 Yet in the body's prison so she lies, As through the body's windows she must look, Her divers powers of sense to exercise, By gathering notes out of the world's great book.

13 Nor can herself discourse or judge of ought, But what the sense collects, and home doth bring; And yet the powers of her discoursing thought, From these collections is a diverse thing.

14 For though our eyes can nought but colours see, Yet colours give them not their power of sight; So, though these fruits of sense her objects be, Yet she discerns them by her proper light.

15 The workman on his stuff his skill doth show, And yet the stuff gives not the man his skill; Kings their affairs do by their servants know, But order them by their own royal will.

16 So, though this cunning mistress, and this queen, Doth, as her instruments, the senses use, To know all things that are felt, heard, or seen; Yet she herself doth only judge and choose.

17 Even as a prudent emperor, that reigns By sovereign title over sundry lands, Borrows, in mean affairs, his subjects' pains, Sees by their eyes, and writeth by their hands:

18 But things of weight and consequence indeed, Himself doth in his chamber then debate; Where all his counsellors he doth exceed, As far in judgment, as he doth in state.

19 Or as the man whom princes do advance, Upon their gracious mercy-seat to sit, Doth common things of course and circumstance, To the reports of common men commit:

20 But when the cause itself must be decreed, Himself in person in his proper court, To grave and solemn hearing doth proceed, Of every proof, and every by-report.

21 Then, like God's angel, he pronounceth right, And milk and honey from his tongue doth flow: Happy are they that still are in his sight, To reap the wisdom which his lips doth sow.

22 Right so the soul, which is a lady free, And doth the justice of her state maintain: Because the senses ready servants be, Attending nigh about her court, the brain:

23 By them the forms of outward things she learns, For they return unto the fantasy, Whatever each of them abroad discerns, And there enrol it for the mind to see.

24 But when she sits to judge the good and ill, And to discern betwixt the false and true, She is not guided by the senses' skill, But doth each thing in her own mirror view.

25 Then she the senses checks, which oft do err, And even against their false reports decrees; And oft she doth condemn what they prefer; For with a power above the sense she sees.

26 Therefore no sense the precious joys conceives, Which in her private contemplations be; For then the ravish'd spirit the senses leaves, Hath her own powers, and proper actions free.

27 Her harmonies are sweet, and full of skill, When on the body's instruments she plays; But the proportions of the wit and will, Those sweet accords are even the angels' lays.

28 These tunes of reason are Amphion's lyre, Wherewith he did the Theban city found: These are the notes wherewith the heavenly choir, The praise of Him which made the heaven doth sound.

29 Then her self-being nature shines in this, That she performs her noblest works alone: 'The work, the touchstone of the nature is; And by their operations things are known.'

[1] That the soul hath a proper operation without the body.

SPIRITUALITY OF THE SOUL.

1 But though this substance be the root of sense, Sense knows her not, which doth but bodies know: She is a spirit, and heavenly influence, Which from the fountain of God's Spirit doth flow.

2 She is a spirit, yet not like air or wind; Nor like the spirits about the heart or brain; Nor like those spirits which alchymists do find, When they in everything seek gold in vain.

3 For she all natures under heaven doth pass, Being like those spirits, which God's bright face do see, Or like Himself, whose image once she was, Though now, alas! she scarce his shadow be.

4 For of all forms, she holds the first degree, That are to gross, material bodies knit; Yet she herself is bodiless and free; And, though confined, is almost infinite.

5 Were she a body,[1] how could she remain Within this body, which is less than she? Or how could she the world's great shape contain, And in our narrow breasts contained be?

6 All bodies are confined within some place, But she all place within herself confines: All bodies have their measure and their space; But who can draw the soul's dimensive lines?

7 No body can at once two forms admit, Except the one the other do deface; But in the soul ten thousand forms do fit, And none intrudes into her neighbour's place.

8 All bodies are with other bodies fill'd, But she receives both heaven and earth together: Nor are their forms by rash encounter spill'd, For there they stand, and neither toucheth either.

9 Nor can her wide embracements filled be; For they that most and greatest things embrace, Enlarge thereby their mind's capacity, As streams enlarged, enlarge the channel's space.

10 All things received, do such proportion take, As those things have, wherein they are received: So little glasses little faces make, And narrow webs on narrow frames are weaved.

11 Then what vast body must we make the mind, Wherein are men, beasts, trees, towns, seas, and lands; And yet each thing a proper place doth find, And each thing in the true proportion stands?

12 Doubtless, this could not be, but that she turns Bodies to spirits, by sublimation strange; As fire converts to fire the things it burns: As we our meats into our nature change.

13 From their gross matter she abstracts the forms, And draws a kind of quintessence from things, Which to her proper nature she transforms, To bear them light on her celestial wings.

14 This doth she, when, from things particular, She doth abstract the universal kinds, Which bodiless and immaterial are, And can be only lodged within our minds.

15 And thus from divers accidents and acts, Which do within her observation fall, She goddesses and powers divine abstracts; As nature, fortune, and the virtues all.

16 Again; how can she several bodies know, If in herself a body's form she bear? How can a mirror sundry faces show, If from all shapes and forms it be not clear?

17 Nor could we by our eyes all colours learn, Except our eyes were of all colours void; Nor sundry tastes can any tongue discern, Which is with gross and bitter humours cloy'd.

18 Nor can a man of passions judge aright, Except his mind be from all passions free: Nor can a judge his office well acquit, If he possess'd of either party be.

19 If, lastly, this quick power a body were, Were it as swift as in the wind or fire, Whose atoms do the one down sideways bear, And the other make in pyramids aspire;

20 Her nimble body yet in time must move, And not in instants through all places slide: But she is nigh and far, beneath, above, In point of time, which thought cannot divide;

21 She's sent as soon to China as to Spain; And thence returns as soon as she is sent: She measures with one time, and with one pain. An ell of silk, and heaven's wide-spreading tent.

22 As then the soul a substance hath alone, Besides the body in which she's confined; So hath she not a body of her own, But is a spirit, and immaterial mind.

23 Since body and soul have such diversities, Well might we muse how first their match began; But that we learn, that He that spread the skies, And fix'd the earth, first form'd the soul in man.

24 This true Prometheus first made man of earth, And shed in him a beam of heavenly fire; Now in their mothers' wombs, before their birth, Doth in all sons of men their souls inspire.

25 And as Minerva is in fables said, From Jove, without a mother, to proceed; So our true Jove, without a mother's aid, Doth daily millions of Minervas breed.

[1] That it cannot be a body.

GILES FLETCHER.

Giles Fletcher was the younger brother of Phineas, and died twenty-three years before him. He was a cousin of Fletcher the dramatist, and the son of Dr Giles Fletcher, who was employed in many important missions in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and, among others, negotiated a commercial treaty with Russia greatly in the favour of his own country. Giles is supposed to have been born in 1588. He studied at Cambridge; published his noble poem, 'Christ's Victory and Triumph,' in 1610, when he was twenty- three years of age; was appointed to the living of Alderston, in Suffolk, where he died, in 1623, at the early age of thirty-five, 'equally loved,' says old Wood, 'of the Muses and the Graces.'

The poem, in four cantos, entitled 'Christ's Victory and Triumph,' is one of almost Miltonic magnificence. With a wing as easy as it is strong, he soars to heaven, and fills the austere mouth of Justice and the golden lips of Mercy with language worthy of both. He then stoops down on the Wilderness of the Temptation, and paints the Saviour and Satan in colours admirably contrasted, and which in their brightness and blackness can never decay. Nor does he fear, in fine, to pierce the gloom of Calvary, and to mingle his note with the harps of angels, saluting the Redeemer, as He sprang from the grave, with the song, 'He is risen, He is risen--and shall die no more.' The style is steeped in Spenser--equally mellifluous, figurative, and majestic. In allegory the author of the 'Fairy Queen' is hardly superior, and in the enthusiasm of devotion Fletcher surpasses him far. From the great light, thus early kindled and early quenched, Milton did not disdain to draw with his 'golden urn.' 'Paradise Regained' owes much more than the suggestion of its subject to 'Christ's Victory;' and is it too much to say that, had Fletcher lived, he might have shone in the same constellation with the bard of the 'Paradise Lost?' The plan of our 'Specimens' permits only a few extracts. Let those who wish more, along with a lengthened and glowing tribute to the author's genius, consult _Blackwood_ for November 1835. The reading of a single sentence will convince them that the author of the paper was Christopher North.

THE NATIVITY.

I.

Who can forget, never to be forgot, The time, that all the world in slumber lies: When, like the stars, the singing angels shot To earth, and heaven awaked all his eyes, To see another sun at midnight rise On earth? was never sight of pareil fame: For God before, man like himself did frame, But God himself now like a mortal man became.

II.

A child he was, and had not learned to speak, That with his word the world before did make: His mother's arms him bore, he was so weak, That with one hand the vaults of heaven could shake. See how small room my infant Lord doth take, Whom all the world is not enough to hold. Who of his years, or of his age hath told? Never such age so young, never a child so old.

III

And yet but newly he was infanted, And yet already he was sought to die; Yet scarcely born, already banished; Not able yet to go, and forced to fly: But scarcely fled away, when by and by, The tyrant's sword with blood is all denied, And Rachel, for her sons with fury wild, Cries, O thou cruel king, and O my sweetest child!

IV.

Egypt his nurse became, where Nilus springs, Who straight, to entertain the rising sun, The hasty harvest in his bosom brings; But now for drought the fields were all undone, And now with waters all is overrun: So fast the Cynthian mountains poured their snow, When once they felt the sun so near them glow, That Nilus Egypt lost, and to a sea did grow.

V.

The angels carolled loud their song of peace, The cursed oracles were stricken dumb, To see their shepherd, the poor shepherds press, To see their king, the kingly sophics come, And them to guide unto his Master's home, A star comes dancing up the orient, That springs for joy over the strawy tent, Where gold, to make their prince a crown, they all present.

VI.

Young John, glad child, before he could be born, Leapt in the womb, his joy to prophesy: Old Anna, though with age all spent and worn, Proclaims her Saviour to posterity: And Simeon fast his dying notes doth ply. Oh, how the blessed souls about him trace! It is the fire of heaven thou dost embrace: Sing, Simeon, sing; sing, Simeon, sing apace.

VII.

With that the mighty thunder dropt away From God's unwary arm, now milder grown, And melted into tears; as if to pray For pardon, and for pity, it had known, That should have been for sacred vengeance thrown: There too the armies angelic devowed Their former rage, and all to mercy bowed, Their broken weapons at her feet they gladly strowed.

VIII.

Bring, bring, ye Graces, all your silver flaskets, Painted with every choicest flower that grows, That I may soon unflower your fragrant baskets, To strow the fields with odours where he goes, Let whatsoe'er he treads on be a rose. So down she let her eyelids fall, to shine Upon the rivers of bright Palestine, Whose woods drop honey, and her rivers skip with wine.

SONG OF SORCERESS SEEKING TO TEMPT CHRIST.

Love is the blossom where there blows Everything that lives or grows: Love doth make the heavens to move, And the sun doth burn in love: Love the strong and weak doth yoke, And makes the ivy climb the oak; Under whose shadows lions wild, Softened by love, grow tame and mild: Love no medicine can appease, He burns the fishes in the seas; Not all the skill his wounds can stench, Not all the sea his fire can quench: Love did make the bloody spear Once a leafy coat to wear, While in his leaves there shrouded lay Sweet birds, for love, that sing and play: And of all love's joyful flame, I the bud, and blossom am. Only bend thy knee to me, The wooing shall thy winning be.

See, see the flowers that below, Now as fresh as morning blow, And of all, the virgin rose, That as bright Aurora shows: How they all unleaved die, Losing their virginity; Like unto a summer-shade, But now born, and now they fade. Everything doth pass away, There is danger in delay: Come, come gather then the rose, Gather it, ere it you lose. All the sand of Tagus' shore Into my bosom casts his ore; All the valley's swimming corn To my house is yearly borne: Every grape of every vine Is gladly bruised to make me wine. While ten thousand kings, as proud, To carry up my train have bowed, And a world of ladies send me In my chambers to attend me. All the stars in heaven that shine, And ten thousand more, are mine: Only bend thy knee to me, Thy wooing shall thy winning be.

CLOSE OF 'CHRIST'S VICTORY AND TRIUMPH.'

I

Here let my Lord hang up his conquering lance, And bloody armour with late slaughter warm, And looking down on his weak militants, Behold his saints, midst of their hot alarm, Hang all their golden hopes upon his arm. And in this lower field dispacing wide, Through windy thoughts, that would their sails misguide, Anchor their fleshly ships fast in his wounded side.

II.

Here may the band, that now in triumph shines, And that (before they were invested thus) In earthly bodies carried heavenly minds, Pitched round about in order glorious, Their sunny tents, and houses luminous, All their eternal day in songs employing, Joying their end, without end of their joying, While their Almighty Prince destruction is destroying.

III.

Full, yet without satiety, of that Which whets and quiets greedy appetite, Where never sun did rise, nor ever sat, But one eternal day, and endless light Gives time to those, whose time is infinite, Speaking without thought, obtaining without fee, Beholding him, whom never eye could see, Magnifying him, that cannot greater be.

IV.

How can such joy as this want words to speak? And yet what words can speak such joy as this? Far from the world, that might their quiet break, Here the glad souls the face of beauty kiss, Poured out in pleasure, on their beds of bliss, And drunk with nectar torrents, ever hold Their eyes on him, whose graces manifold The more they do behold, the more they would behold.

V.

Their sight drinks lovely fires in at their eyes, Their brain sweet incense with fine breath accloys, That on God's sweating altar burning lies; Their hungry ears feed on the heavenly noise That angels sing, to tell their untold joys; Their understanding naked truth, their wills The all, and self-sufficient goodness fills, That nothing here is wanting, but the want of ills.

VI.

No sorrow now hangs clouding on their brow, No bloodless malady empales their face, No age drops on their hairs his silver snow, No nakedness their bodies doth embase, No poverty themselves, and theirs disgrace, No fear of death the joy of life devours, No unchaste sleep their precious time deflowers, No loss, no grief, no change wait on their winged hours.

VII.

But now their naked bodies scorn the cold, And from their eyes joy looks, and laughs at pain; The infant wonders how he came so old, And old man how he came so young again; Still resting, though from sleep they still restrain; Where all are rich, and yet no gold they owe; And all are kings, and yet no subjects know; All full, and yet no time on food they do bestow.

VIII.

For things that pass are past, and in this field The indeficient spring no winter fears; The trees together fruit and blossom yield, The unfading lily leaves of silver bears, And crimson rose a scarlet garment wears: And all of these on the saints' bodies grow, Not, as they wont, on baser earth below; Three rivers here of milk, and wine, and honey flow.

IX.

About the holy city rolls a flood Of molten crystal, like a sea of glass, On which weak stream a strong foundation stood, Of living diamonds the building was That all things else, besides itself, did pass: Her streets, instead of stones, the stars did pave, And little pearls, for dust, it seemed to have, On which soft-streaming manna, like pure snow, did wave.

X.

In midst of this city celestial, Where the eternal temple should have rose, Lightened the idea beatifical: End and beginning of each thing that grows, Whose self no end, nor yet beginning knows, That hath no eyes to see, nor ears to hear; Yet sees, and hears, and is all eye, all ear; That nowhere is contained, and yet is everywhere.

XI.

Changer of all things, yet immutable; Before, and after all, the first, and last: That moving all is yet immoveable; Great without quantity, in whose forecast, Things past are present, things to come are past; Swift without motion, to whose open eye The hearts of wicked men unbreasted lie; At once absent, and present to them, far, and nigh.

XII.

It is no flaming lustre, made of light; No sweet consent, or well-timed harmony; Ambrosia, for to feast the appetite: Or flowery odour, mixed with spicery; No soft embrace, or pleasure bodily: And yet it is a kind of inward feast; A harmony that sounds within the breast; An odour, light, embrace, in which the soul doth rest.

XIII.

A heavenly feast no hunger can consume; A light unseen, yet shines in every place; A sound no time can steal; a sweet perfume No winds can scatter; an entire embrace, That no satiety can e'er unlace: Ingraced into so high a favour, there The saints, with their beau-peers, whole worlds outwear; And things unseen do see, and things unheard do hear.

XIV.

Ye blessed souls, grown richer by your spoil, Whose loss, though great, is cause of greater gains; Here may your weary spirits rest from toil, Spending your endless evening that remains, Amongst those white flocks, and celestial trains, That feed upon their Shepherd's eyes; and frame That heavenly music of so wondrous fame, Psalming aloud the holy honours of his name!

XV.

Had I a voice of steel to tune my song; Were every verse as smooth as smoothest glass; And every member turned to a tongue; And every tongue were made of sounding brass: Yet all that skill, and all this strength, alas! Should it presume to adorn (were misadvised) The place, where David hath new songs devised, As in his burning throne he sits emparadised.

XVI.

Most happy prince, whose eyes those stars behold, Treading ours underfeet, now mayst thou pour That overflowing skill, wherewith of old Thou wont'st to smooth rough speech; now mayst thou shower Fresh streams of praise upon that holy bower, Which well we heaven call, not that it rolls, But that it is the heaven of our souls: Most happy prince, whose sight so heavenly sight beholds!

XVII.

Ah, foolish shepherds! who were wont to esteem Your God all rough, and shaggy-haired to be; And yet far wiser shepherds than ye deem, For who so poor (though who so rich) as he, When sojourning with us in low degree, He washed his flocks in Jordan's spotless tide; And that his dear remembrance might abide, Did to us come, and with us lived, and for us died?

XVIII.

But now such lively colours did embeam His sparkling forehead; and such shining rays Kindled his flaming locks, that down did stream In curls along his neck, where sweetly plays (Singing his wounds of love in sacred lays) His dearest Spouse, Spouse of the dearest Lover, Knitting a thousand knots over and over, And dying still for love, but they her still recover.

XIX.

Fairest of fairs, that at his eyes doth dress Her glorious face; those eyes, from whence are shed Attractions infinite; where to express His love, high God all heaven as captive leads, And all the banners of his grace dispreads, And in those windows doth his arms englaze, And on those eyes, the angels all do gaze, And from those eyes, the lights of heaven obtain their blaze.

XX.

But let the Kentish lad,[1] that lately taught His oaten reed the trumpet's silver sound, Young Thyrsilis; and for his music brought The willing spheres from heaven, to lead around The dancing nymphs and swains, that sung, and crowned Eclecta's Hymen with ten thousand flowers Of choicest praise; and hung her heavenly bowers With saffron garlands, dressed for nuptial paramours.

XXI.