XIII.

Entised on with hope of future gaine,

I suffred long what did my soule displease;

But when my youth was spent, my hope was vaine,

I felt my native strength at last decrease ;

I gan my losse of lustie yeeres complaine,

And wisht I had enjoy'd the countries peace;
I bod the court farewell, and with content
My later age here have I quiet spent.

XIV.

While thus he spake, Erminia husht and still
His wise discourses heard, with great attention,
His speeches graue those idle fancies kill,
Which in her troubled soule bred such dissention;
After much thought reformed was her will,
Within those woods to dwell was her intention,

Till fortune should occasion new afford,
To turne her home to her desired Lord.
XV.

She said therefore, O shepherd fortunate !
That troubles some didst whilom feele and proue,

Yet liuest now in this contented state,

Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue,

To entertaine me as a willing mate

In shepherds life, which I admire and loue;

Within these pleasant groues perchance my hart Of her discomforts may unload some part.

XVI.

If gold or wealth of most esteemed deare,
If iewels rich, thou diddest hold in prise,
Such store thereof, such plentie have I seen,
As to a greedie minde might well suffice :
With that downe trickled many a siluer teare,
Two christall streames fell from her watrie eies;
Part of her sad misfortunes than she told,
And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old.

XVII.

With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare
Towards his cottage gently home to guide;
His aged wife there made her homely cheare,

Yet welcomde her; and plast her by her side.
The princesse dond a poore pastoraes geare,
A kerchief course upon her head she tide ;
But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse)
Were such as ill beseem'd a sheperdesse.

XVIII.

Not those rude garments could obscure, and hide
The heau'nly beautie of her angels face,
Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide,
Or ought disparag'd, by those labours bace ;
Her little flocks to pasture would she guide,
And milk her goates, and in their folds them place,
Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame
Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame.

:

POMFRET.

OF MR JOHN POMFRET nothing is known but from a slight and confused account prefixed to his poems by a nameless friend; who relates, that he was the son of the Rev. Mr Pomfret, rector of Luton, in Bedfordshire; that he was bred at Cambridge*; entered into orders, and was rector of Malden in Bedfordshire, and might have risen in the church; but that, when he applied to Dr Compton bishop of London, for institution to a living of considerable value, to which he had been presented, he found a troublesome obstruction raised by a maliciousinterpretation of some passage in his Choice; from which it was inferred, that he considered happiness as more likely to be found in the company of a mistress than of a wife.

This reproach was easily obliterated: for it had happened to Pomfret as to almost all other men who plan schemes of life; he had departed from his purpose, and was then married.

The malice of his enemies had however a very fatal consequence : the delay constrained his attendance in London, where he caught the smallpox, and died in 1703, in the thirty-sixth year of his age.

He published his poems in 1699; and has been always the favourite of that class of readers, who, without vanity or criticism, seek only their own a

musement.

His Choice exhibits a system of life adapted to common notions, and equal to common expectations; such a state as affords plenty and tranquillity, without exclusion of intellectual pleasures. Perhaps no composition in our language has been oftener perused than Pomfret's Choice.

In his other poems there is an easy volubility; the pleasure of smooth metre is afforded to the ear, and the mind is not oppressed with ponderous, or entangled with intricate, sentiment. He pleases many; and he who pleases many must have some species DORSET.

Or the earl of Dorset the character has been drawn so largely and so elegantly by Prior, to whom he was familiarly known, that nothing can be added by a casual hand; and, as its author is so generally read, it would be useless officiousness to transcribe it.

CHARLES SACKVILLE was born January 24, 1637. Having been educated under a private tutor, he travelled into Italy, and returned a little before the restoration. He was chosen into the first parliament that was called, for East Grinstead in Sussex, and soon became a favourite of Charles the Second ; but undertook no public employment, being too eager of the riotous and licentious pleasures which young men of high rank, who aspired to be thought wits, at that time imagined themselves intitled to indulge.

One of these frolics has, by the industry of Wood,