Last Saturday I happened to be sitting on a fallen tree somewhat weary; my little damsel working as usual at the other end, and Fanchon balancing herself on the trunk between us; the curls of her brown coat-she is entirely brown-turning into gold as the sunshine played upon them through the leaves.

In this manner were we disposed, when a gipsy, with a pair of light baskets in her hand, came and offered them for sale. She was a middle-aged woman, who, in spite of her wandering life, perhaps, because of that hardy out-of-door life, had retained much of her early beauty; the flashing eyes, the pearly teeth, the ruddy cheeks, the fine erect figure. It happened that, not wanting them, my companion had rejected these identical baskets when brought to our door in the morning. She told me so, and I quietly declined them. My friend the gipsy apparently gave the matter up, and claiming me as an old acquaintance, began to inquire after my health, and fell into the pleasantest strain of conversation possible; spoke of my father, who, she said, had been kind to her and to her tribe (no doubt she said truly; he was kind to every body, and had a liking for the wandering race); spoke of her children at the gipsy school in Dorsetshire; of the excellent Mr. Crabbe, the friend of her people, at Southampton; then she began stroking Fanchon (who, actually to my astonishment, permitted the liberty; in general she suffers no one to touch her that is not gentleman or lady); Fanchon she stroked, and of Flush, the dear old dog, now lying under the rose-tree, she talked; then, to leave no one unpropitiated, she threw out a word of pleasant augury, a sort of gratuitous fortune-telling, to the hemmer of flounces; then she attacked me again with old recollections, trusting, with singular knowledge of human nature, to the power of the future upon the young, and of the past upon the old-to me she spoke of happy memories, to my companion of happiness to come; and so (how could I help it?) I bought the baskets.

I seem to have wandered pretty widely from my subject; but the old dramatists loved these commoners of nature. Broome,

in the "Jovial Crew," has constructed a pleasant and genial comedy out of no higher materials, and our authors, themselves, in "Beggar's Bush," have made most dramatic and effective use of these outlawed wanderers, and would, I am sure, have been the last to blame me for dallying in their company.

I extract some of the charming lyrics interspersed through their plays, not starting from them as Ben Jonson's do, a shining gem in a dusky mine, but incorporate with the golden ore as rich and precious as themselves.

FROM "VALENTINIAN."

The following songs are strikingly illustrative of a peculiarity that has often struck me in reading the dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher; the absence of any mark of antiquity, either in the diction or the construction. Hardly any thing in their verse smacks of the age. They were cotemporary with Ben Jonson, and yet how rugged is his English compared with their fluent and courtly tongue! They were almost cotemporary with a greater than he—a greater far than any or all, and yet Shakspeare's blank verse has an antique sound when read after theirs. Dryden, himself so perfect a model as regards style, says in one of those master-pieces of criticism, the prefaces to his plays, that in Beaumont and Fletcher, our language has attained to its perfection. I doubt if it have much improved since, nor has it for the uses of poetry very materially altered. This "Invocation to Sleep" might, for diction and rhythm, have been written today, always supposing that we had any body capable of writing it.

Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes,
Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose
On this afflicted Prince! Fall like a cloud
In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud
Or painful to his slumbers; easy, light,
And as a purling stream thou son of night
Pass by his troubled senses; sing his pain,
Like hollow-murmuring wind or silver rain!
Into this Prince, gently, oh gently slide,

And kiss him into slumbers like a bride!

The same may be said of the next.

God Lyæus, ever young,

Ever honored, ever sung;

Stained with blood of lusty grapes,

In a thousand lusty shapes.
Dance upon the mazer's brim,
In the crimson liquor swim;
From the plenteous hand divine,
Let a river run with wine.

God of youth, let this day here
Enter neither care nor fear!

FROM "ROLLO."

Take, oh, take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn.
But my kisses bring again,-
Seals of love, though sealed in vain.

Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow,
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow,
Are yet of those that April wears.
But first set my poor heart free,

Bound in those icy chains by thee.

We are irresistibly reminded of the Penseroso in reading the fine song that follows, as we are of Comus in the "Faithful Shepherdess." That Milton had Fletcher in his thoughts can not be doubted; but the great epic poet added so much from his own rich store, that the imitation may well be pardoned by the admirers of both, the rather that the earlier bard stands the test of such a comparison well. Both are crowned poets; but they wear their bays with a difference.

FROM THE "NICE VALOR, OR THE PASSIONATE MADMAN."

Hence all you vain delights,

As short as are the nights,

Wherein you speed your folly!

There's naught in this life sweet,

If man were wise to see 't,
But only melancholy.

Oh sweetest melancholy !

Welcome, folded arms, and fixed eyes,

A sigh that piercing mortifies,

A look that's fastened to the ground,
A tongue chained up without a sound!

Fountain-heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan,
These are the sounds we feed upon.
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley,
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy

THE SATYR'S SPEECH, FROM THE FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS."

Thorough yon same bending plain,

That flings his arms down to the main,
And thro' these thick woods have I run
Whose bottom never kissed the sun,
Since the lusty Spring began.
All to please my master Pan,
Have I trotted without rest
To get him fruit; for at a feast
He entertains this coming night
His paramour, the Syrinx bright.
But behold, a fairer sight!
By that heavenly form of thine,
Brightest fair, thou art divine;
Sprung from great immortal race
Of the gods; for in thy face
Shines more awful majesty,
Than dull weak mortality
Dare with misty eyes behold

And live! Therefore on this mold
Lowly do I bend my knee

In worship of thy deity.

Deign it, goddess, from my hand
To receive whate'er this land
From her fertile womb doth send
Of her choice fruits; and but lend
Belief to that the satyr tells :
Fairer by the famous wells

To this present day ne'er grew,

Never better nor more true.

Here be grapes, whose lusty blood
Is the learned poet's good;

Sweeter yet did never crown

The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown

Than the squirrel whose teeth crack 'em!

Deign, oh! fairest fair, to take 'em!

For these black-eyed Dryope

Hath oftentimes commanded me

With my clasped knee to climb:

See, how well the lusty time

Hath decked their rising cheeks in red,

Such as on your lips is spread.

Here be berries for a queen,

Some be red, some be green;

These are of that luscious meat

The great god Pan himself doth eat.

All these, and what the woods can yield,
The hanging mountain, or the field

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