"This is the substance of two certificates, taken divers times under the hands of these two gentlemen of unquestionable credit; both which, since they agree in substance, I thought fit to contract into one testimony, which I have inserted here, having the originals by me, to produce if occasion be."--Parr's _Life of Ussher_, p. 61. Indeed, considering the great and uninterrupted friendship which subsisted between Ussher and Strafford, considering that the primate was his chosen friend during his trial and imprisonment, and attended him to the scaffold, nothing could be more improbable than that he should have advised the king to consent to his death. At all events, the story is contradicted by those most competent to speak to its truth, by the archbishop and by the king; and therefore, in a work so deservedly popular as Lord Campbell's, one cannot but regret that any currency should be given to a calumny so injurious to a prelate whose character is as deserving of our esteem, as his learning is of our veneration. PEREGRINUS. POETICAL COINCIDENCES. _Sheridan._ In the account which Moore has given, in his _Life of Sheridan_, of the writings left unfinished by that celebrated orator and dramatist, he states: "There also remain among his papers three acts of a drama without a name, written evidently in haste, and with scarcely any correction." From this production he gives the following verses, to which he has appended the note I have placed immediately after them:-- "Oh yield, fair lids, the treasures of my heart, Release those beams, that make this mansion bright; From her sweet sense, Slumber! tho' sweet thou art, Begone, and give the air she breathes in light. "Or while, oh Sleep, thou dost those glances hide, Let rosy slumber still around her play, Sweet as the cherub Innocence enjoy'd, When in thy lap, new-born, in smiles he lay. "And thou, oh Dream, that com'st her sleep to cheer, Oh take my shape, and play a lover's part; Kiss her from me, and whisper in her ear, Till her eyes shine, 'tis night within my heart." "I have taken the liberty here of supplying a few rhymes and words that are wanting in the original copy of the song. The last line of all runs thus in the manuscript:-- 'Til her eye shines, I live in darkest night,' which not rhyming as it ought, I have ventured to alter as above." Now the following sonnet, which occurs in the third book of Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_, is evidently the source from whence Sheridan drew his inspiration, the concluding line in both poems being the same. Had Moore given Sheridan's without alteration, the resemblance would in all probability be found much closer:--