are as sublime as his songs, such as "Drink to me only with thine eyes," are graceful, serious, and lyrical. The great compass of his power and the command he had of the lyre no one could deny; his learning Donne and Camden could vouch for. He had written the most beautiful of court masques; his Bobadil some men preferred to Falstaff. Alas! no Pepys or Boswell has noted the talk of those evenings. A few glimpses of the meetings we have, and but a few. One night at the "Devil" a country gentleman was boastful of his property. It was all he had to boast about among the poets; Ben, chafed out of all decency and patience, at last roared, "What signify to us your dirt and your clods? Where you have an acre of land I have ten acres of wit!" "Have you so, good Mr. Wise-acre," retorted Master Shallow. "Why, now, Ben," cried out a laughing friend, "you seem to be quite stung." "I' faith, I never was so pricked by a hobnail before," growled Ben, with a surly smile. Another story records the first visit to the "Devil" of Randolph, a clever poet and dramatist, who became a clergyman, and died young. The young poet, who had squandered all his money away in London pleasures, on a certain night, before he returned to Cambridge, resolved to go and see Ben and his associates at the "Devil," cost what it might. But there were two great obstacles--he was poor, and he was not invited. Nevertheless, drawn magnetically by the voices of the illustrious men in the Apollo, Randolph at last peeped in at the door among the waiters. Ben's quick eye soon detected the eager, pale face and the scholar's threadbare habit. "John Bo-peep," he shouted, "come in!" a summons Randolph gladly obeyed. The club-men instantly began rhyming on the meanness of the intruder's dress, and told him if he could not at once make a verse he must call for a quart of sack. There being four of his tormentors, Randolph, ready enough at such work, replied as quick as lightning:-- "I, John Bo-peep, and you four sheep, With each one his good fleece; If that you are willing to give me your shilling, 'Tis fifteen pence apiece." "By the Lord!" roared the giant president, "I believe this is my son Randolph!" and on his owning himself, the young poet was kindly entertained, spent a glorious evening, was soaked in sack, "sealed of the tribe of Ben," and became one of the old poet's twelve adopted sons. Shakerley Marmion, a contemporary dramatist of the day, has left a glowing Rubenesque picture of the Apollo evenings, evidently coloured from life. Careless, one of his characters, tells his friends he is full of oracles, for he has just come from Apollo. "From Apollo?" says his wondering friend. Then Careless replies, with an inspired fervour worthy of a Cavalier poet who fought bravely for King Charles:--