Sometime he runs among the flock of sheep, To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell; And sometime where earth-delving conies keep, To stop the loud pursuers in their yell; And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer; Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear: For there his smell with others being mingled, The hot scent-snuffling hounds are driven to doubt, Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled With much ado the cold fault cleanly out; Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies, As if another chase were in the skies. By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill, Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear, To hearken if his foes pursue him still; Anon their loud alarums he doth hear; And now his grief may be compared well To one sore-sick, that hears the passing bell. Then shall thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch Turn, and return, indenting with the way; Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch, Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay." This poem abounds with similes, many of which include miniature sketches of no small worth and beauty. A few of these shall be given, and they will not fail to impart a favourable impression of the fertility and resources of the rising bard. The fourth and fifth, which we have distinguished by Italics, more especially deserve notice, the former representing a minute piece of natural history, and the latter describing in words adequate to their subject, one of the most terrible convulsions of nature. ———————————— "as one on shore Gazing upon a late-embarked friend, Till the wild waves will have him seen no more, Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend." * * * * * ——————— "as one that unaware Hath dropp'd a precious jewel in the flood." * * * * * "Or 'stonish'd as night-wanderers often are, Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood." * * * * * "_Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit, Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain._" * * * * * "_As when the wind, imprison'd in the ground, Struggling for passage, earth's foundation shakes._" We shall close these extracts from the _Venus and Adonis_, with two passages which form a striking contrast, and which prove that the author possessed, at the commencement of his career, no small portion of those powers which were afterwards to astonish the world; powers alike unrivalled either in developing the terrible or the beautiful. "And therefore hath she bribed the Destinies, To cross the curious workmanship of nature, To mingle beauty with infirmities, And pure perfection with impure defeature; Making it subject to the tyranny Of sad mischances and much misery;