SIR HENRY WOTTON Farewell to the Vanities of the World A Meditation RICHARD CORBET Dr Corbet's Journey into France BEN JONSON Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke The Picture of the Body To Penshurst To the Memory of my beloved Master, William Shakspeare, and what he hath left us On the Portrait of Shakspeare VERE, STORBER, &c THOMAS RANDOLPH The Praise of Woman To my Picture To a Lady admiring herself in a Looking-glass ROBERT BURTON On Melancholy THOMAS CAREW Persuasions to Love Song To my Mistress sitting by a River's Side Song A Pastoral Dialogue Song SIR JOHN SUCKLING Song A Ballad upon a Wedding Song WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT Love's Darts On the Death of Sir Bevil Grenville A Valediction WILLIAM BROWNE Song Song Power of Genius over Envy Evening From 'Britannia's Pastorals' A Descriptive Sketch WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF STIRLING Sonnet WILLIAM DRUMMOND The River of Forth Feasting Sonnets Spiritual Poems PHINEAS FLETCHER Description of Parthenia Instability of Human Greatness Happiness of the Shepherd's Life Marriage of Christ and the Church * * * * * SPECIMENS, WITH MEMOIRS, OF THE LESS-KNOWN BRITISH POETS. JOHN GOWER Very little is told us (as usual in the beginnings of a literature) of the life and private history of Gower, and that little is not specially authentic or clearly consistent with itself. His life consists mainly of a series of suppositions, with one or two firm facts between--like a few stepping-stones insulated in wide spaces of water. He is said to have been born about the year 1325, and if so must have been a few years older than Chaucer; whom he, however, outlived. He was a friend as well as contemporary of that great poet, who, in the fifth book of his 'Troilus and Cresseide,' thus addresses him:-- 'O moral Gower, this booke I direct, To thee and the philosophical Strood, To vouchsafe where need is to correct, Of your benignities and zeales good.' Gower, on the other hand, in his 'Confessio Amantis,' through the mouth of Venus, speaks as follows of Chaucer:-- 'And greet well Chaucer when ye meet, As my disciple and my poet; For 'in the flower of his youth, In sundry wise, as he well couth, Of ditties and of songes glad, The whiche for my sake he made, The laud fulfill'd is over all,' &c.