From two hours' talk, without one word of sense, From a parliament's long-wasted conscience, We must now close our long and elegant extracts." There are some poems, in the later editions, of a gross and immoral character, but that is by no means the general complexion of Clieveland's Works. From the beautiful specimens of poetic conception in Clieveland, our readers, we are sure, will regret with us, that subjects of vulgar and party humour obtruded themselves on the satiric propensities of the poet. He was a great admirer of the Augustan age of the British Poetry and Drama; and his poems abound with ardent and elegant tributes of respect and admiration to the genius of Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Massinger, and Beaumont and Fletcher. Clieveland was a member of a club of wits and loyalists, frequented by Butler. The author of Hudibras was a great admirer of Clieveland's wit, and the pages of that incomparable work are much more indebted to Clieveland than can be traced in the notes of Dr. Grey. The learned and ingenious Dr. Farmer had marked many passages in his copy of Clieveland's poems, which Butler had imitated. The poem in Randolph's Works, called the Hermaphrodite, was the production of Clieveland; and on the authority of Wood, the verses in Clieveland's Works, called "The Archbishop's of York's Revolt," are the property of Thomas Weaver, author of " Songs and Poems of Love and Drollery, Oct, 1654.” Although Clieveland was a zealous and fearless military partisan of the royal cause, yet his name and services are not connected with any of the remarkable occurrences of those extraordinary times. We, therefore, shall not prolong this article with any uninteresting biographical details. In 1655, he was seized at Norwich, as "a person of great abilities," adverse and dangerous to the reigning government. The particulars of his examination are preserved in Thurlow's State Papers, 1742, fol. vol. iv., p. 185. Major General Hayes apprehended him as comprised in the second class of persons disaffected to the government, Among the reasons of judgment sent up to the Protector and Council are-" 4. Mr. Clieveland liveth in a genteel garb; yet he confesseth, that he hath no estate but £20 per annum, allowed by two gentlemen, and £30 per annum by Mr. Cooke.-5. Mr. Clieveland is a person of great abilities, and so able to do the greater disservice: all of which we humbly submit," &c. For these excellent" reasons," Clieveland was imprisoned at Yarmouth. He there wrote, and forwarded a petition to the Protector, justly admired for the boldness and honesty of its address: it was, notwithstanding, successful, and procured his enlargement. "Clieveland's Petition to Oliver Cromwell, late Protector. May it please your Highness, "Rulers within the circle of their government have a claim to that which is said of the Deity; they have their centre everywhere, and their circumference no where. It is in this confidence, that I address to your Highness, as knowing no place in the nation is so remote, as not to share in the ubiquity of your care; no prison so close, as to shut me up from partaking of your influence. My Lord, it is my misfortune, that after ten years of retirement from being engaged in the difference of the State, having wound myself up in a private recess, and my comportment to the public being so inoffensive, that in all this time, neither fears or jealousies have scrupled at my actions: Being about three months since at Norwich, I was fetched with a guard before the Commissioners, and sent prisoner to Yarmouth, and if it be not a new offence to make enquiry where I offended, (for hitherto my faults are kept as close as my person,) I am induced to believe, that next to the adherence to the royal party, the cause of my confinement is the narrowness of my estate; for none stand committed whose estate can bail them; I only am the prisoner, who have no acres to be my hostage. Now, if my poverty be criminal, (with reverence be it spoken,) I must implead your Highness, whose victorious arms have reduced me to it, as accessary to my guilt. Let it suffice, my Lord, that the calamity of the war hath made us poor; do not punish us for it. Who ever did penance for being ravished? Is it not enough that we are stript so bare, but it must be made in order to a severe lash? must our scars be engraven with new wounds? must we first be made cripples, then beaten with our own crutches? Poverty, if it be a fault, it is its own punishment; who suffers for it more, pays use upon use. I beseech your Highness, put some bounds to our overthrow, and do not pursue the chace to the other world can your thunder be levelled so low as our grovelling conditions? Can that towering spirit, that hath quarried upon kingdoms, make a stoop at us, who are the rubbish of those rains? Methinks, I hear your former achievements interceding with you not to sully your glories with trampling on the prostrate, nor clog the wheels of your chariot with so degenerous a triumph. The most renowned heroes have ever with such tenderness cherished their captives, that their swords did but cut out work for their courtesy. Those that fell by their prowess sprung up by their favours, as if they had struck them down, only to make them rebound the higher. I hope your Highness, as you are the rival of their fame, will be no less of their virtues; the noblest trophy, that you can erect to your honour, is to raise the afflicted. And, since you have subdued all opposition, it now remains that you attack yourself, and with acts of mildness vanquish your victory. It is not long since, my Lord, that you knocked off the shackles from most of our party, and by a grand release did spread your clemency as large as your territories. Let not new proscriptions interrupt our Jubilee. Let not that your lenity be slandered as the ambush of your further rigour. For the service of his majesty (if it be objected) I air so far from excusing it, that I am ready to alledge it in my vindication: I cannot conceive fidelity to my prince should taint me in your opinion; I should rather expect it should recommend me to your favour; had not we been faithful to our king, we could not have given ourselves to be so to your Highness; you had then trusted us gratis, whereas, now we have our former loyalty to vouch us. You see, my Lord, how much I presume upon the greatness of your spirit, that dare prevent my indictment with so frank a confession, especially in this, which I may so justly deny, that it is almost arrogancy in me to own it; for the truth is, I was not qualified enough to serve him; all that I could do, was to bear a part in his sufferings, and give myself up to be cherished with his fall; thus my charge is double, (my obedience to my sovereign, and, what is the result of that, my want of a fortune;) Now, whatever reflections I have on the former, I am a true penitent for the latter. My Lord, you see my crimes. As to my defence, you bear it about you; I shall plead nothing in my justification, but your Highness's clemency, which as it is the constant inmate of a valiant breast, (if you graciously please to extend it to your supplicant, in taking me out of this withering durance,) your Highness will find, that mercy will establish you more than power; though all the days of your life were as pregnant with victories, as your twice auspicious third of September. "Your Highness's humble, and submissive petitioner, "J. C. CLIEVELAND." Clieveland died of an intermittent fever, on the 29th April, 1658. He was buried in St. Michael Royal Church, College Hill, London; and Bishop Pearson honoured his private virtues, and the consistency of his public character, by preaching his funeral sermon. (Lloyd's Mem. p. 168. Fuller's Worthies, 135.) p. There are numerous "elegies on the memory of Mr. John Clieveland," " offered to the memory of that incomparable poet;" and verses "on Mr. J. Clieveland, pictured with his laurel," prefixed to the editions of his poems; but their authors were not inspired with the spirit of the poet they eulogised. An anagram, also, was a necessary discovery, emblematical of his genius, John Clieveland, His" effigies" are detailed in Granger. R. White, sc. 12mo. Before his Works, 1653.-A bust crowned with laurel, 1658, (no Engraver's name,) prefixed to ed. 1659. Johannes Clieveland, in a clerical habit, before his works 1677, probably fictitious, as he was never in holy orders. And John Clieveland, Æt. 32: a medallion, Fuller; J. Basire. ART. VIII.-The Works of that famous English Poet, Mr. Edmund Spenser. Lond. 1679. fol. "Give a dog a bad name," says the adage, "and hang him;" there being little chance of his ever losing it. In the same way, if a man once obtain a good reputation, he will retain it for a long time, even when he does not really deserve it. It is a great while before truth lays bare the deception; some people will not take the trouble to think at all, and some are unwilling to relinquish an opinion which has once taken root in their minds. But at some lucky revolution of the wheel of time, truth at last drops out, and is found by the man who has boldness enough to make use of his eyes. Edmund Spenser, the celebrated author of the Faerie Queene, also produced various smaller poems, most of which were written before his great allegorical work. The fame of the Faerie Queene has carried along the stream the minor productions which preceded it, and they have continued to occupy a large space in the editions of the poet's works. Spenser having obtained a certain degree of |