Unto whose deare increase the gardiner spends his life,
With percer, wimble, sawe, his mallet, and his knife;
Oft covereth, oft doth bare the dry and moystned root,
As faintly they mislike, or as they kindly sute:
And their selected plants doth workman-like bestowe,
That in true order they conveniently may growe.
And kills the slimie snayle, the worme, and labouring ant,
Which many times annoy the graft and tender plant:
Or else maintaines the plot much starved with the wet,
Wherein his daintiest fruits in kernels he doth set:

Or scrapeth off the mosse, the trees that oft annoy."

This eighteenth song completes the portion of the Polyolbion, which Drayton first sent before the public. The author appears to have had a high estimation of his work as a poem, and in an address to the generall reader," at the end of the volume, he seems to complain of the neglect of the public. He there tells us that, having begun and promised this poem many years before, he had many times determined to leave it off altogether, and had sometimes neglected his papers for two years together, "finding the times, since his majesty's happy coming in, to fall so heavily upon my distressed fortunes, after my zealous soul had laboured so long in that which, with the general happiness of the kiugdom, seemed not then impossible somewhat also to have advanced me." He adds, "Sundry other songs I have also, though yet not so perfect that I dare commit them to public censure; and the rest I determine to go forward with, God enabling me, may I find means to assist my endeavour." Drayton did complete his poem, which was printed nine years after the appearance of this first part, with eighteen new "Songs," which contained the description of the eastern and northern parts of England. We shall probably give a notice of this second portion of the poem on an early occasion; our space at present will not allow us to continue the subject.

ART. II.—William Penn and the Quakers.

No Cross, no Crown; or several Sober Reasons against Hat-Honour, Titular Respects, You to a single Person, with the Apparel and Recreations of the Times: being inconsistent with Scripture, Reason, and the Practice, as well of the best Heathens, as the holy Men and Women of all Generations; and consequently fantastick, impertinent, and sinfull. With Sixty-eight Testimonies of the most famous Persons of both former and latter Ages for further confirmation. In Defence of the poor despised Quakers, against the Practice and Objections of their Adversaries. By W. Penn, j. An humble Disciple, and patient Bearer of the Cross of Jesus.

ΑΙ

"But Mordecai bowed not." Esth. iii. 2. "Adam, where art thou?" Gen. iii. 9. "In like manner the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, not with brodered hair,” &c. 1 Tim. ii. 9. "Thy law is my meditation all the day.” Psal. cxix. 97.

Printed in the year 1669. Small quarto, pp. 111.

LTHOUGH we do not admire their peculiarities, we entertain considerable respect for the Quakers.* We cannot think with Coleridge, that "a Quaker is made up of ice and flame;" and that if he were barked (or stripped of external pretension) he would be found" a poor creature." Neither can we agree with Jeffery, that they eat too much, take little exercise, and die, most of them, of stupidity. And we are sure that Sydney Smith did them an injustice when, in reprinting his article on "the Retreat" from the Edinburgh Review he headed it, "Mad Quakers." We believe that, on the whole, a fairer portraiture of this sedate body may be found at the close of an article on 'Capital Punishments' in the same literary journal for July, 1821. It reads thus: "The Quakers have taken a considerable interest in this question; and to them we also, in a great measure, owe the abolition of the Slave Trade. They have been ridiculed as a body, for not lending themselves to the pomps and vanities of the world; but they devote themselves to prying into, and alleviating its evils. If you see one of them come into a bookseller's shop, it is not to inquire for Campbell's Pleasures of Hope, or for Rogers's Pleasures of Memory, but for Buxton on Prison Discipline, or for the last account of the state of the Gaol at Leicester. These are their delights, their luxuries, and refinements. They do not indeed add new grace to the 'Corinthian capital of

We use the appellation "Quakers," not, "in derision" of the community as Robert Barclay apprehends the term to be commonly used, but because it is convenient to do so; and Penn himself so uses it.

polished society,' but they dig down into its dungeon-glooms and noisome sewers.

'Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.'

They bear the yoke of the wretched, and lighten the burden of humanity-and they have and will have their reward."

This is well said, and it may be just in the main, though not universally true; for it did so happen that being "in a bookseller's shop" not long after we had read this article, we heard a young "Friend," clothed in pure drab, and topped with a hat whose brim was of the orthodox breadth, addressing himself to the bibliopole, slowly enunciate an inquiry for a copy of Colman's Broad Grins! This, of course, was a very uncommon deviation from the habitual demureness and decorum of the sect, and is only mentioned to show that it is possible to err in bestowing unqualified commendation on a body conspicuous it may be for some deeds of philanthropy, but wide in latitude, as it regards both their opinions and practice.

He was

The biography of William Penn is well known. It has engaged many minds, but no account of him has excited more attention than the sparkling Historical Biography of Mr. Hepworth Dixon. Penn was born in 1644, and his religious impressions were of a very early date; he himself tells us "that the Lord first appeared to him about the twelfth year of his age, anno 1656." entered as a gentleman commoner at Christchurch, Oxford, in 1660, and during his residence there, he attended on Quaker preaching, connected himself with the new sect, and, manifesting an outrageous zeal in its behalf, was expelled from the University in 1662. His father, Admiral Sir William Penn, was indignant, and sent him abroad for two years, which period was apparently well employed in study and in travel. He was recalled in 1664, and to the delight of his parent returned, no longer the sturdy and demure follower of George Fox, but a fine gentleman, wearing lace and ruffles, sporting a plume, and carrying a rapier,—he was also graceful in carriage, and had learned, as Mr. Dixon informs us, "to lisp the language of polished compliment, and to recite the pretty love-verses which courtly beauties liked to listen to in that age of elegant frivolity." But this relapse did not last. He went to Ireland on family affairs; at Cork he again heard his old Quaker friend, Thomas Loe,* whose

*Thomas Loe died in London in 1668. Penn had an interview with him when on his death-bed, to whom he spake thus: "Bear thy Cross, and stand faithful to God: then He will give thee an everlasting Crown of glory, that shall not be taken from thee. There is no other way which shall prosper than that which the holy men

voice had so won his affections at Oxford;-his "first love" returned, and in despite of threats, or promises, of expulsion from home, or the prospect of advancement,-he attached himself, once and for ever, to the then very obnoxious community.

With the impetuosity of a new convert, rather than the caution of a restored backslider, Penn began to publish. Two pamphlets came out in rapid succession, one called Truth Exalted,-the other was a reply to one John Clapham. Then, joining George Whitehead, and with him rushing into a public disputation with Thomas Vincent, a London minister, which, as usual, ended without profit,— Penn published his third book, The Sandy Foundation Shaken. "This," says Sewell," caused such a stir, that it was evil spoken of, and not long after he was committed to the Tower, and some thought not without his father's being acquainted with it, perhaps to prevent a worse treatment." Here he remained a prisoner for upwards of eight months, and during this period there can be no doubt that he wrote the volume now before us.

It is rather remarkable that while Chalmers in his Biographical Dictionary properly enough supposes that the first edition of No Cross, no Crown, was published while Penn was a prisoner in the Tower, and that it differed from the subsequent ones, Mr. Dixon, whose diligence in ferreting out all matters and things in relation to William Penn, is so highly commendable, seems to take it for granted, that the work as it now appears, was the book then written, which is clearly a mistake. We transcribe the passage referring to a production, which, in its present form, we cheerfully admit may be entitled to all the praise which Mr. Dixon has bestowed on it, but which we take leave to observe was remodelled, and much improved before it became the "glorious book" he describes.

Penn in prison, "took," says Mr. Dixon, "to the prisoner's usual solace; he began to write, and added one more book to the literature of the Tower. No Cross, No Crown, still a favourite with the religious public, revealed in the young prisoner powers for the possession of which the world had not yet given him credit. Considering the shortness of time and other untoward circumstances under which it was produced, the reader is struck with the grasp of thought-the power of reasoning-the lucid arrangement of subject of old have walked in. God hath brought immortality to light, and life immortal is felt. Glory, glory to Him, for He is worthy of it." (Sewell.) These burning words made a deep impression on Penn; and Loe's allusion to the Cross and the Crown, in all probability suggested the title of Penn's popular volume, which first appeared in the following year.

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-and the extent of research displayed. Had the style been more condensed, it would have been well entitled to claim a high place in literature." Mr. Dixon proceeds to say that the first part of the work "consists of eighteen copious chapters," and that "the second part consists of a collection of the sayings of heroes and sages of all nations in favour of the doctrine-that to do well, and bear ill, is the only way to lasting happiness. This," adds he, "is the most marvellous part of the work." Mr. Dixon then enumerates Penn's various quotations and references to celebrated personages, and weighty authorities, and subjoins as his further opinion that "this would have been no mean work for a veteran author to have accomplished in so short a time with the wealth of a great public library at his command." (Historical Biography, Second Edition, p. 58). It may be a pity to disturb so pleasant a notion as that in which Mr. Dixon has indulged; but if that gentleman had looked closely into the book that Penn published while in the Tower, he would have found it a hasty and ill-digested performance, with not very much of the "marvellous" about it. Besides which, if he had attentively read the "glorious book" he describes, he might have seen that it contains (among others) the dying testimony of the author's father, Sir William Penn, and a touching one it is;"* but the Admiral did not die, according to Mr. Dixon's own showing, until the year after his son's release from his imprisonment in the Tower! Truly, Mr. Macaulay is not the only writer in our day who occasionally slumbers over his work!

The edition of No Cross, No Crown before us is ushered in with an "Epistle" of two pages "to my Ancient Friends, F. S. E.B. H. S. J. C. I. N. A. L. M. L. T. C." to whom Penn imparts his best wishes for their true happiness, beseeching them

"My own father, after thirty years' employment, with good success, in divers places of eminent trust and honour of his own country, upon a serious reflection, not long before his death, spoke to me in this manner: 'Son William, I am weary of the world. I would not live over my days again, if I could command them with a wish; for the snares of life are greater than the fears of death. This troubles me that I have offended a gracious God, that has followed me to this day. O have a care of sin! That is the sting both of life and death. Three things I commend to you. First, let nothing in this world tempt you to wrong your conscience; so will you keep peace at home, which will be a feast to you in the day of trouble. Secondly, whatever you design to do, lay it justly, and time it seasonably; for that gives security and dispatch. Lastly, be not troubled at disappointments; for if they may be recovered, do it; if they can't, trouble is vain. If you could not help it, be content. There is often peace and profit in submitting to Providence; for afflictions make wise. If you could have helped it, let not your trouble exceed instruction for another time. These rules will carry you with firmness and comfort through this inconstant world.""-No Cross, No Crown. Eleventh edit. p. 473. 1771.