_Samuel Daniel and Countess of Cumberland_.

['Excursion,' _ibid._ l.

326.] 'Knowing the heart of Man is set to be,' &c.
The passage quoted from Daniel is taken from a poem addressed to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, and the two last lines, printed in Italics, are by him translated from Seneca.

The whole Poem is very beautiful.

I will transcribe four stanzas from it, as they contain an admirable picture of the state of a wise Man's mind in a time of public commotion.
Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks Of tyrants' threats, or with the surly brow Of Power, that proudly sits on other's crimes; Charged with more crying sins than those he checks.
The storms of sad confusion that may grow Up in the present for the coming times, Appal not him; that hath no side at all, But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.
Although his heart (so near allied to earth) Cannot but pity the perplexed state Of troublous and distressed mortality, That thus make way unto the ugly birth Of their own sorrows, and do still beget Affliction upon Imbecility; Yet seeing thus the course of things must run, He looks thereon not strange, but as foredone.
And whilst distraught ambition compasses, And is encompassed, while as craft deceives, And is deceived: whilst man doth ransack man, And builds on blood, and rises by distress; And th' Inheritance of desolation leaves To great-expecting hopes: He looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears no venture in Impiety.
Thus, Lady, fares that man that hath prepared A rest for his desire; and sees all things Beneath him; and hath learned this book of man, Full of the notes of frailty; and compared The best of glory with her sufferings: By whom, I see, you labour all you can To plant your heart! and set your thoughts as near His glorious mansion as your powers can bear.' 520.