THOMAS STANLEY.
Thomas Stanley, like Thomas Brown in later days, was both a philosopher and a poet; but his philosophical reputation at the time eclipsed his poetical. He was the only son of Sir Thomas Stanley of Camberlow Green, in Hertfordshire, and was born in 1620. He received his education at Pembroke College, Oxford; and after travelling for some years abroad, he took up his abode in the Middle Temple. Here he seems to have spent the rest of his life in patient and multifarious studies. He made translations of some merit from Anacreon, Bion, Moschus, and the 'Kisses' of Secundus, as well as from Marino, Boscan, Tristan, and Gongora. He wrote a work of great pretensions as a compilation, entitled 'The History of Philosophy,' containing the lives, opinions, actions, and discourses of philosophers of every sect, of which he published the first volume in 1655, and completed it in a fourth in 1662. It is rather a vast collection of the materials for a history, than a history itself. He is a Cudworth in magnitude and learning, but not in strength and comprehension, and is destitute of precision and clearness of style. Stanley also wrote some poems, which discover powers that might have been better employed in original composition than in translation. His style, rich of itself, is enriched to repletion by conceits, and sometimes by voluptuous sentiments and language. He adds a new flush to the cheek of Anacreon himself; and his grapes are so heavy, that not a staff, but a wain were required to bear them. Stanley died in 1678.
CELIA SINGING.
1 Roses in breathing forth their scent,
Or stars their borrowed ornament;
Nymphs in their watery sphere that move,
Or angels in their orbs above;
The winged chariot of the light,
Or the slow, silent wheels of night;
The shade which from the swifter sun
Doth in a swifter motion run,
Or souls that their eternal rest do keep,
Make far less noise than Celia's breath in sleep.
2 But if the angel which inspires
This subtle flame with active fires,
Should mould this breath to words, and those
Into a harmony dispose,
The music of this heavenly sphere
Would steal each soul (in) at the ear,
And into plants and stones infuse
A life that cherubim would choose,
And with new powers invert the laws of fate,
Kill those that live, and dead things animate.
SPEAKING AND KISSING.
1 The air which thy smooth voice doth break,
Into my soul like lightning flies;
My life retires while thou dost speak,
And thy soft breath its room supplies.
2 Lost in this pleasing ecstasy,
I join my trembling lips to thine,
And back receive that life from thee
Which I so gladly did resign.
3 Forbear, Platonic fools! t'inquire
What numbers do the soul compose;
No harmony can life inspire,
But that which from these accents flows.