Mr. WILLIAM HABINGTON.
He was one of a quick wit and fluent language, whose Poems coming forth above thirty years ago, under the Title of Castara, gained a general fame and estimation, and no wonder, since that human Goddess by him so celebrated, was a person of such rare endowments as was worthy the praises bestowed upon her, being a person of Honour as well as Beauty, to which was joyned a vertuous mind, to make her in all respects compleat. He also wrote the History of the Reign of King Edward the Fourth, and that in a style sufficiently florid, yet not altogether pleasing the ear, but as much informing the mind, so that we may say of that Kings Reign, as Mr. Daniel saith in his Preface to his History of England, That there was never brought together more of the main. He also wrote a Tragi-Comedy, called, the Queen of Arragon, which as having never seen, I can give no great account of it.
Mr. FRANCIS QUARLES.
Francis Quarles, son to James Quarles, Esq; was born at Stewards at the Parish of Rumford, in the County of Essex, and was bred up in the University of Cambridge, where he became intimately acquainted with Mr. Edward Benlowes, and Mr. Phineas Fletcher, that Divine Poet and Philosopher, on whose most excellent Poem of the Purple Island, hear these Verses of Mr. Quarles, which if they be as delightful to you in the reading, as to me in the writing, I question not but they will give you content.
Mans Body's like a House, his greater Bones
Are the main Timber; and the lesser ones
Are smaller splints: his ribs are laths daub'd o're
Plaister'd with flesh and blood: his mouth's the door,
His throat's the narrow entry, and his heart