SIR,

Recommendations of the Work.

S you have requested my opinion, relative to the ex

pediency of re-publishing Quarles's Emblems, and he School of the Heart; it is incumbent on me, to acquaint you, that, as an humble individual, I most sincerely vote for a new and correct edition of those excellent books.-The former was of much spiritual use to me, at an early period of life and I still consider it, as a very ingenious and valuable treasury of christian experience.-The latter I have, lately, perused and am strongly persuaded, that the re-printing it may answer many advantageous purposes to the church of CHRIST.

:

Be particular careful, to give neat and beautiful im pressions of the numerous and expressive cuts, which llustrate each respective article. I would advise you, to keep, strictly to the designs of the original plates; and not to vary from them, in a single instance but the execution of them, as they stand in the old editions, calls for improvement. In emblematic works, much depends on the elegancy of the engravings, which, if wellfinished, speak an ocular language, singularly emphatic, and universally intelligible. The eye, very frequently informs the understanding, and affects the heart; when the most labored efforts of vocal rhetoric, fail. Segniùs

Segniùs irritant animos demissa per aurem,
Quàm quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et qua
Ipse sibi tradit spectator.

With an earnest desire and hope, that your intended undertaking will be owned and blest of GOD, to the establishment of his people in knowledge, and to their growth in holiness and comfort; I remain,

SIR,

Your sincere well-wisher,

AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY.

New-street, Jan. 3,

1777.

To the serious part of the Christian World.

IT is matter of pleasing surprize to find that such books

as Quarles's Emblems, and the School of the Heart, should be so much called for as to incline any Printer to venture on a new edition; I really imagined that the rage for romances, novels and plays, had intirely extin guished all taste for such productions as these now presented to the public.

Quarles

Quarles was a man of spiritual wit and imagination, in the reign of King Charles I. a time when poetic genius in the religious world had not been cultivated; Spencer and Shakespeare were then the only men that deserved. the name of poets, and these were far enough from the knowledge and taste of the people called Puritans; so that I think Quarles may be stiled the first, as Herbert was the second divine poet of the English nation.

In the productions of this excellent man, there is nothing to please the taste of modern critics; his uncommon turns of thought, the quaintness of his poetic style; but, above all, the depth of evangelic favour, the ardent piety, and the rich experience of the heart, can be relished by none but those who, in the highest sense of the word, deserve the name of true christians; to such as these, the following work will be acceptable and delightful; and by them, and the serious part of their families, it will not be deemed impertinent in me to recommend this work to their attention.

Northampton, Jan. 8, 1777.

JOHN RYLAND.

SIR,

FRANCIS QUARLES's Emblems and the School of the Heart, are works which have been so generally known and well received, for more than a century past,

that

BY fathers back'd, by holy writ led on,

Thou shew'st a way to heav'n by HELICON
The Muses' font is consecrate by thee,
And Poesy baptiz'd Divinity.

Blest soul, that here embark'st thou sail'st apace,
'Tis hard to say, mov'd more by wit or grace,
Each muse so plies her oar: but O the sail
Is fill'd from heav'n with a diviner gale:
When poets prove divines, why should not I
Approve in verse this divine poetry?

Let this suffice to licence thee the press :
I must no more, nor could the truth say less.

Sic approbavit RIC. LOVE, Procan. Cant.

Tot Flores QUARLES, quot Paradisus habet Lectori benè male-volo.

Qui legit ex Horto hôc Flores, Qui carpit, uterque
Jure potest Violas dicere, jure Rosas :

Non é Parnasso VIOLAM, Festivè ROSETO
Carpit Apollo, magis quæ sit amœna, ROSAM.
Quot Versus VIOLAS legis; & quem verla locutum
Credis, verba dedit: Nam dedit ille ROSAS.
Utque Ego non dicam hæc VIOLAS suavissima; Tute
Ipse facis VIOLAS, Livide, si violas.

Nam velut é VIOLIS sibi fugit Aranea virus:
Vertis at in succos Hasque ROSASque tuos.
Quas violas Musas, VIOLAS puto, quasque recusas
Dente tuo rosas, has, reor, esse ROSAS.

Sic rosas, facis esse ROSAS, dum, Zoile, rodis :
Sic facies has VIOLAS, Livide, dum violas.
Brent Hall,

1634.

EDW, BENLOWES.

FIRST BOOK.

THE INVOCATION.

Of vulgar thoughts: screw up the heighten'd pegs Of thy sublime theorbo four notes higher, And higher yet, that so the shrill-mouth'd choir Of swift-wing'd seraphims may come and join, And make thy concert more than half divine. Invoke no muse; let Heav'n be thine Apollo; And let his sacred influences hallow

and dress

Thy high-bred strains. Let his full beams inspire
Thy ravish'd brains with more heroic fire:
Snatch thee a quill from the spread eagle's wing,
And, like the morning lark, mount up and sing:
Cast off these dangling plummets, that so clog
Thy lab'ring heart, which gropes in this dark fog
Of dungeon earth; let flesh and blood forbear
To stop thy flight, till this base world appear
A thin blue landscape: let thy pinions soar
So high a pitch, that men may seem no more
Than pismires, crawling on this mole-hill earth,
Thy ear untroubled with their frantic mirth;
Let not the frailty of thy flesh disturb
Thy new-concluded peace; let reason curb
Thy hot-mouth'd passion; and let heav'n's fire season
The fresh conceits of thy corrected reason.
Disdain to warm thee at lust's smoaky fires,
Scorn, scorn to feed on they old boat desires :
Come, come, my soul, hoise up thy higher sails,
The wind blows fair; shall we still creep like snails,
That glide their ways with their own native slimes?
No, we must fly like eagles; and our rhymes
Must mount to heav'n, and reach th' Olympic ear;
Our heav'n-blown fire must seek no other sphere,