Very little is known of the life of this lady-poet. She was born in 1631. Her maiden name was Fowler. She married James Phillips, Esq., of the Priory of Cardigan. Her poems, published under the name of "Orinda," were very popular in her lifetime, although it was said they were published without her consent. She translated two of the tragedies of Corneille, and left a volume of letters to Sir Charles Cotterell. These, however, did not appear till after her death. She died of small-pox —then a deadly disease—in 1664. She seems to have been a favourite alike with the wits and the divines of her age. Jeremy Taylor addressed to her his "Measures and Offices of Friendship;" Dryden praised her; and Flatman and Cowley, besides imitating her poems while she was living, paid rhymed tributes to her memory when dead. Her verses are never commonplace, and always sensible, if they hardly attain to the measure and the stature of lofty poetry,
THE INQUIRY.
1 If we no old historian's name
Authentic will admit,
But think all said of friendship's fame
But poetry or wit;
Yet what's revered by minds so pure
Must be a bright idea sure.
2 But as our immortality
By inward sense we find,
Judging that if it could not be,
It would not be designed:
So here how could such copies fall,
If there were no original?
3 But if truth be in ancient song,
Or story we believe;
If the inspired and greater throng
Have scorned to deceive;
There have been hearts whose friendship gave
Them thoughts at once both soft and grave.
4 Among that consecrated crew
Some more seraphic shade
Lend me a favourable clew,
Now mists my eyes invade.
Why, having filled the world with fame,
Left you so little of your flame?
5 Why is't so difficult to see
Two bodies and one mind?
And why are those who else agree
So difficultly kind?
Hath Nature such fantastic art,
That she can vary every heart?
6 Why are the bands of friendship tied
With so remiss a knot,
That by the most it is defied,
And by the most forgot?
Why do we step with so light sense
From friendship to indifference?
7 If friendship sympathy impart,
Why this ill-shuffled game,
That heart can never meet with heart,
Or flame encounter flame?
What does this cruelty create?
Is't the intrigue of love or fate?
8 Had friendship ne'er been known to men,
(The ghost at last confessed)
The world had then a stranger been
To all that heaven possessed.
But could it all be here acquired,
Not heaven itself would be desired.
A FRIEND.
1 Love, nature's plot, this great creation's soul,
The being and the harmony of things,
Doth still preserve and propagate the whole,
From whence man's happiness and safety springs:
The earliest, whitest, blessed'st times did draw
From her alone their universal law.
2 Friendship's an abstract of this noble flame,
'Tis love refined and purged from all its dross,
The next to angels' love, if not the same,
As strong in passion is, though not so gross:
It antedates a glad eternity,
And is an heaven in epitome.
* * * * *
3 Essential honour must be in a friend,
Not such as every breath fans to and fro;
But born within, is its own judge and end,
And dares not sin though sure that none should know.
Where friendship's spoke, honesty's understood;
For none can be a friend that is not good.
* * * * *
4 Thick waters show no images of things;
Friends are each other's mirrors, and should be
Clearer than crystal or the mountain springs,
And free from clouds, design, or flattery.
For vulgar souls no part of friendship share;
Poets and friends are born to what they are.
