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.

LA BELLE CONFIDANTE.

You earthly souls that court a wanton flame
Whose pale, weak influence
Can rise no higher than the humble name
And narrow laws of sense,
Learn, by our friendship, to create
An immaterial fire,
Whose brightness angels may admire,
But cannot emulate.
Sickness may fright the roses from her cheek,
Or make the lilies fade,
But all the subtle ways that death doth seek
Cannot my love invade.

THE LOSS.

1 Yet ere I go,
Disdainful Beauty, thou shalt be
So wretched as to know
What joys thou fling'st away with me.

2 A faith so bright,
As Time or Fortune could not rust;
So firm, that lovers might
Have read thy story in my dust,

3 And crowned thy name
With laurel verdant as thy youth,
Whilst the shrill voice of Fame
Spread wide thy beauty and my truth.

4 This thou hast lost,
For all true lovers, when they find
That my just aims were crossed,
Will speak thee lighter than the wind.

5 And none will lay
Any oblation on thy shrine,
But such as would betray
Thy faith to faiths as false as thine.

6 Yet, if thou choose
On such thy freedom to bestow,
Affection may excuse,
For love from sympathy doth flow.

NOTE ON ANACREON.

Let's not rhyme the hours away;
Friends! we must no longer play:
Brisk Lyaeus—see!—invites
To more ravishing delights.
Let's give o'er this fool Apollo,
Nor his fiddle longer follow:
Fie upon his forked hill,
With his fiddlestick and quill;
And the Muses, though they're gamesome,
They are neither young nor handsome;
And their freaks in sober sadness
Are a mere poetic madness:
Pegasus is but a horse;
He that follows him is worse.
See, the rain soaks to the skin,
Make it rain as well within.
Wine, my boy; we'll sing and laugh,
All night revel, rant, and quaff;
Till the morn, stealing behind us,
At the table sleepless find us.
When our bones, alas! shall have
A cold lodging in the grave;
When swift Death shall overtake us,
We shall sleep and none can wake us.
Drink we then the juice o' the vine
Make our breasts Lyaeus' shrine;
Bacchus, our debauch beholding,
By thy image I am moulding,
Whilst my brains I do replenish
With this draught of unmixed Rhenish;
By thy full-branched ivy twine;
By this sparkling glass of wine;
By thy Thyrsus so renowned:
By the healths with which th' art crowned;
By the feasts which thou dost prize;
By thy numerous victories;
By the howls by Moenads made;
By this haut-gout carbonade;
By thy colours red and white;
By the tavern, thy delight;
By the sound thy orgies spread;
By the shine of noses red;
By thy table free for all;
By the jovial carnival;
By thy language cabalistic;
By thy cymbal, drum, and his stick;
By the tunes thy quart-pots strike up;
By thy sighs, the broken hiccup;
By thy mystic set of ranters;
By thy never-tamed panthers;
By this sweet, this fresh and free air;
By thy goat, as chaste as we are;
By thy fulsome Cretan lass;
By the old man on the ass;
By thy cousins in mixed shapes;
By the flower of fairest grapes;
By thy bisks famed far and wide;
By thy store of neats'-tongues dried;
By thy incense, Indian smoke;
By the joys thou dost provoke;
By this salt Westphalia gammon;
By these sausages that inflame one;
By thy tall majestic flagons;
By mass, tope, and thy flapdragons;
By this olive's unctuous savour;
By this orange, the wine's flavour;
By this cheese o'errun with mites;
By thy dearest favourites;
To thy frolic order call us,
Knights of the deep bowl install us;
And to show thyself divine,
Never let it want for wine.