DITED BALLADS, NO. IV.

I next transcribe the following lines from the same MS. as my last. It is
another epitaph on the Mr. Browne that I mentioned in No. II. It contains a
curious illustration of a passage in Shakspeare, which has been often
debated in the pages of "NOTES AND QUERIES," and so deserves preservation.

"Vpon the death of that right worthye man, MR. BROWNE, late of Caius
and Gonville Colledge disceased. Epicedion."--(_Harl. MSS._, No. 367.
fol. 155.)

"If vowes or teares from heartes or eyes,
Could pearce the unpenitrable skyes,
Then might he live, that now heere lyes.

But teares are tonguelesse, vowes are vaine,
T' recall what fate calls; els how faine 5
What death hath seis'd, wold I regaine.

But sure th' immortal one belaves
This wished soule in 's blissfull waves:
Ill comes too oft, when no man craves.

Rest, therefore, vrne, rest quietlye, 10
And when my fates shall call on me,
So may I rest, as I wish the.
"R. CONSTABLE,
Caio-Gonvillensis."

I need hardly point out the striking similarity between the expression in
Shakspeare--

"and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods,"--

and the third stanza of this poem.

KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.

* * * * *

POETICAL COINCIDENCES, ETC.

_Byron._

In the _Jealous Lovers_ of Thomas Randolph, the following passage occurs,
which may possibly have suggested to Lord Byron the fearful curse he has
put into the mouth of Eve, in "the grand and tremendous drama of
_Cain_."[1]

"May perpetual jealousie
Wait on their beds, and poison their embraces
With just suspitions; may their children be
Deform'd, and fright the mother at the birth:
May they live long and wretched; all men's hate,
And yet have misery enough for pity:
May they be long a-dying--of diseases
Painful and loathsome," &c.

That exquisite stanza in the Third Canto of _Childe Harold_, "Even as a
broken mirror," &c., has been often admired. In Carew's poem, _The Spark_,
I find the following lines, which contain similar image:

{321}

"And as a looking-glass, from the aspect,
Whilst it is whole, doth but one face reflect,
But being crack'd, or broken, there are shown
Many half faces, which at first were one;
So Love," &c.

To the coincidences which have be