play takes on particular interest from the tradition of Habington's Republican sympathies. It is the following:
The stars shoot
An equal influence on the open cottage
Where the poor shepherd's child is rudely nurs'd,
And on the cradle where the prince is rock'd
With care and whisper.
And what hence infer you?
That no distinction is 'tween man and man
But as his virtues add to him a glory,
Or vices cloud him.
These sentiments may or may not have been personal with the author; but when one recalls the Royalist doctrine of Divine Right, and even Cromwell's frank predilection for a "gentleman," one perceives how radical their tenor really was.
Popular opinion has all too readily imputed to the Puritans of that day a monopoly of English piety: but the intensity, the austerity of Habington's later poems might, if better known, serve as a wholesome corrective. The third part of Castara, issued in 1639-40, has comparatively little in common with the earlier pages. Its poems, composed mainly upon Scriptural texts, possess a solemnity, a detachment that is most impressive. From a man like Habington, indeed, it is even alarming! All trace of the youthful lover, who caught the sound of Castara's name in the brook's "harmonious murmures," or fancied Cupid buried in the dimple of her cheek, has disappeared. The intense seriousness of life, the mutability of human joys, man's high destiny and the dread alternative of Hell—these are now the poet's themes. We have earlier referred to
