Part 2 — CHAPTER IV.

CURSORY VIEW OF POETRY, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE DRAMA, DURING THE AGE OF SHAKSPEARE.

The space which elapsed between the birth and the death of Shakspeare, from April 1564 to April 1616, a period of fifty-two years, may be pronounced, perhaps, the most fertile in our annals, with regard to the production of poetical literature. Not only were the great outlines of every branch of poetry chalked out with skill and precision, but many of its highest departments were filled up and finished in a manner so masterly as to have bid defiance to all subsequent competition. Consequently if we take a survey of the various channels through which the genius of poetry has been accustomed to diffuse itself, it will be found, that, during this half century, every province had its cultivators; that poems epic and dramatic, historic and didactic, lyric and romantic, that satires, pastorals, and sonnets, songs, madrigals, and epigrams, together with a multitude of translations, brightened and embellished its progress.

On a subject, however, so productive, and which would fill volumes, it is necessary, that, in consonancy with the limits and due keeping of our plan, the utmost solicitude for condensation be observed. In this chapter, accordingly, which, to a certain extent, is meant to be introductory to a critical consideration of the miscellaneous poems of Shakspeare, the dramatic writers are omitted; a future section of the work being appropriated to a detail of their more peculiar labours for the stage.

After a few general observations, therefore, on the poetry of this era, it is our intention to give short critical notices of the principal bards who flourished during its transit; and with the view of affording some idea of the extensive culture and diffusion of poetic taste, an alphabetical table of the minor poets, accompanied by slight memoranda, will be added. An account of the numerous Collections of Poetry which reflect so much credit on this age, and a few remarks and inferences, more particularly with respect to Shakspeare's study of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries in miscellaneous poetry, will complete this portion of our subject.

The causes which chiefly contributed to produce this fertility in poetical genius may, in a great measure, be drawn from what has been already remarked under the heads of superstition, literature, and romance.

The sun of philosophy and science, which had just risen with the most captivating beauty, and which promised a meridian of uncommon splendour, had not yet fully dissipated those mists that for centuries had enveloped and darkened the human mind. What remained, however, of the popular creed, was much less gross and less contradictory to common experience, than what had vanished from the scroll; these reliques were, indeed, such, as either appealed powerfully to a warm and creative imagination, or were intimately connected with those apprehensions which agitate the breast of man, when speculating on his destiny in another and higher order of existence.

Under the first of these classes may be included all that sportive, wild, and terrific imagery which resulted from a partial belief in the operations of fairies, witches, and magicians, and in the reveries of the alchemist, the rosicrusian, and the astrologer; and under the second will be found, what can scarcely be termed superstition in the customary sense, that awful and mysterious conception of the spiritual world, which supposes its frequent intervention, through the agency either of departed spirits, or superhuman beings.

The opinions which prevailed with regard to these topics in the days of Shakspeare, were such as exactly suited the higher regions of poetry, without giving any violent shock to the deductions of advancing philosophy. The national credulity had been, in fact, greatly chastised through the efforts of enquiry and research, and though it may still appear great to us, was in perfect accordance with the progress of civilisation, and certainly much better calculated for poetic purposes than has been any subsequent though purer creed.

The state of literature, too, was precisely of that kind which favoured, in a very high degree, the nurture of poetical genius. The vocabulary of our language was rich, beyond all example, both in natives and exotics; not only in "new grafts of old withered words[596:A]," but in a multitude of expressive terms borrowed from the learned languages; and this wealth was used freely and without restriction, and without the smallest apprehension of censure.

An enthusiastic spirit for literary acquisition had been created and cherished by the revival, the study, and the translation of the ancient classics; and through this medium an exhaustless mine of imagery and allusion was laid open to our vernacular poets.

Nor were these advantages blighted or checked by the fastidious canons of dictatorial criticism. Puttenham's was the only Art of Poetry which had made its appearance, and, though a taste for discussion of this kind was rapidly advancing, the poet was yet left independent of the critic; at liberty to indulge every flight of imagination, and every sally of feeling; to pursue his first mode of conception, and to adopt the free diction of the moment.

The age of chivalry and romance, also, had not yet passed away; the former, it is true, was verging fast towards dissolution, but its tone was still exalting and heroic, while the latter continued to throw a rich, though occasionally a fantastic light over every species of poetic composition. In short, the unrestricted copiousness of our language, the striking peculiarities of our national superstition, the wild beauties of Gothic invention, and the playful sallies of Italian fiction, combined with a plentiful infusion of classic lore, and operating on native genius, gave origin, not only to an unparalleled number of great bards, but to a cast of poetry unequalled in this country for its powers of description and creation, for its simplicity and energy of diction, and for its wide dominion over the feelings.

If we proceed to consider the versification, economy, and sentiment of the Elizabethan poetry, candour must confess, that considerable defects will be found associated with beauties equally prominent, especially in the first and second of these departments. We must be understood, however, as speaking here only of rhymed poetry, for were the blank verse of our dramatic poets of this epoch included, there can be no doubt but that in versification likewise the palm must be awarded to Shakspeare and his contemporaries. Indeed, even in the construction of rhyme, the inferiority of our ancestors is nearly, if not altogether, confined to their management of the pentameter couplet; and here, it must be granted, that, in their best artificers of this measure, in the pages of Daniel, Drayton, and Browne, great deficiencies are often perceptible both in harmony and cadence, in polish and compactness. It has been said by a very pleasing, and, in general, a very judicious critic, that "the older poets disdained stooping to the character of syllable-mongers; as their conceptions were vigorous, they trusted to the simple provision of nature for their equipment; and though often introduced into the world ragged, they were always healthy."[597:A] Now versification is to poetry, what colouring is to painting, and though by no means among the higher provinces of the art, yet he who disdains its cultivation, loses one material hold upon the reader's attention; for, though plainness and simplicity of garb best accord with vigour, sublimity, or pathos of conception, raggedness can never coincide in the production of any grand or pleasing effect.

It is remarkable, however, that, in lyrical composition, the poets of Elizabeth's reign, so far from being defective in harmony of metre, frequently possess the most studied modulation; and numbers of their songs and madrigals, as well as many stanzas of their longer poems constructed on the model of the Italian octava rima, exhibit in their versification so much high-finishing, and such an exquisite polish, as must render doubtful, in this province, at least, the assumed superiority of modern art.

A more striking desideratum in the poetry of this era has arisen from a want of economy in the use of imagery and ornament, and in the distribution of parts as relative to a whole. That relief, which is produced by a judicious management of light and shade, appears to have been greatly neglected; the eye, after having been fatigued by an unsubdued splendour and warmth of style, suddenly passes to an extreme poverty of colouring, without any intermediate tint to blend and harmonize the parts; in short, to drop the metaphor, after a prodigal profusion of imagery and description, the exhausted bard sinks for pages together into a strain remarkable only for its flatness and imbecillity. To this want of union in style, may be added an equal defalcation in the disposition, connection, and dependency of the various portions of an extended whole. These requisites, which are usually the result of long and elaborate study, have been successfully cultivated by the moderns, who, since the days of Pope, have paid a scrupulous attention to the mechanism of versification, to the consonancy and keeping of style, and to the niceties and economy of arrangement.

We can ascribe, however, to the poets of Elizabeth's reign the greater merit of excelling in energy and truth of sentiment, in simplicity of diction, in that artless language of nature which irresistibly makes its way to the heart. To excite the emotions of sublimity, of terror, of pity, an appeal to the artificial graces of modern growth will not be found successful; on the contrary, experience has taught us, that in the higher walks of poetry, where sensations of grandeur and astonishment are to be raised, or where the passions in all their native vigour are to be called forth, we must turn to the earlier stages of the art, when the poet, unshackled by the overwhelming influence of venerated models, unawed by the frowns of criticism, and his flow of thought undiverted by any laborious attention to the minutiæ of diction and cadence, looked abroad for himself, and drew fresh from the page of surrounding nature, and from the workings of his own breast, the imagery, and the feelings, which he was solicitous to impress. In consequence of this self-dependence, this appeal to original sources, the poetry of the period under our notice possesses a strength, a raciness, and verisimilitude which have since very rarely been attained, and which more than compensate for any subordinate defects in the ornamental departments of metre, or style.

It is conceivable, indeed, that a poet may arise, who shall happily combine, even in a long poem of the highest class, the utmost refinements of recent art, with the originality, strength, and independency of our elder bards; it is a phenomenon, however, rather to be wished for than expected, as the excellencies peculiar to these widely-separated eras appear to be, in their highest degree, nearly incompatible. Yet is the attempt not to be given up in despair; in short poems, especially of the lyric species, we know that this union has been effected among us; for Gray, to very lofty flights of sublimity, has happily united the utmost splendour of diction, and the utmost brilliancy of versification; and even in a later and more extended instance, in "The Pleasures of Hope" by Mr. Campbell, we find some of the noblest conceptions of poetry clothed in metre exquisitely sweet and polished, and possessing at the same time great variety of modulation, and a considerable share of simplicity in its construction.

If, however, upon the large scale, which the highest cast of poetry demands, the studied harmony of later times be found incapable of coalescing with effect, there can be no doubt what school we should adopt; for who would not prefer the sublime though unadorned conception of Michael Angelo to the glowing colouring even of such an artist as Titian?

Of the larger poems of the age of Shakspeare, the defects may be considered as of two kinds, either apparent only, or real; under the first may be classed that want of high-finishing which is the result, partly of its incompatibility with greatness of design, and partly as the effect of a just taste; for much of the minor poetry of the reign of Elizabeth, as hath been previously observed, is polished even to excess; while under the second are to be placed the positive defects of want of union in style, and want of connection and arrangement in economy; omissions not resulting from necessity, and which are scarcely to be atoned for by any excellencies, however transcendent.

It is creditable to the present age, that in the higher poetry several of our bards have in a great degree reverted to the ancient school; that, in attempting to emulate the genius of their predecessors, they have judiciously adopted their strength and simplicity of diction, their freedom and variety of metre, preserving at the same time, and especially in the disposition of their materials, and the keeping of their style, whatever of modern refinement can aptly blend with or heighten the effect of the sublime, though often severely chaste outline, of the first masters of their art.

That meretricious glare of colouring, that uniform though seductive polish, and that monotony of versification, which are but too apparent in the school of Pope, and which have been carried to a disgusting excess by Darwin and his disciples, not only vitiate and dilute all developement of intense emotion, but even paralyse that power of picturesque delineation, which can only subsist under an uncontrolled freedom of execution, where, both in language and rhythm, the utmost variety and energy have their full play. He who in sublimity and pathos has made the nearest approach to our three immortal bards, Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton, and who may, therefore, claim the fourth place in our poetical annals, the lamented Chatterton; and he who, in the present day, stands unrivalled for his numerous and masterly sketches of character, and for the truth, locality, and vigour of his descriptions, the poet of Marmion and of Rokeby; are both well known to have built their fame upon what may be emphatically termed the old English school of poesy. The difference between them is, that while both revert to the costume and imagery of the olden time, one adheres, in a great measure, to the language of his day, while the other must be deemed a laborious though not very successful imitator of the phraseology and extrinsic garb of the remote period to which, for no very laudable purpose, he has assigned his productions.

These few remarks on the poetry of our ancestors being premised, the critical notices to which we have alluded, may with propriety commence; and in executing this part of the subject, as well as in the tabular form which follows, an alphabetical arrangement will be observed.

1. Beaumont, Sir John. Though the poems of this author were not published, yet were they written, during the age of Shakspeare, and consequently demand our notice in this chapter. He was the elder brother of Francis the dramatic poet, and was born at Grace-dieu, in Leicestershire, in 1582. He very early attached himself to poetical studies, and all his productions in this way were the amusements of his youthful days. Of these, the most elaborate is entitled "Bosworth Field," a very animated, and often a very poetical detail of the circumstances which are supposed immediately to precede and accompany this celebrated struggle. The versification merits peculiar praise; there is an ease, a vigour, and a harmony in it, not equalled, perhaps, by any other poet of his time; many of the couplets, indeed, are such as would be distinguished for the beauty of their construction, even in the writings of Pope. An encomium so strong as this may require some proofs for its support, and among the number which might be brought forward, three shall be adduced as specimens not only of finished versification, but of the energy and heroism of the sentiments which pervade this striking poem.

Ferrers, addressing Richard, exclaims,—

On the flight of Catesby, who advises Richard to embrace a similar mode of securing his personal safety, the King indignantly answers,

Of the conclusion of Bosworth Field, Mr. Chalmers has justly observed, that "the lines describing the death of the tyrant may be submitted with confidence to the admirers of Shakspeare."[602:A]

The translations and miscellaneous poems of Sir John include several pieces of considerable merit. We would particularly point out Claudian's Epigram on the Old Man of Verona, and the verses on his "dear sonne Gervase Beaumont."

Sir John died in the winter of 1628, aged forty-six.

2. Breton, Nicholas. Of this prolific poet few authenticated facts are known. His first publication, entitled, "A small handfull of fragrant flowers," was printed in 1575; if we therefore allow him to have reached the age of twenty-one before he commenced a writer, the date of his birth may, with some probability, be assigned to the year 1554. The number of his productions was so great, that a character in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, declares that he had undertaken "with labour and experience the collection of those thousand pieces—of that our honour'd Englishman, Nich. Breton."[602:B] Ritson has given a catalogue of twenty-nine, independent of his contributions to the "Phœnix Nest" and "England's Helicon," and five more are recorded by Mr. Park in the Censura Literaria.[603:A] Most of these are poetical, some a mixed composition of rhyme and prose, and a few entirely prose; they are all extremely scarce, certainly not the consequence of mediocrity or want of notice, for they have been praised by Puttenham[603:B], Meres[603:C], and Phillips; and one of his most beautiful ballads is inserted in "The Muse's Library," 1740. After a lapse of twenty-five years, Dr. Percy recalled the attention of the public to our author by inserting in his Reliques the same piece which Mrs. Cowper had previously chosen[603:D]; in 1801 Mr. Ellis favoured us with eight specimens, from his pamphlets and "England's Helicon[603:E]," and Mr. Park has since added two very valuable extracts to the number.[603:F] These induce us to wish for a more copious selection, and at the same time enable us to declare, that as a lyric and pastoral poet he possessed, if not a splendid, yet a pleasing and elegant flow of fancy, together with great sweetness and simplicity of expression, and a more than common portion of metrical harmony.

He is supposed, on the authority of an epitaph in the church of Norton, a village in Northamptonshire, to have died on the 22d of June 1624.[603:G]

3. Browne, William, was born at Tavistock, in Devonshire, in 1590, and, there is reason to suppose, began very early to cultivate his poetical talents; for in the first book of his Britannias Pastorals, which were published in folio, in 1613, when in his twenty-third year, he speaks of himself, "as weake in yeares as skill[603:H]," an expression which leads to the supposition that his earlier pastorals were written before he had attained the age of twenty. Indeed all his poetry appears to have been written previous to his thirtieth year. In 1614, he printed in octavo, The Shepherds Pipe, in seven eclogues; in 1616, the second part of his Britannias Pastorals was given to the public, and in 1620, his Inner Temple Mask is supposed to have been first exhibited.

Browne enjoyed a large share of popularity during his life-time; numerous commendatory poems are prefixed to the first edition of his pastorals; and, in a copy of the second impression of 1625, in the possession of Mr. Beloe, and which seems to have been a presentation copy to Exeter College, Oxford, of which Browne was a member and Master of Arts, there are thirteen adulatory addresses to the poet, from different students of this society, and in the hand-writing of each.[604:A] Among his earliest eulogists are found the great characters Selden, Drayton, and Jonson, by whom he was highly respected both as a poet and as a man; and as a still more imperishable honour, we must not forget to mention, that he was a favourite with our divine Milton.

Until lately, however, he has been under little obligation to subsequent times; nearly one hundred and fifty years elapsed before a third edition of his poems employed the press; this came out in 1772, under the auspices of Mr. Thomas Davies, and, with the exception of some extracts in Hayward's British Muse, this long interval passed without any attempt to revive his fame, by any judicious specimens of his genius.[604:B] A more propitious era followed the republication of Davies; in 1787, Mr. Headley obliged us with some striking proofs of, and some excellent remarks on, his beauties; in 1792, his whole works were incorporated in the edition of the poets, by Dr. Anderson; in 1801, Mr. Ellis gave further extension to his fame by additional examples, and in 1810 his productions again became a component part of a body of English poetry in the very elaborate and comprehensive edition of the English Poets, by Mr. Chalmers.

Still it appears to us, that sufficient justice has not, since the era of Milton, been paid to his talents; for, though it be true, as Mr. Headley has observed, that puerilities, forced allusions, and conceits, have frequently debased his materials; yet are these amply atoned for by some of the highest excellencies of his art; by an imagination ardent and fertile, and sometimes sublime; by a vivid personification of passion; by a minute and truly faithful delineation of rural scenery; by a peculiar vein of tenderness which runs through the whole of his pastorals, and by a versification uncommonly varied and melodious. With these are combined a species of romantic extravagancy which sometimes heightens, but more frequently degrades, the effect of his pictures. Had he exhibited greater judgment in the selection of his imagery, and greater simplicity in his style, his claim on posterity had been valid, had been general and undisputed. Browne is conjectured by Wood to have died in the winter of 1645.[605:A]

4. Chalkhill, John. This poet was the intimate friend of Spenser, a gentleman, a scholar, and, to complete the encomium, a man of strict moral character. He was the author of a pastoral history, entitled, Thealma and Clearchus; but "he died," relates Mrs. Cooper, "before he could perfect even the Fable of his poem, and, by many passages in it, I half believe, he had not given the last hand to what he has left behind him. However, to do both him and his editor justice, if my opinion can be of any weight, 'tis great pity so beautiful a relique should be lost; and the quotations I have extracted from it will sufficiently evidence a fine vein of imagination, a taste far from being indelicate, and both language and numbers uncommonly harmonious and polite."[606:A]

The editor alluded to by Mrs. Cooper was the amiable Isaac Walton, who published this elegant fragment in 8vo. in 1683, when he was ninety years old, and who has likewise inserted two songs by Chalkhill in his "Complete Angler."[606:B]

The pastoral strains of Chalkhill merit the eulogium of their female critic; the versification, more especially, demands our notice, and may be described, in many instances, as possessing the spirit, variety, and harmony of Dryden. To verify this assertion, let us listen to the following passages; describing the Golden age, he informs us,

How beautifully versified is the opening of his picture of the Temple of Diana!

Pourtraying the cell of an Enchantress, he says,

Mr. Beloe, in the first volume of his Anecdotes, p. 70., has given us a Latin epitaph on a John Chalkhill, copied from Warton's History of Winchester. This inscription tells us, that the person whom it commemorates died a Fellow of Winchester College, on the 20th of May, 1679, aged eighty; and yet Mr. Beloe, merely from similarity of name and character, contends that this personage must have been the Chalkhill of Isaac Walton; a supposition which a slight retrospection as to dates, would have proved impossible. Walton, in the title-page of Thealma and Clearchus, describes Chalkhill as an acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spenser; now as Spenser died in January, 1598, and the subject of this epitaph, aged 80, in 1679, the latter must consequently have been born in 1599, the year after Spenser's death! The coincidence of character and name is certainly remarkable, but by no means improbable or unexampled.

5. Chapman, George, who was born in 1557 and died in 1634, aged seventy-seven, is here introduced as the principal translator of his age; to him we are indebted for Homer, Musæus, and part of Hesiod. His first published attempt on Homer appeared in 1592[607:B], under the title of "Seaven Bookes of the Shades of Homere, Prince of Poets;" and shortly after the accession of James the First, the entire Iliad was completed and entitled, "The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets. Never before in any language truly translated. With a comment upon some of his chief places: done according to the Greeke."

This version, which was highly prized by his contemporaries, is executed in rhymed couplets, each line containing fourteen syllables; a species of versification singularly cumbrous and void of harmony; and, notwithstanding this protracted metre, fidelity is, by no means, the characteristic of Chapman. He is not only often very paraphrastic, but takes the liberty of omitting, without notice, what he could not comprehend. It has been asserted by Pope, that a daring fiery spirit, something like what we might imagine Homer himself to have written before he arrived to years of discretion, animates his translation, and covers his defects[608:A]; an opinion which seems rather the result of partiality than unbiassed judgment; for though Chapman is certainly superior to his successor Hobbes, and occasionally exhibits some splendid passages, he must be considered by every critic of the present day as, in general, coarse, bombastic, and often disgusting; a violator, indeed, in almost every page, of the dignity and simplicity of his original.

The magnitude and novelty of the undertaking, however, deserved and met with encouragement, and Chapman was induced, in 1614, to present the world with a version of the Odyssey. This is in the pentameter couplet; inferior in vigour to his Iliad, but in diction and versification more chaste and natural. Of his Musæus and his Georgics of Hesiod, we shall only remark that the former was printed in 1616, the latter in 1618, and that the first, which we have alone seen, does not much exceed the character of mediocrity. As an original writer, we shall have to notice Chapman under the dramatic department, and shall merely add now, that he was, in a moral light, a very estimable character, and the friend of Spenser, Shakspeare, Marlowe, Daniel, and Drayton.

6. Churchyard, Thomas. This author merits notice rather for the quantity than the quality of his productions, though a few of his pieces deserve to be rescued from utter oblivion. He commenced a writer, according to his own account[609:A], in the reign of King Edward the Sixth, and as Wood informs us that at the age of seventeen he went to seek his fortune at court, and lived four years with Howard Earl of Surry, who died 1546, it is probable that he was born about 1524. Shrewsbury had the honour of producing him, and he continued publishing poetical tracts until the accession of James the First. Ritson has given us a catalogue, which might be enlarged, of seventeen of his publications, with dates, from 1558 to 1599, independent of a variety of scattered pieces; some of these are of such bulk as to include from twelve to twenty subjects, and in framing their titles the old bard seems to have been very partial to alliteration; for we have Churchyards Chippes, 1575; Churchyards Choice, 1579; Churchyards Charge, 1580; Churchyards Change; Churchyards Chance, 1580; Churchyards Challenge, 1593; and Churchyards Charity, 1595.[609:B] In the "Mirror for Magistrates," first published in 1559, he contributed "The Legend of Jane Shore," which he afterwards augmented in his "Challenge," by the addition of twenty-one stanzas; this is perhaps the best of his poetical labours, and contains several good stanzas. His "Worthiness of Wales," also, first published in 1587, and reprinted a few years ago, is entitled to preservation. This pains-taking author, as Ritson aptly terms him, died poor on April 4th, 1604, after a daily exertion of his pen, in the service of the Muses, for nearly sixty years.

7. Constable, Henry, of whom little more is personally known, than that he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1579[609:C]; that he was compelled to leave his native country from a zealous attachment to the Roman Catholic religion, and that, venturing to return, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, but released towards the close of 1604.[610:A] Constable possessed unrivalled reputation with his contemporaries as a writer of sonnets; Jonson terms his muse "ambrosiack[610:B];" in The Return from Parnassus, 1606, we are told that

and Bolton calls him "a great master in English tongue," and adds, "nor had any gentleman of our nation a more pure, quick, or higher delivery of conceit; witness among all other, that Sonnet of his before his Majesty's Lepanto."[610:D] In consequence of these encomia more modern authors have prolonged the note of praise; Wood describes him as "a noted English poet[610:E];" Hawkins, as the "first, or principal sonnetteer of his time[610:F]," and Warton, as "a noted sonnet-writer."[610:G]

To justify the reputation thus acquired, we have two collections of his sonnets still existing; one published in 1594, under the title of "Diana, or the excellent conceitful sonnets of H. C. augmented with divers quatorzains of honorable and learned personages, devided into viij Decads;" and the other a manuscript in the possession of Mr. Todd, consisting of sonnets divided into three parts, each part containing three several arguments, and every argument seven sonnets.[610:H]

From the specimens which we have seen of his Diana, and from the sonnet extracted by Mr. Todd from the manuscript collection, there can be little hesitation in declaring, that the reputation which Constable once enjoyed, was built upon no stable foundation, and that mediocrity is all which the utmost indulgence of the present age can allow him.

8. Daniel, Samuel, a poet and historian of no small repute, was born near Taunton, in Somersetshire, in 1562. Having received a classical education at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and being afterwards enabled to pursue his studies under the patronage of the Earl of Pembroke's family, he became the most correct poet of his age. He commenced author as early as 1585, by a translation of Paulus Jovius's Discourse of rare Inventions; but his first published poems appear to have been his Delia, a collection of Sonnets, with the complaint of Rosamond, 1592. He continued to write until nearly the close of his life, for the Second Part of his History of England was published in 1618, and he died on the 14th of October 1619.

Of the poetry of Daniel, omitting for the present all notice of his dramatic works, the most important are his Sonnets to Delia, the History of the Civil War, the Complaint of Rosamond and the Letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius; the remainder consisting of occasional pieces, and principally of Epistles to his friends and patrons.

The Sonnets are not generally constructed on the legitimate or Petrarcan model; but they present us with some beautiful versification and much pleasing imagery. The "Civil Wars between the two houses of Lancaster and York," the first four books of which were published in 1595, and the eighth and last in 1609, form the magnum opus of Daniel, and to which he looked for fame with posterity. That he has been disappointed, must be attributed to his having too rigidly adhered to the truth of history; for aspiring rather at the correctness of the annalist than the fancy of the poet, he rarely attempts the elevation of his subject by any flight of imagination, or digressional ornaments. Sound morality, prudential wisdom, and occasional touches of the pathetic, delivered in a style of then unequalled chastity and perspicuity, will be recognised throughout his work; but neither warmth, passion, nor sublimity, nor the most distant trace of enthusiasm can be found to animate the mass. In the Complaint of Rosamond, and in the Letter from Octavia, he has copied the manner of Ovid, though with more tenderness and pathos than are usually found in the pages of the Roman.

In short, purity of language, elegance of style, and harmony of versification, together with an almost perfect freedom from pedantry and affectation, and a continual flow of good sense and just reflection, form the merits of Daniel, and resting on these qualities he is entitled to distinguished notice, as an improver of our diction and taste; but to the higher requisites of his art, to the fire and invention of the creative bard, he has few pretensions.

Daniel was the intimate friend of Shakspeare, Marlowe, Chapman, Camden, and Cowel; and was so highly esteemed by the accomplished Anne, Countess of Pembroke, that she not only erected a monument to his memory in Beckington church, Somersetshire, but in a full length of herself, at Appleby Castle in Cumberland, had a small portrait of her favourite poet introduced.[612:A] This partiality seems to have sprung from a connection not often productive of attachment; Daniel had been her tutor when she was only thirteen years old, and in his poems he addresses an epistle to her at this early age, which, as Mr. Park has justly said, "deserves entire perusal for its dignified vein of delicate admonition."[612:B] Dissatisfied with the opinions of his contemporaries as to his poetical merit, which appears to have been similar to the estimate that we have just given[612:C], he relinquished the busy world, and spent the closing years of his life in the cultivation of a farm.

9. Davies, Sir John, was born at Chisgrove in Wiltshire in 1570. Though a lawyer of great eminence, he is chiefly known to posterity through the medium of his poetical works. His Nosce Teipsum, or poem on the Immortality of the Soul, on which fame rests, was published in 1599, and not only secured him the admiration of his learned contemporaries, among whom may be recorded the great names of Camden, Harrington, Jonson, Selden, and Corbet, but accelerated his professional honours; for being introduced to James in Scotland, in order to congratulate him on his accession to the throne of England, the king, on hearing his name, enquired "if he was Nosce Teipsum? and being answered in the affirmative, graciously embraced him, and took him into such favour, that he soon made him his Solicitor, and then Attorney-General in Ireland."[613:A]

Beside this philosophical poem, the earliest of which our language can boast, Sir John printed, in 1596, a series of Epigrams, which were published at Middleburg, at the close of Marlowe's translation of Ovid's Epistles, and in the same year the first edition of his "Orchestra, or a poeme of dauncing;" these, with twenty-six acrostics on the words Elizabetha Regina, printed in 1599, and entitled "Hymns of Astræa," complete the list of his publications.

His "Nosce Teipsum" is a piece of close reasoning in verse, peculiarly harmonious for the period in which it appeared. It possesses, also, wit, ingenuity, vigour and condensation of thought, but exhibits few efforts of imagination, and nothing that is either pathetic or sublime. In point of argument, metaphysical acuteness and legitimate deduction, the English poet is, in every respect, superior to his classical model Lucretius; but how greatly does he fall beneath the fervid genius and creative fancy of the Latian bard!

Sir John died suddenly on the 7th of December 1626, in the fifty-seventh year of his age.

10. Davors, John. Of this poet little more is known, than that he published, in 1613, the following work: "The Secrets of Angling: teaching the choicest Tooles, Baits, and Seasons, for the taking of any Fish, in Pond or River: practised and familiarly opened in three Bookes." 12mo.

Upon a subject so technical and didactic, few opportunities for poetical imagery might naturally be expected; but Davors has most happily availed himself of those which occurred, and has rendered his poem, in many places, highly interesting by beauty of sentiment, and warmth of description. A lovely specimen of his powers may be found in the "Complete Angler" of Isaac Walton[614:A], and the following invocation, from the opening of the First Book, shall be given as a further proof of the genuineness of his inspiration, and with this additional remark, that his versification is throughout singularly harmonious:—

A second edition of "The Secrets of Angling," "augmented with many approved experiments," by W. Lawson, was printed in 1652, and a third would be acceptable even in the present day.

11. Donne, John, D.D. The greater part of the poetry of this prelate, though not published, was written, according to Ben Jonson, before he was twenty-five years of age; and as he was born in London in 1573, he must consequently be ranked as a bard of the sixteenth century. His poems consist of elegies, satires, letters, epigrams, divine poems, and miscellaneous pieces, and procured for him, among his contemporaries, through private circulation and with the public when printed, during the greater part of the seventeenth century, an extraordinary share of reputation. A more refined age, however, and a more chastised taste, have very justly consigned his poetical labours to the shelf of the philologer. A total want of harmony in versification, and a total want of simplicity both in thought and expression, are the vital defects of Donne. Wit he has in abundance, and even erudition, but they are miserably misplaced; and even his amatory pieces exhibit little else than cold conceits and metaphysical subtleties. He may be considered as one of the principal establishers of a school of poetry founded on the worst Italian model, commencing towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, continued to the decease of Charles the Second, and including among its most brilliant cultivators the once popular names of Crashaw, Cleveland, Cowley, and Sprat.

Dr. Donne died in March 1631, and the first edition of his poems was published by his son two years after that event.

12. Drayton, Michael, of an ancient family in Leicestershire, was born in the village of Harshul, in the parish of Atherston, in Warwickshire, in 1563. This voluminous and once highly-popular poet has gradually sunk into a state of undeserved oblivion, from which he can alone be extricated by a judicious selection from his numerous Works. These may be classed under the heads of historical, topographical, epistolary, pastoral, and miscellaneous poetry. The first includes his Barons Warres, first published in 1596 under the title of "Mortimeriades; the lamentable Civil Warres of Edward the Second, and the Barons;" his Legends, written before 1598 and printed in an octavo edition of his poems in 1613, and his Battle of Agincourt. It cannot be denied that in these pieces there are occasional gleams of imagination, many just reflections, and many laboured descriptions, delivered in perspicuous language, and generally in smooth versification; but they do not interest the heart or elevate the fancy; they are tediously and minutely historical, void of passion, and, for the most part, languid and prosaic. The second department exhibits the work on which he rested his hopes of immortality, the elaborate and highly-finished Poly-olbion, of which the first eighteen songs made their appearance in 1612, accompanied by the very erudite notes of Selden, and the whole was completed in thirty parts in 1622. The chief defect in this singular poem results from its plan; to describe the woods, mountains, vallies, and rivers of a country, with all their associations, traditionary, historical, and antiquarian, forms a task which no genius, however exalted, could mould into an interesting whole, and the attempt to enliven it by continued personification has only proved an expedient which still further taxes the patience of the reader. It possesses, however, many beauties which are poetically great; numerous delineations which are graphically correct, and a fidelity with regard to its materials so unquestioned, as to have merited the reference of Hearne and Wood, and the praise of Gough, who tells us that the Poly-olbion has preserved many circumstances which even Camden has omitted. It is a poem, in short, which will always be consulted rather for the information that it conveys, than for the pleasure that it produces.

To England's Heroical Epistles, which constitute the third class, not much praise can now be allotted, notwithstanding they were once the most admired of the author's works. Occasional passages may, it is true, be selected, which merit approbation for novelty of imagery and beauty of expression; but nothing can atone for their wanting what, from the nature of the subjects chosen, should have been their leading characteristic—pathos.

It is chiefly as a pastoral poet that Drayton will live in the memory of his countrymen. The shepherd's reed was an early favourite; for in 1593 he published his "Idea: the Shepherd's Garland, fashioned in nine Eglogs: and Rowland's Sacrifice to the nine Muses," which were reprinted under the title of Pastorals, and with the addition of a tenth eclogue. His attachment to rural imagery was nearly as durable as his existence; for the year previous to his death he brought forward another collection of pastorals, under the title of The Muses Elisium. Of these publications, the first is in every respect superior, and gives the author a very high rank among rural bards; his descriptions are evidently drawn from nature; they often possess a decided originality, and are couched in language pure and unaffected, and of the most captivating simplicity.

The miscellaneous productions of Drayton include a vast variety of pieces; odes, elegies, sonnets, religions effusions, &c. &c. To specify the individual merit of these would be useless; but among them are two which, from their peculiar value, call for appropriate notice. A most playful and luxuriant imagination is displayed to much advantage in the Nymphidia, or The Court of Fairy, and an equal degree of judgment, together with a large share of interest, in the poem addressed to his loved friend Henry Reynolds, On Poets and Poesy. These, with the first collection of pastorals, part of the second, and some well-chosen extracts from his bulkier works, would form a most fascinating little volume. Drayton died on December 23. 1631, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

13. Drummond, William. The birth of this truly elegant poet is placed at Hawthornden in Scotland, on the 13th of December, 1585, and the publication of the first portion of his Sonnets, in 1616, entitles him to due notice among these critical sketches.

A disappointment of the most afflictive nature, for death snatched from him the object of his affection almost immediately after she had consented to be his, has given a peculiar and very pathetic interest to the greater part of his poetical compositions, which are endeared to the reader of sensibility by the charm resulting from a sincere and never-dying regret for the memory of his earliest love.

His poetry, which has never yet been properly arranged, consists principally of poems of a lyrical cast, including sonnets, madrigals, epigrams, epitaphs, miscellanies, and divine poems.

Of these classes, the first and second exhibit numerous instances of a versification decidedly more polished and elegant than that of any of his contemporaries, and to this technical merit is frequently to be added the still more rare and valuable distinctions of beauty of expression, simplicity of thought, delicacy of sentiment, and tenderness of feeling. Where he has failed, his faults are to be attributed to the then prevailing taste for Italian concetti; to the study of Marino, and his French imitators, Bellày and Du Bartas. These deviations from correct taste are, however, neither frequent nor flagrant, and are richly atoned for by strains of native genius, and the felicities of unaffected diction.[618:A]

Drummond was the intimate friend of Drayton, the Earl of Stirling, and Ben Jonson; the latter holding him in such estimation as to undertake a journey to Scotland on foot, solely for the purpose of enjoying his company and conversation. How far this meeting contributed to enhance their mutual regard, is doubtful; no two characters could be more opposed, the roughness and asperity of Jonson ill according with the elegant manners of the Scottish poet, whose manuscript memoranda relative to this interview plainly intimate his disapprobation of the disposition and habits of his celebrated guest; but, unfortunately, at the same time, display a breach of confidence, and a fastidiousness of temper, which throw a shade over the integrity of his own friendship, and the rectitude of his own feelings.

This accomplished bard died on the 4th of December 1649, aged sixty-three, and though his poems were republished by Phillips, the nephew of Milton, in 1656, with a high encomium on his genius, he continued so obscure, that in 1675, when the Theatrum Poetarum of the same critic appeared, he is said to be "utterly disregarded and laid aside[618:B];" a fate which, strange as it may seem, has, until these few years, almost completely veiled the merit of one of the first poets of the sister kingdom.

14. Fairefax, Edward. The singular beauty of this gentleman's translation of Tasso, and its influence on English versification, demand a greater share of notice than is due to any poetical version preceding that of Pope. He was the son of Sir Thomas Fairefax, of Denton in Yorkshire, and early cultivating the enjoyment of rural and domestic life, retired with the object of his affections to Newhall, in the parish of Fuyistone, in Knaresborough forest, where he usefully occupied his time in the education of his children, and the indulgence of literary pursuits. His "Godfrey of Bulloigne," the work which has immortalised his name, was written whilst he was very young, was published in 1600, and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth.

This masterly version, which for the last half century has been most undeservedly neglected, has not hitherto been superseded by any posterior attempt. Though rendered line by line, and in the octave stanza of the Italians, it possesses an uncommon share of elegance, vigour, and spirit, and very frequently exhibits the facility and raciness of original composition. That it contributed essentially towards the improvement of our versification, may be proved from the testimony of Dryden and Waller, the former declaring him superior in harmony even to Spenser, and the latter confessing that he owed the melody of his numbers to a studious imitation of his metrical skill.[619:A]

It is greatly to be regretted that the original poetry of Fairefax, with the exception of one piece, has been suffered to perish. It consisted of a poetical history of the Black Prince, and twelve Eclogues, of which the fourth is preserved by Mrs. Cooper in her Muses' Library. This lady informs us that the eclogues were all written after the accession of King James to the throne of England; that they were occupied by "important subjects relating to the manners, characters, and incidents of the times he lived in; that they were pointed with many fine strokes of satire; dignified with wholesome lessons of morality, and policy, to those of the highest rank; and some modest hints even to Majesty itself;" and that the learning they contained was "so various and extensive, that, according to the evidence of his son, (who has written large Annotations on each,) no man's reading, beside his own, was sufficient to explain his references effectually."[620:A]

Fairefax died about the year 1632; and, beside his poetical works, was the author of several controversial pieces, and of a learned essay on Demonology.

15. Fitzgeffrey, Charles, was a native of Cornwall, of a genteel family, and was entered a commoner of Broadgate's hall, Oxford, in 1592. Having taken his degrees in arts, and assumed the clerical profession, he finally became rector of St. Dominic in his own county. In 1596, he published a poem to the memory of Sir Francis Drake, entitled "Sir Francis Drake his honorable Life's commendation; and his tragicall Deathe's lamentation;" 12mo. This poem, which possesses no small portion of merit, is dedicated, in a sonnet, "to the beauteous and vertuous Lady Elizabeth, late wife unto the highlie renowned Sir Francis Drake, deceased," and is highly spoken of by Browne and Meres; the former declaring that he unfolded

and the latter asserting that "as C. Plinius wrote the life of Pomponius secundus, so yong Cha. Fitz-Geffray, that high-touring falcon, hath most gloriously penned the honourable life and death of worthy Sir Francis Drake."[621:A]

As the poetry of Fitzgeffrey is very little known, we shall give the Sonnet to Lady Drake as a pleasing specimen of his genius:

Beside his volume on Drake, Fitzgeffrey was the author of a collection of Latin epigrams, in three books, under the title of Affaniæ, printed in 8vo., 1601, and of a religious poem, called "The Blessed Birth-day," 1634, 4to. He lived highly respected both as a poet and divine, and died at his parsonage-house in 1636-7.

16. Fletcher, Giles, the elder brother of Phineas Fletcher, was born in 1588, took the degree of bachelor of divinity at Oxford, and died at his rectory of Alderton, in Suffolk, in 1623. The production which has given him a poet's fame, was published in 1610, under the title of "Christ's Victory and Triumph in Heaven and Earth over and after Death," Cambridge, 4to. It is written in stanzas of eight lines, and divided into four parts, under the appellations of Christs Victory in Heaven, his Triumph on Earth, his Triumph over Death, and his Triumph after Death.

This is a poem which exhibits strong powers of description, and a great command of language; it is, however, occasionally sullied by conceits, and by a frequent play upon words, of which the initial stanza is a striking proof. Our author was an ardent admirer of Spenser, and has in many instances successfully imitated his picturesque mode of delineation, though he has avoided following him in the use of the prosopopeia.

17. Fletcher, Phineas, who surpassed his brother in poetical genius, took his bachelor's degree at King's College, Cambridge, in 1604, and his master's degree in 1608. Though his poems were not published until 1633, there is convincing proof that they were written before 1610; for Giles, at the close of his "Christ's Victory," printed in this year, thus beautifully alludes not only to his brother's Purple Island, but to his eclogues, as previous compositions:—

It is, indeed, highly probable, that they were composed even before he took his bachelor's degree; for, in the dedication of his "Purple Island" to his learned friend, Edward Benlowes, Esq., he terms them "raw essays of my very unripe years, and almost childhood."[622:B]

The "Purple Island" is an allegorical description, in twelve cantos, of the corporeal and intellectual functions of man. Its interest and effect have been greatly injured by a too minute investigation of anatomical facts; the first five cantos being little else than a lecture in rime, and productive more of disgust than any other sensation. In the residue of the poem, the bard bursts forth with unshackled splendour, and the passions and mental powers are personified with great brilliancy of imagination, and great warmth of colouring. Like his brother, however, he is defective in taste; the great charm of composition, simplicity, is too often lost amid the mazes of quaint conception and meretricious ornament. Yet are there passages interspersed through this allegory, of exquisite tenderness and sweetness, alike simple and correct in diction, chaste in creative power, and melodious in versification.

The "Piscatory Eclogues," to novelty of scenery, add many passages of genuine and delightful poetry, and the music of the verse is often highly gratifying to the ear; but many of the same faults are discernible in these pieces, which we remarked in the "Purple Island;" pedantry and forced conceits occasionally intrude, and, though the poet has not injured the effect of his delineations by coarseness, or rusticity of expression, he has sometimes forgotten the simple elegance which should designate the pastoral muse.

Our author was presented to the living of Hilgay, in Norfolk, in 1621, and died there about the year 1650.

18. Gascoigne, George, the son of Sir John Gascoigne, was descended from an ancient family in Essex, and, after a private education under the care of Stephen Nevinson, L.L.D. he was sent to Cambridge, and from thence to Gray's Inn, for the purpose of studying the law. Like many men, however, of warm passions and strong imagination, he neglected his profession for the amusements and dissipation of a court, and having exhausted his paternal property, he found himself under the necessity of seeking abroad, in a military capacity, that support which he had failed to acquire at home. He accordingly accepted a Captain's commission in Holland, in 1572, under William Prince of Orange, and having signalised his courage at the siege of Middleburg, had the misfortune to be captured by the Spaniards near Leyden, and, after four month's imprisonment, revisited his native country.

He now resumed his profession and his apartments at Gray's Inn; but in 1575, on his return from accompanying Queen Elizabeth in her progress to Kenelworth Castle, he fixed his residence at his "poore house," at Walthamstow, where he employed himself in collecting and publishing his poems. He was not long destined, however, to enjoy this literary leisure; for, according to George Whetstone, who was "an eye-witness of his godly and charitable end in this world[624:A]," he expired at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, on the 7th of October, 1577, when he was probably under forty years of age.[624:B]

The poetry of Gascoigne was twice collected during his life-time; firstly, in 1572, in a quarto volume, entitled, "A Hundreth sundrie Flowres bounde up in one small Poesie. Gathered partely (by translation) in the fyne outlandish Gardins of Euripides, Ovid, Petrarke, Ariosto, and others: and partly by invention, out of our owne fruitefull Orchardes in Englande: Yielding sundrie sweet savors of Tragical, Comical, and Morall Discourses, both pleasaunt and profitable to the well smellyng noses of learned Readers. Meritum petere, grave. At London, Imprinted for Richarde Smith;" and secondly in 1575, with the title of "The Posies of George Gascoigne Esquire. Corrected, perfected and augmented by the Authour. Tam Marti, quam Mercurio. Imprinted at London by H. Bynneman for Richard Smith." The edition is divided into three parts, under the appellation of Flowers, Hearbes, and Weedes, to which are annexed "Certayne notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English, written at the request of Master Edouardo Donati."

Besides these collections, Gascoigne published separately, "The Glasse of Government. A Tragical Comedie," 1575. "The Steele Glas. A Satyre," 1576. "The Princely Pleasures, at the Court at Kenelworth," 1576; and "A Delicate Diet for daintie mouthde Drunkards," a prose tract, 1576. After his death appeared, in 1586, his tract, entitled, "The Droome of Doomes Day;" and in 1587, was given to the world, a complete edition of his works, in small quarto, black letter.

Gascoigne, though patronised by several illustrious characters, among whom may be enumerated, Lord Grey of Wilton, the Earl of Bedford, and Sir Walter Raleigh, appears to have suffered so much from the envy and malignity of his critics, as to induce him to intimate, that the disease of which he died, was occasioned by the irritability of mind resulting from these attacks; and yet, as far as we have an opportunity of judging, his contemporaries seem to have done justice to his talents; at least Gabriel Harvey[625:A] and Arthur Hall[625:B], Nash[625:C], Webbe[625:D], and Puttenham[625:E], have together praised him for his wit, his imagination, and his metre; and in the Glosse to Spenser's Calender, he is styled "the very chief of our late rymers."[626:A]

The poetry of our author has not, in modern times, met with all the attention which it deserves; specimens, it is true, have been selected by Cooper, Percy, Warton, Headley, Ellis, Brydges, and Haslewood; but, with the exception of the re-impression of 1810, in Mr. Chalmers's English Poets, no edition of his works has been published since 1587. This is the more extraordinary, for, as the ingenious editor just mentioned has remarked, "there are three respects in which his claims to originality require to be noticed as æras in a history of poetry. His Steele Glass is among the first specimens of blank verse in our language; his Jocasta is the second theatrical piece written in that measure; and his Supposes is the first comedy written in prose."[626:B] Warton has pronounced him to have "much exceeded all the poets of his age in smoothness and harmony of versification[626:C]," an encomium which peculiarly applies to the lyrical portion of his works, which is indeed exquisitely polished, though not altogether free from affectation and antithesis. Among these pieces, too, is to be discovered a considerable range of fancy, much tenderness and glow of sentiment, and a frequent felicity of expression. In moral and didactic poetry, he has likewise afforded us proofs approaching to excellence, and his satire entitled "The Steele Glass," includes a curious and minute picture of the manners and customs of the age.

To the "Supposes" of Gascoigne, a translation from the Suppotiti of Ariosto, executed with peculiar neatness and ease, Shakspeare has been indebted for a part of his plot of the "Taming of the Shrew."[626:D]

19. Greene, Robert. Of this ingenious and prolific writer, we have already related so many particulars, that nothing more can be wanting here, than a brief character of his poetical genius. Were his poetry collected from his various pamphlets and plays, of which nearly fifty are known to be extant, a most interesting little volume might be formed. The extreme rarity, however, of his productions, may render this an object of no easy attainment; but of its effect a pretty accurate idea may be acquired from what has been done by Mr. Beloe, who, in his Anecdotes of Literature, has collected many beautiful specimens from the following pieces of our author. Tullie's Love, 1616; Penelope's Web, 1601; Farewell to Follie, 1617; Never Too Late, 1590; History of Arbasto, 1617; Arcadia, or Menaphon, 1589; Orphanion, 1599; Philomela, 1592.[627:A]

Though most of the productions of Greene were written to supply the wants of the passing hour, yet the poetical effusions scattered through his works betray few marks of haste or slovenliness, and many of them, indeed, may be classed among the most polished and elegant of their day. To much warmth and fertility of fancy, they add a noble strain of feeling and enthusiasm, together with many exquisite touches of the pathetic, and so many impressive lessons of morality, as, in a great measure, to atone for the licentiousness of several of his prose tracts.[627:B]

20. Hall, Joseph, Bishop of Exeter and Norwich, was born on the first of July 1574, at Brestow Park, Leicestershire. He was admitted of Emanuel College, Cambridge, at the age of fifteen, and when twenty-three years old, published his satires, under the title of Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes. First Three Bookes of Tooth-less Satyrs: 1. Poetical; 2. Academicall; 3. Moral; printed by T. Creede for R. Dexter 1597. The Three last Bookes of Byting Satyrs, by R. Bradock for Dexter, 1598. Both parts were reprinted together in 1599, and have conferred upon their author a just claim to the appellation of one of our earliest and best satiric poets. Of the legitimate satire, indeed, he appears to have given us the first example, an honour upon which he justly prides himself, for, in the opening of his prologue, he tells us

On the re-publication of the Virgidemiarum at Oxford, in 1752, Gray, in a letter to Dr. Wharton, speaking of these satires, says, "they are full of spirit and poetry, as much of the first as Dr. Donne, and far more of the latter[628:A];" and Warton, at the commencement of an elaborate and extended critique on Hall's poetic genius, in the Fragment of his fourth volume of the History of English Poetry, gives the following very discriminative character of these satires. They "are marked," he observes, "with a classical precision, to which English poetry had yet rarely attained. They are replete with animation of style and sentiment. The indignation of the satirist is always the result of good sense. Nor are the thorns of severe invective unmixed with the flowers of pure poetry. The characters are delineated in strong and lively colouring, and their discriminations are touched with the masterly traces of genuine humour. The versification is equally energetic and elegant, and the fabric of the couplets approaches to the modern standard. It is no inconsiderable proof of a genius predominating over the general taste of an age when every preacher was a punster, to have written verses, where laughter was to be raised, and the reader to be entertained with sallies of pleasantry, without quibbles and conceits. His chief fault is obscurity, arising from a remote phraseology, constrained combinations, unfamiliar allusions, elliptical apostrophes, and abruptness of expression. Perhaps some will think that his manner betrays too much of the laborious exactness and pedantic anxiety of the scholar and the student. Ariosto in Italian, and Regnier in French, were now almost the only modern writers of satire; and I believe there had been an English translation of Ariosto's Satires. But Hall's acknowledged patterns are Juvenal and Persius, not without some touches of the urbanity of Horace. His parodies of these poets, or rather his adaptations of ancient to modern manners, a mode of imitation not unhappily practised by Oldham, Rochester, and Pope, discover great facility and dexterity of invention. The moral gravity and the censorial declamation of Juvenal, he frequently enlivens with a train of more refined reflection, or adorns with a novelty and variety of images."[629:A]

The Satires of Hall exhibit a very minute and curious picture of the literature and manners, the follies and vices of his times, and numerous quotations in the course of our work will amply prove the wit, the sagacity, and the elegance of his Muse. Poetry was the occupation merely of his youth, the vigour and decline of his days being employed in the composition of professional works, calculated, by their piety, eloquence, and originality, to promote, in the most powerful manner, the best interests of morality and religion. This great and good man died, after a series of persecution from the republican party, at his little estate at Heigham, near Norwich, on the 8th of September 1656, and in the eighty-second year of his age.

21. Harington, Sir John. Among the numerous translators of the Elizabethan period, this gentleman merits peculiar notice, as having, through the medium of his Ariosto, "enriched our poetry by a communication of new stores of fiction and imagination, both of the romantic and comic species, of Gothic machinery and familiar manners."[629:B] His version of the Orlando Furioso, of which the first edition was published in 1591, procured him a large share of celebrity. Stowe, in his Annals, has classed him among those "excellent poets which worthily flourish, in their own works, and lived together in Queen Elizabeth's reign[630:A];" and Fuller[630:B], Philips, Dryden, and others, to the middle of the eighteenth century, have spoken of him in terms of similar commendation. In point of poetical execution, however, his translation, whatever might be its incidental operation on our poetic literature, must now be considered as vulgar, tame, and inaccurate. Sir John was born at Kelston near Bath, in 1561, and died there in 1612, aged fifty-one. His "Epigrams," in four Books, were published after his death; first in 1615, when the fourth book alone was printed; again in 1618, including the whole collection; and a third time in 1625, small 8vo.[630:C] The poetical merit of these pieces is very trifling, but they throw light upon contemporary character and manners.[630:D]

22. Jonson, Benjamin. Of this celebrated poet, the friend and companion of Shakspeare, a very brief notice, and limited to his minor pieces, will here be necessary, as his dramatic works and some circumstances of his life, will hereafter occupy their due share of attention. His poems were divided by himself into "Epigrams," "The Forest," "Under-woods," and a translation of "Horace's Art of Poetrie;" to which his late editors have added, "Miscellaneous Pieces." The general cast of these poems is not such as will recommend them to a modern ear; they are but too often cold and affected; but occasionally, instances of a description the very reverse of these epithets, are to be found, where simplicity and beauty of expression constitute the prominent features. It is chiefly, if not altogether, among his minor pieces in the lyric measure that we meet with this peculiar neatness and concinnity of diction: thus, in "The Forest," the lines from Catullus, beginning "Come, my Celia, let us prove," and the well-known song

in the "Underwoods," the stanzas commencing

and, among his "Songs," these with the initial lines

are striking proofs of these excellencies.

We must also remark that, among his "Epistles" and "Miscellaneous Pieces," there are discoverable a few very conspicuous examples of the union of correct and nervous sentiment with singular force and dignity of elocution. Of this happy combination, the Lines to the Memory of Shakspeare, an eulogium which will claim our attention in a future page, may be quoted as a brilliant model.

23. Lodge, Thomas, M. D. This gentleman, though possessing celebrity, in his day, as a physician, is chiefly entitled to the attention of posterity as a poet. He was a native of Lincolnshire, and born about 1556; educated at Oxford, of which he became a member about 1573, and died of the plague at London, in September 1625. He has the double honour of being the first who published, in our language, a Collection of Satires, so named, and of having suggested to Shakspeare the plot of his As You Like It. Philips, in his Theatrum Poetarum, characterises him as "one of the writers of those pretty old pastoral songs, which were very much the strain of those times[632:A];" but has strangely overlooked his satirical powers; these, however, have been noticed by Meres, who remarks, that "as Horace, Lucilius, Juvenal, Persius and Lucullus are the best for Satyre among the Latins, so with us in the same faculty, these are chiefe: Piers Plowman, Lodge, Hall of Emanuel Colledge in Cambridge, the author of Pigmalion's Image," &c.[632:B] The work which gives him precedence, as a writer of professed satires, is entitled "A Fig for Momus; containing pleasant Varietie, included in Satyrs, Eclogues, and Epistles, by T. L. of Lincolnes Inne, Gent." 1595.[632:C] It is dedicated to "William, Earle of Darbie," and though published two years before the appearance of Hall's Satires, possesses a spirit, ease and harmony, which that more celebrated poet has not surpassed. Than the following lines, selected from the first satire, we know few which, in the same department, can establish a better claim to vigour, truth, and melody:—

The debt of Shakspeare to our author is to be found in a pamphlet entitled "Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacie, found after his Death in his Cell at Silexdra, by T. L. Gent." The poetical pieces interspersed through this tract correspond with the character given of Lodge's composition by Phillips; for they are truly pastoral, and are finished in a style of great sweetness, delicacy, and feeling. Want of taste, or want of intimacy with this production, has induced Mr. Steevens to give a very improper estimate of it; "Shakspeare," he remarks, "has followed Lodge's novel more exactly than is his general custom when he is indebted to such worthless originals; and has sketched some of his principal characters, and borrowed a few expressions from it."[633:B]

The poetry of Lodge is to be gleaned from his pamphlets; particularly from the two which we have mentioned, and from the two now to be enumerated, namely, "Phillis: honoured with pastorall sonnets, elegies and amorous delights. Where-unto is annexed, the tragicall complaynt of Elstred," 1593, 4to., and "A most pleasant historie of Glaucus and Scilla: with many excellent poems, and delectable sonnets," 1610, 4to. He contributed, likewise, to the Collections termed The Phœnix Nest, 1593, and England's Helicon, 1600; and in the Preface, by Sir Egerton Brydges, to the third edition of the latter Miscellany, so just a tribute is paid to his genius as imperatively demands insertion; more particularly if we consider the obscurity into which this poet has fallen. "In ancient writings," observes the critic, "we frequently meet with beautiful passages; but whole compositions are seldom free from the most striking inequalities; from inharmonious verses; from lame, or laboured and quaint expressions; and creeping or obscure thoughts. In Lodge we find whole pastorals and odes, which have all the ease, polish, and elegance of a modern author. How natural is the sentiment, and how sweet the expression of the following in Old Damon's Pastoral:

"How charmingly he breaks out in The Solitary Shepherd's Song:—

"Is there one word or even accent obsolete in this picturesque and truly poetical stanza?

"But if such a tender and moral fancy be ever allowed to trifle, is there any thing of the same kind in the whole compass of English poetry more exquisite, more delicately imagined, or expressed with more finished and happy artifice of language, than Rosalind's Madrigal, beginning—

"Compare Dr. Lodge not only with his cotemporaries but his successors, and who, except Breton, has so happily anticipated the taste, simplicity, and purity of the most refined age."[635:A]

Beside his miscellaneous poetry, Lodge published two dramatic pieces[635:B], and may be considered as a voluminous prose writer. Seven of his prose tracts are described by Mr. Beloe[635:C], and he translated the works of Josephus and Luc. An. Seneca.[635:D]

24. Marlow, Christopher. As the fame of this poet, though once in high repute as a dramatic writer, is now supported merely by one of his miscellaneous pieces, which is, indeed, of exquisite beauty, it has been thought necessary briefly to introduce him here; a more extended notice being deferred to a subsequent page. His earliest attempt appeared in 1587, when he was about twenty-five years of age, in a Translation of Coluthus's Rape of Helen into English rhyme. This was followed by "Certaine of Ovid's Elegies," licensed in 1593, but not printed until 1596. His next and happiest version was given to the public in 1598, under the title of "The Loves of Hero and Leander," being, like the preceding, a posthumous publication; for the author died prematurely in 1593, leaving this translation, of which the original is commonly but erroneously ascribed to Musæus, unfinished. Phillips, in his character of Marlow, comparing him with Shakspeare, says, that he resembled him not only in his dramatic circumstances, "but also because in his begun poem of Hero and Leander, he seems to have a resemblance of that clean, and unsophisticated wit, which is natural to that incomparable poet."[636:A] Marlow translated also "Lucans first booke, line for line," in blank verse, which was licensed in 1593, and printed in 1600; but the production which has given him a claim to immortality, and which has retained its popularity even to the present day, first made its appearance in "England's Helicon," under the appellation of The Passionate Shepheard to his Love. Of an age distinguished for the excellence of its rural poetry, this is, without doubt, the most admirable and finished pastoral.

25. Marston, John, who has a claim to introduction here, from his powers as a satirical poet. In 1598, he published "The Metamorphosis, or Pigmalion's Image. And certaine Satyres." Of these the former is an elegant and luxurious description of a well-known fable, and to this sportive effusion Shakspeare seems to allude in his "Measure for Measure," where Lucio exclaims, "What, is there none of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be had now?"[636:B] His fame as a satirist was established the year following, by the appearance of his "Scourge of Villanie. Three Bookes of Satyres."

A reprint of these pieces was given to the world by Mr. Bowles, in the year 1764, who terms the author the "British Persius," and adds, that very little is recorded of him with certainty. "Antony a Wood," he remarks, "who is generally exact in his accounts of men, and much to be relied upon, is remarkably deficient with respect to him; indeed there seems to be little reason to think he was of Oxford: it is certain from his works, that he was of Cambridge, where he was cotemporary with Mr. Hall, with whom, as it appears from his satyre, called Reactio, and from the Scourge of Villanie, sat. 10., he had some dispute.—It has not been generally known who was the author of Pigmalion and the five satyres: but that they belong to Marston is clear from the sixth and tenth satyres of the Scourge of Villanie: and to this may be added the evidence of the collector of England's Parnassus, printed 1600, who cites the five first lines of the dedication to opinion, prefixed to Pigmalion by the name of J. Marston, p. 221."

"These satyres," says Mr. Warton, "in his observations on Spenser, contain many well drawn characters, and several good strokes of a satyrical genius, but are not, upon the whole, so finished and classical as Bishop Hall's: the truth is, they were satyrists of a different cast: Hall turned his pen against his cotemporary writers, and particularly versifiers; Marston chiefly inveighed against the growing foibles and vices of the age."[637:A]

There is undoubtedly a want of polish in the satirical muse of Marston, which seems, notwithstanding, the result rather of design than inability; for the versification of "Pigmalion's Image," is in many of its parts highly melodious. Strength, verging upon coarseness, is, however, the characteristic of the "Scourge of Villanie," and may warrant the assertion of the author of "The Returne from Parnassus," that he was "a ruffian in his stile."[637:B] Yet he is highly complimented by Fitz-Geoffry, no mean judge of poetical merit, who declares that he is

26. Niccols, Richard. This elegant poet was born in 1584, was entered of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1602, and took his bachelor's degree in 1606. In 1607, he published "The Cuckow, a Poem," in the couplet measure, which displays very vivid powers of description. His next work was a new and enlarged edition of "The Mirror for Magistrates," dated 1610, and to which, as a third and last part, he has added, with a distinct title, "A Winter Night's Vision. Being an Addition of such Princes, especially famous, who were exempted in the former Historie. By Richard Niccols, Oxon. Magd. Hall, &c." This supplement consists of an Epistle to the Reader, a Sonnet to Lord Charles Howard, an Induction, and the Lives of King Arthur; Edmund Ironside; Prince Alfred; Godwin, Earl of Kent; Robert Curthose; King Richard the First; King John; King Edward the Second; the two young Princes murdered in the Tower, and King Richard the Third; a selection, to which, with little accordancy, he has subjoined, in the octave stanza, a poem entitled "England's Eliza: or the victorious and triumphant reigne of that virgin empresse of sacred memorie, Elizabeth Queene of Englande, &c." This is preceded by a Sonnet to Lady Elizabeth Clere, an Epistle to the Reader, and an Induction.

Niccols' addition to this popular series of Legends merits considerable praise, exhibiting many touches of the pathetic, and several highly-wrought proofs of a strong and picturesque imagination. In the Legend of Richard the Third, he appears to have studied with great effect the Drama of Shakspeare.

In 1615, our author published "Monodia: or, Waltham's Complaint upon the Death of the most virtuous and noble Lady, late deceased, the Lady Honor Hay;" and in the subsequent year, an elaborate poem, under the title of "London's Artillery, briefly containing the noble practise of that worthie Societie; with the moderne and ancient martiall exercises, natures of armes, vertue of Magistrates, Antiquitie, Glorie and Chronography of this honourable Cittie." 4to.[638:A] This work, dedicated to "the Right Honourable Sir John Jolles, Knight, Lord Maior," &c. is introduced by two Sonnets, a Preface to the Reader, and a metrical Induction; it consists of ten cantos, in couplets, with copious illustrative notes; but, in point of poetical execution, is greatly inferior to his Cuckow, and Winter Night's Vision. Niccols, after residing several years at Oxford, left that University for the capital, where, records Wood, he "obtained an employment suitable to his faculty."[639:A]

27. Raleigh, Sir Walter. Of this great, this high-minded, but unfortunate man, it will not be expected that, in his military, naval, or political character, any detail should here be given; it is only with Sir Walter, as a poet, that we are at present engaged, and therefore, after stating that he was born in 1552, at Hayes Farm, in the parish of Budley in Devonshire, and that, to the eternal disgrace of James the First, he perished on a scaffold in 1618, we proceed to record the singular circumstance, that, until the year 1813, no lover of our literature has thought it necessary to collect his poetry. The task, however, has at length been performed, in a most elegant and pleasing manner, by Sir Egerton Brydges[639:B], and we have only to regret that the pieces which he has been able to throw together, should prove so few. Yet we may be allowed to express some surprise, that two poems quoted as Sir Walter's in Sir Egerton's edition of Phillips's "Theatrum Poetarum," should not have found a place in this collection. Of these, the first is attributed to Raleigh, on the authority of MSS. in the British Museum, and is entitled, "Sir Walter Raleigh in the Unquiet Rest of his last Sickness," a production equally admirable for its sublimity and Christian morality, and for the strength and concinnity of its expression[639:C]; the second, of which the closing couplet is quoted by Puttenham[639:D] as our author's, is given entire by Oldys from a transcript by Lady Isabella Thynne, where it is designated as "The Excuse written by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger years[639:E]," and though vitiated by conceit, appears to be well authenticated. These, together with two fragments preserved by Puttenham[640:A], would have proved welcome additions to the volume, and, with the exception of his "Cynthia," a poem in praise of the Queen, and now lost, might probably have included all that has been attributed to the muse of Raleigh.

The poetry of our bard seems to have been highly valued in his own days; Puttenham says, that "for dittie and amorous ode, I finde Sir Walter Rawleygh's vayne most loftie, insolent, and passionate[640:B];" and Bolton affirms, that "the English poems of Sir Walter Raleigh are not easily to be mended[640:C];" opinions which, even in the nineteenth century, a perusal of his poems will tend to confirm. Of vigour of diction, and moral energy of thought, the pieces entitled, "A Description of the Country's Recreations;" a "Vision upon the Fairy Queen;" the "Farewell," and the Lines written in "his last Sickness," may be quoted as exemplars: and for amatory sweetness, and pastoral simplicity, few efforts will be found to surpass the poems distinguished as "Phillida's Love-call;" "The Shepherd's Description of Love;" the "Answer to Marlow," and "The Silent Lover."

The general estimate of Raleigh as a poet, has been sketched by Sir E. Brydges with his usual felicity of illustration, and as the impression with which he has favoured the public is very limited, and must necessarily soon become extremely scarce, a transcript from this portion of his introductory matter, will have its due value with the reader.

"Do I pronounce Raleigh a poet? Not, perhaps, in the judgment of a severe criticism. Raleigh, in his better days, was too much occupied in action to have cultivated all the powers of a poet, which require solitude and perpetual meditation, and a refinement of sensibility, such as intercourse with business and the world deadens!

"But, perhaps, it will be pleaded, that his long years of imprisonment gave him leisure for meditation, more than enough! It has been beautifully said by Lovelace, that

so long as the mind is free. But broken spirits, and indescribable injuries and misfortunes, do not agree with the fervour required by the Muse. Hope, that 'sings of promised pleasure,' could never visit him in his dreary bondage; and Ambition, whose lights had hitherto led him through difficulties and dangers and sufferings, must now have kept entirely aloof from one, whose fetters disabled him to follow as a votary in her train. Images of rural beauty, quiet, and freedom might, perhaps, have added, by the contrast, to the poignancy of his present painful situation; and he might rather prefer the severity of mental labour in unravelling the dreary and comfortless records of perplexing History in remote ages of war and bloodshed, than to quicken his sensibilities by lingering amid the murmurs of Elysian waterfalls!

"There are times when we dare not stir our feelings or our fancies; when the only mode of reconciling ourselves to the excruciating pressure of our sorrows is the encouragement of a dull apathy, which will allow none but the coarser powers of the intellect to operate.

"The production of an Heroic Poem would have nobly employed this illustrious Hero's mighty faculties, during the lamentable years of his unjust incarceration. But how could He delight to dwell on the tale of Heroes, to whom the result of Heroism had been oppression, imprisonment, ruin, and condemnation to death?

"We have no proof that Raleigh possessed the copious, vivid, and creative powers of Spenser; nor is it probable that any cultivation would have brought forth from him fruit equally rich. But even in the careless fragments now presented to the reader, I think we can perceive some traits of attraction and excellence which, perhaps, even Spenser wanted. If less diversified than that gifted bard, he would, I think, have sometimes been more forcible and sublime. His images would have been more gigantic, and his reflections more daring. With all his mental attention keenly bent on the busy state of existing things in political society, the range of his thoughts had been lowered down to practical wisdom; but other habits of intellectual exercise, excursions into the ethereal fields of fiction, and converse with the spirits which inhabit those upper regions, would have given a grasp and a colour to his conceptions as magnificent as the fortitude of his soul!"[642:A]

28. Sackville, Thomas, Lord Buckhurst, was born at Withyam, in Sussex, in 1527.[642:B] Though a statesman of some celebrity in the reign of Elizabeth, his fame with posterity rests entirely on his merits as a poet, and these are of the highest order. He possesses the singular felicity of being the first writer of a genuine English tragedy, and the primary inventor of "The Mirrour for Magistrates;" two obligations conferred upon poetry of incalculable extent.

Of Gorboduc, which was acted in 1561, and surreptitiously printed in 1563, we shall elsewhere have occasion to speak, confining our notice, in this place, to his celebrated Induction and Legend of Henry Duke of Buckingham, which were first published in the Second Part and Second Edition of Baldwin's Mirrour for Magistrates, printed in 1563. To this collection we are, indeed, most highly indebted, if the observation of Lord Orford be correct:—"Our historic plays," he remarks, "are allowed to have been founded on the heroic narratives in the Mirrour for Magistrates; to that plan, and to the boldness of lord Buckhurst's new scenes, perhaps we owe Shakspeare!"[642:C]

Our gratitude to this nobleman will be still further enhanced, when we recollect, that he was more assuredly a model for Spenser, the allegorical pictures in his Induction being, in the opinion of Warton, "so beautifully drawn, that, in all probability, they contributed to direct, at least to stimulate, Spenser's imagination." In fact, whoever reads this noble poem of Lord Buckhurst with attention must feel convinced, that it awoke into being the allegorical groupes of Spenser; and that, in force of imagination, in pathos, and in awful and picturesque delineation, it is not inferior to any canto of the Fairie Queen. Indeed from the nature of its plan, the scene being laid in hell, and Sorrow being the conductor of the hapless complainants, it often assumes a deeper tone and exhibits a more sombre hue than the muse of Spenser, and more in consonance with the severer intonations of the harp of Dante. How greatly is it to be lamented that the effusions of this divine bard are limited to the pieces which we have enumerated, and that so early in life he deserted the fountains of inspiration, to embark on a troubled sea of politics. Lord Buckhurst died, full of honours, at the Council-Table at Whitehall, on April 19th, 1608, aged eighty-one.

Sir Egerton Brydges, speaking of his magnificent seat at Knowle in West-Kent, tells us, that, "though restored with all the freshness of modern art, it retains the character and form of its Elizabethan splendour. The visitor may behold the same walls, and walk in the same apartments, which witnessed the inspiration of him, who composed The Induction, and the Legend of the Duke of Buckingham! He may sit under the same oaks, and behold, arrayed in all the beauty of art, the same delightful scenery, which cherished the day-dreams of the glowing poet! Perchance he may behold the same shadowy beings glancing through the shades, and exhibiting themselves in all their picturesque attitudes to his entranced fancy!"[643:A]

29. Southwell, Robert. This amiable but unfortunate Roman Catholic Priest was born at St. Faith's in Norfolk, 1560; he was educated at the University of Douay, became a member of the Society of Jesus at Rome, when but sixteen, and finally prefect in the English college there. Being sent as a missionary to England, in 1584, he was betrayed and apprehended in 1592, and after being imprisoned three years, and racked ten times, he was executed, as an agent for Popery, at Tyburn, on the 21st of February 1595.

Whatever may have been his religious intemperance or enthusiasm, his works, as a poet and a moralist, place him in a most favourable light; and we are unwilling to credit, that he who was thus elevated, just, and persuasive in his writings, could be materially incorrect in his conduct. In 1595, appeared his "Saint Peters Complaint, with other poems:" 4to., which went through a second impression in the same year, and was followed by "Mœoniæ. Or certaine excellent poems and spiritual Hymns; omitted in the last impression of Peter's complaint; being needefull thereunto to be annexed, as being both divine and wittie," 1595-1596. 4to. These two articles contain his poetical works; his other publications, under the titles of "Marie Magdalen's Funerall Tears;" "The Triumphs over Death; or a consolatorie Epistle, for afflicted minds, in the effects of dying friends," and "Short Rules of Good Life," being tracts in prose, though interspersed with occasional pieces of poetry.

The productions of Southwell, notwithstanding the unpopularity of his religious creed, were formerly in great request; "it is remarkable," observes Mr. Ellis, "that the very few copies of his works which are now known to exist, are the remnant of at least seventeen different editions, of which eleven were printed between 1593 and 1600."[644:A] The most ample edition of his labours was printed in 1620 in 16mo., and exhibits five distinct title-pages to the several pieces which we have just enumerated.

Bolton in his "Hypercritica," written about 1616, does credit, to his taste, by remarking that "never must be forgotten St. Peter's Complaint, and those other serious poems, said to be father Southwells: the English whereof, as it is most proper, so the sharpness and light of wit is very rare in them."[645:A] From this period, however, oblivion seems to have hidden the genius of Southwell from observation, until Warton, by reproducing the criticism of Bolton, in the third volume of his History of English Poetry 1781, recalled attention to the neglected bard. Two years afterwards, Mr. Waldron, in his notes to Ben Jonson's Sad Shepherd, gave us three specimens of Southwell's poetry; Mr. Headley reprinted these in 1787[645:B]; Mr. Ellis extracted an additional piece from the "Mœoniæ" in 1801; in 1802 Ritson presented us with a list of his writings accompanied by the notes of Mr. Park[645:C]; and lastly, in 1808, Mr. Haslewood favoured us with an essay on his life and works.[645:D]

Both the poetry and the prose of Southwell possess the most decided merit; the former, which is almost entirely restricted to moral and religious subjects, flows in a vein of great harmony, perspicuity, and elegance, and breathes a fascination resulting from the subject and the pathetic mode of treating it, which fixes and deeply interests the reader.

Mr. Haslewood, on concluding his essay on Southwell, remarks, that "those who 'least love the religion,' still must admire and praise the author, and regret that neither his simple strains in prose, nor his 'polished metre,' have yet obtained a collected edition of his works for general readers." The promise of such an edition escaped from the pen of Mr. Headley; at least it was his intention to re-publish "the better part of Southwell's poetry;" but death, most unhappily, precluded the attempt.

30. Spenser, Edmund. This great poet, who was born in London in 1553, has acquired an ever-during reputation in pastoral and epic poetry, especially in the last. His "Shepheard's Calender: conteining twelve aeglogues, proportionable to the twelve monethes," was published in 1579; it is a work which has conferred upon him the title of the Father of the English pastoral, and has almost indissolubly associated his name with those of Theocritus and Virgil. Yet two great defects have contributed deeply to injure the popularity of his Calender; the adoption of a language much too old and obsolete for the age in which it was written, and the too copious introduction of satire on ecclesiastical affairs. The consequence of this latter defect, this incongruous mixture of church polemics, has been, that the aeglogues for May, July, and September, are any thing but pastorals. Simplicity of diction is of the very essence of perfection in pastoral poetry; but vulgar, rugged, and obscure terms, can only be productive of disgust; a result which was felt and complained of by the contemporaries of the poet, and which not all the ingenuity of his old commentator, E. K., can successfully palliate or defend. The pieces which have been least injured by this "ragged and rustical rudeness," as the scholiast aptly terms it, are the pastorals for January, June, October and December, which are indeed very beautiful, and the genuine offspring of the rural reed.