To Nature all that I in rhyme have writ!

And to my company my wit:

Thou, Love, by making me adore
Her who begot this love in me before,

Taught'st me to make as though I gave, when I do but restore.

To him for whom the passing bell next tolls

I give my physic books; my written rolls

Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give;
My brazen medals unto them which live

In want of bread; to them which pass among
All foreigners, my English tongue :
Thou, Love, by making me love one
Who thinks her friendship a fit portion

For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo
The world by dying, because love dies too.
Then all your beauties will be no more worth
Than gold in mines where none doth draw it forth :
And all your graces no more use shall have

Than a sun-dial in a grave.

Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me
Love her who doth neglect both me and thee,

To invent and practise this one way to annihilate all three.

Character of a Bore.-From Donne's Satires.
Towards me did run

A thing more strange than on Nile's slime the sun
E'er bred, or all which into Noah's ark came;
A thing which would have posed Adam to name.
Stranger than seven antiquaries' studies-
Than Afric's monsters-Guiana's rarities-
Stranger than strangers. One who for a Dane
In the Danes' massacre had sure been slain,
If he had lived then; and without help dies
When next the 'prentices 'gainst strangers rise.
One whom the watch at noon scarce lets go by;
One to whom th' examining justice sure would cry:
'Sir, by your priesthood, tell me what you are?'
His clothes were strange, though coarse-and black,
though bare;

Sleeveless his jerkin was, and it had been

Velvet, but 'twas now-so much ground was seen-
Become tuff-taffety; and our children shall
See it plain rash awhile, then nought at all.

The thing hath travelled, and saith, speaks all tongues;
And only knoweth what to all states belongs.
Made of the accents and best phrase of all these,
He speaks one language. If strange meats displease,
Art can deceive, or hunger force my taste;
But pedants' motley tongue, soldiers' bombast,
Mountebanks' drug tongue, nor the terms of law,
Are strong enough preparatives to draw
Me to bear this. Yet I must be content
With his tongue, in his tongue called compliment...
He names me, and comes to me. I whisper, God!
How have I sinned, that thy wrath's furious rod
(This fellow) chooseth me? He saith: 'Sir,
I love your judgment-whom do you prefer
For the best linguist?' And I sillily
Said, that I thought, Calepine's Dictionary.
'Nay, but of men, most sweet sir?'-Beza then,
Some Jesuits, and two reverend men

Of our two academies, I named. Here
He stopt me, and said: 'Nay, your apostles were
Pretty good linguists, and so Panurge was;
Yet a poor gentleman all these may pass
By travel.' Then, as if he would have sold
His tongue, he praised it, and such wonders told,
That I was fain to say: 'If you had lived, sir,
Time enough to have been interpreter

To Babel's bricklayers, sure the tower had stood.'
He adds: 'If of court-life you knew the good,

You would leave loneness.' I said: 'Not alone
My loneness is, but Spartans' fashion.

To teach by painting drunkards doth not taste
Now; Aretine's pictures have made few chaste;
No more can princes' courts-though there be few
Better pictures of vice-teach me virtue.'

He, like to a high-stretched lute-string, squeaked: 'O sir,

'Tis sweet to talk of kings!' 'At Westminster,' Said I, the man that keeps the Abbey-tombs, And, for his price, doth, with whoever comes,

Of all our Harrys and our Edwards talk,

From king to king, and all their kin can walk :
Your ears shall hear nought but kings-your eyes meet
Kings only-the way to it is King's street.'

He smacked, and cried: 'He's base, mechanic, coarse,
So are all your Englishmen in their discourse.
Are not your Frenchmen neat? Mine?-as you see,
I have but one, sir-look, he follows me.
Certes, they are neatly clothed. I of this mind am,
Your only wearing is your grogoram.'

'Not so, sir. I have more."' Under this pitch
He would not fly. I chafed him. But as itch
Scratched into smart-and as blunt iron ground
Into an edge hurts worse-so I (fool!) found
Crossing hurt me. To fit my sullenness,
He to another key his style doth dress,

And asks: What news?' I tell him of new plays;
He takes my hands, and as a still which stays
A semibreve 'twixt each drop, he (niggardly,
As loath to enrich me so) tells many a lie-
More than ten Holinsheds, or Halls, or Stows-
Of trivial household trash he knows. He knows
When the queen frowned or smiled, and he knows what
A subtle statesman may gather from that.

He knows who loves; whom, and who by poison
Hastes to an office's reversion.

He knows who hath sold his land, and now doth beg
A license, old iron, boots, shoes, and egg-
Shells to transport. Shortly boys shall not play
At spancounter, or blow-point, but shall pay
Toll to some courtier. And-wiser than all us
He knows what lady is not painted. Thus
He with home-meats cloys me.

One of the earliest poetic allusions to the Copernican system occurs in Donne :

As new Philosophy arrests the sun,

And bids the passive earth about it run.

The following is a simile often copied by later poets :

When goodly, like a ship in her full trim,
A swan, so white that you may unto him
Compare all whiteness, but himself to none,
Glided along, and as he glided watched,
And with his archèd neck this poor fish catched;
It moved with state, as if to look upon
Low things it scorned.

In 1839, a complete edition of the works of Donne, including sermons, devotions, poems, letters, &c. was published in six volumes, edited by the Rev. Henry Alford, afterwards Dean of Canterbury.

JOSEPH HALL.

JOSEPH HALL, born at Bristow Park, in Leicestershire, in 1574, and who rose through various church preferments to be bishop of Norwich, is distinguished as a satirical poet, whose works have been commended by Pope and Warton, and often reprinted. His satires, which were published under the title of Virgidemiarum, in 1597-8, refer

to general objects, and present some just pictures of the more remarkable anomalies in human character they are also written in a style of greater vigour and volubility than most of the compositions of this age. His chief defect is obscurity, arising from remote allusions and elliptical expression. Bishop Hall died in 1656, at the age of eighty-two.

Selections from Hall's Satires.

A gentle squire would gladly entertain
Into his house some trencher-chapelain :
Some willing man that might instruct his sons,
And that would stand to good conditions.
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,
While his young master lieth o'er his head.
Second, that he do, on no default,
Ever presume to sit above the salt.
Third, that he never change his trencher twice.
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies;
Sit bare at meals, and one half rise and wait.
Last, that he never his young master beat,
But he must ask his mother to define
How many jerks he would his breech should line.
All these observed, he could contented be
To give five marks and winter livery.

Seest thou how gaily my young master goes,*
Vaunting himself upon his rising toes;
And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side;
And picks his glutted teeth since late noon-tide?
'Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he dined to-day?
In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humphrey.
Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer,
Keeps he for every straggling cavalier;
An open house, haunted with great resort;
Long service mixt with musical disport.t
Many fair younker with a feathered crest,
Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest,
To fare so freely with so little cost,
Than stake his twelvepence to a meaner host.
Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say
He touched no meat of all this livelong day;
For sure methought, yet that was but a guess,
His eyes seemed sunk for very hollowness,
But could he have-as I did it mistake-
So little in his purse, so much upon his back?
So nothing in his maw? yet seemeth by his belt
That his gaunt gut no too much stuffing felt.
Seest thou how side it hangs beneath his hip?
Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip.
Yet for all that, how stiffly struts he by,
All trapped in the new-found bravery.
The nuns of new won Calais his bonnet lent,
In lieu of their so kind a conquerment.
What needed he fetch that from farthest Spain,
His grandame could have lent with lesser pain?
Though he perhaps ne'er passed the English shore,
Yet fain would counted be a conqueror.
His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head,
One lock Amazon-like dishevelled,
As if he meant to wear a native cord,

If chance his fates should him that bane afford.
All British bare upon the bristled skin,
Close notched is his beard, both lip and chin;
His linen collar labyrinthian set,

Whose thousand double turnings never met:

His sleeves half hid with elbow pinionings,
As if he meant to fly with linen wings.
But when I look, and cast mine eyes below,
What monster meets mine eyes in human show?
So slender waist with such an abbot's loin,
Did never sober nature sure conjoin.
Lik'st a strawn scarecrow in the new-sown field,
Reared on some stick, the tender corn to shield,
Or, if that semblance suit not every deal,
Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel.

MARSTON-CHURCHYARD—TUBERVILLE—
WATSON-CONSTABLE.

Nearly contemporary with Hall's satires were those of JOHN MARSTON, the dramatist, known for his subsequent rivalry and quarrel with Ben Jonson. Marston, in 1598, published a small volume, Certayne Satires, and in 1599 The Scourge of Villany, &c. He survived till 1634. Little is known of this' English Aretine,' but all his works are coarse and licentious. Ben Jonson boasted to Drummond that he had beaten Marston and taken his pistol from him. If he had sometimes taken his pen, he would have better served society.

Among the swarm of poets ranking with the earlier authors of this period, we may note the following as conspicuous in their own times. THOMAS CHURCHYARD (1520-1604) wrote about seventy volumes in prose and verse. He served in the army, 'trailed a pike' in the reigns of Henry VIII., Mary, and Elizabeth, and received from Elizabeth-whom he had propitiated by complimentary addresses-a pension of eighteenpence a day, not paid regularly. Churchyard is supposed to be the Palamon of Spenser's Colin Clout,

That sang so long until quite hoarse he grew. -GEORGE TUBERVILLE (circa 1530-1594) was secretary to Randolph, Queen Elizabeth's ambassador at the court of Russia. So early as 1568, he had published songs and sonnets; but some of his works-as his Essays and Book of Falconry— were not published till after his death.-THOMAS WATSON (circa 1557-1592) was author of Hecatompathia, or Passionate Century of Love (1582), a series of sonnets of superior elegance and merit; also Amyntas, 1585, &c.-HENRY CONSTABLE (circa 1560-1612) was author of a great number of sonnets, partly published in 1592 under the title of Diana. Almost every writer of this time ventured on a sonnet or translation. Some settled down into dramatists, and as such will be noticed hereafter; others became best known as prose writers. Dr Drake calculates that there were about two hundred poets in the reign of Elizabeth! This is no exaggeration; but it is to the last decade of the century that we must look for its brightest names.

Sonnets by Thomas Watson.

When May is in his prime, and youthful Spring Doth clothe the tree with leaves and ground with flowers,

And time of year reviveth every thing,

And lovely Nature smiles and nothing lowers;
Then Philomela most doth strain her breast
With night-complaints, and sits in little rest.
This bird's estate I may compare with mine,

To whom fond Love doth work such wrongs by day,
That in the night my heart must needs repine,
And storm with sighs to ease me as I may;

Whilst others are becalmed or lie them still,
Or sail secure with tide and wind at will.
And as all those which hear this bird complain,
Conceive in all her tunes a sweet delight,
Without remorse or pitying her pain;

So she, for whom I wail both day and night,
Doth sport herself in hearing my complaint;
A just reward for serving such a saint!

Time wasteth years, and months, and hours;
Time doth consume fame, honour, wit, and strength;
Time kills the greenest herbs and sweetest flowers;
Time wears out Youth and Beauty's looks at length;
Time doth convey to ground both foe and friend,
And each thing else but Love, which hath no end.
Time maketh every tree to die and rot;
Time turneth oft our pleasure into pain;
Time causeth wars and wrongs to be forgot;
Time clears the sky which first hung full of rain;
Time makes an end of all humane desire,
But only this which sets my heart on fire.
Time turneth into nought each princely state;
Time brings a flood from new-resolved snow;
Time calms the sea where tempest was of late;
Time eats whate'er the moon can see below:
And yet no time prevails in my behoof,
Nor any time can make me cease to love!

NICHOLAS BRETON.

NICHOLAS BRETON (1558-1624) was a prolific and often happy writer, pastoral, satirical, and humorous. His Works of a Young Wit appeared in 1577; and a succession of small volumes proceeded from his pen; eight pieces with his name are in England's Helicon-a valuable poetical miscellany published in 1600, including contributions from Sidney, Spenser, Raleigh, Lodge, Marlowe, Watson, Greene, &c. Of Breton, little personally is known, but he is supposed to have been the son of a Captain Nicholas Breton of Tamworth, in Staffordshire, who had an estate at Norton, in Northamptonshire.

A Pastoral.-From ' England's Helicon.
On a hill there grows a flower,

Fair befall the dainty sweet!
By that flower there is a bower,
Where the heavenly Muses meet.
In that bower there is a chair,
Fringed all about with gold,
Where doth sit the fairest fair
That ever eye did yet behold.
It is Phillis, fair and bright,

She that is the shepherds' joy,
She that Venus did despite,

And did blind her little boy.

Who would not this face admire? Who would not this saint adore? Who would not this sight desire, Though he thought to see no more?

O fair eyes, yet let me see

One good look, and I am gone : Look on me, for I am he,

The poor silly Corydon.

Thou that art the shepherds' queen,
Look upon thy silly swain;
By thy comfort have been seen
Dead men brought to life again.

From Farewell to Town!

Thou gallant court, to thee, farewell! For froward fortune me denies

Now longer near to thee to dwell. I must go live, I wot not where, Nor how to live when I come there.

And next, adieu, you gallant dames,
The chief of noble youth's delight!
Untoward fortune now so frames,

That I am banished from your sight,
And, in your stead, against my will,
I must go live with country Gill.

Now next, my gallant youths, farewell;
My lads that oft have cheered my heart!
My grief of mind no tongue can tell,

To think that I must from you part.
I now must leave you all, alas,
And live with some old lobcock ass!

LODGE-BARNFIELD.

THOMAS LODGE, one of the most graceful and correct of the minor poets and imaginative writers of this period, appeared as an author in 1580. He then published a Defence of Stage Plays in Three Divisions, to which Stephen Gosson replied by a work quaintly styled Plays Confuted in Five Actions. Gosson speaks of Lodge as 'a vagrant person visited by the heavy hand of God.' Of the nature of this visitation we are not informed, but Lodge seems to have had a very varied life. He was of a respectable family in Lincolnshire, where he was born about 1556, and entered Trinity College, Oxford, as a servitor, under Sir Edward Hobby, in 1573. After leaving college, he is supposed to have been on the stage. But he afterwards joined in the expeditions of Captains Clarke and Cavendish, and wrote his Rosalynde to beguile the time during his voyage to the Canaries. He next appears as a law-student. In his Glaucus and Scilla (1589), Catharos Diogenes (1591), and A Fig for Comus (1595), he styles himself of Lincoln's Inn, Gent. His next work, A Margarite of America (1596), was written, he says, 'in those straits christened by Magellan, in which place to the southward, many wondrous isles, many strange fishes, many monstrous Patagons, withdrew my senses.' From the law, Lodge turned to physic. He studied medicine, Wood says, at Avignon, and he practised in London, being much patronised by Roman Catholic families, till his death by the plague in 1625. Lodge wrote several pastoral tales, sonnets, and light satires, besides two dramas; one of them in conjunction with Greene. His poetry is easy and polished, though abounding in conceits and gaudy ornament. His Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacie, contains passages of fine description and delicate sentiment, with copies of verses interspersed. From this romantic little tale Shakspeare took the incidents of his As You Like It, following Lodge with remarkable closeness. The great dramatist has been censured for some anachronisms in his exquisite comedy-such as introducing a lioness and palm-tree into his forest of Arden; but he merely copied Lodge, who has the lion, the myrrh-tree, the fig, the citron, and pomegranate. In these romantic and pastoral tales, consistency and credibility were utterly disregarded.

RICHARD BARNFIELD (born about 1570) resembled Lodge in the character of his writings and in the smoothness and elegance of his verse. He was also a graduate of Oxford. His works are -Cynthia, with Certain Sonnets, and the Legend of Cassandra (1595); the Affectionate Shepherd, &c. (1596); the Encomium of Lady Pecunia (1598), &c. But Barnfield is chiefly known from the circumstance, that some of his pieces were ascribed to Shakspeare, in a volume entitled 'The Passionate Pilgrim, by W. Shakespeare' (1599). The use of Shakspeare's name was a trick of the bookseller. The small volume contains two of Shakspeare's Sonnets, some verses taken from his Love's Labour's Lost (published the year before), some pieces known to be by Marlowe and Raleigh, and others taken from Barnfield's Encomium of Lady Pecunia.

The following three extracts are from Lodge :

Beauty.

Like to the clear in highest sphere,
Where all imperial glory shines,
Of self-same colour is her hair,
Whether unfolded or in twines :

Her eyes are sapphires set in snow,
Refining heaven by every wink;
The gods do fear, when as they glow,
And I do tremble when I think.
Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud
That beautifies Aurora's face;
Or like the silver crimson shroud
That Phoebus' smiling looks doth grace.

Her lips are like two budded roses,
Whom ranks of lilies neighbour nigh;
Within which bounds she balm incloses,
Apt to entice a deity.

Her neck like to a stately tower,

Where Love himself imprisoned lies,
To watch for glances, every hour,
From her divine and sacred eyes.
With orient pearl, with ruby red,

With marble white, with sapphire blue, Her body everywhere is fed,

Yet soft in touch, and sweet in view. Nature herself her shape admires;

The gods are wounded in her sight; And Love forsakes his heavenly fires, And at her eyes his brand doth light.

Rosalind's Madrigal.

Love in my bosom, like a bee,
Doth suck his sweet;

Now with his wings he plays with me,

Now with his feet.

Within mine eyes he makes his nest,
His bed amidst my tender breast;
My kisses are his daily feast,
And yet he robs me of my rest:

Ah, wanton, will ye?

And if I sleep, then percheth he
With pretty flight,

And makes his pillow of my knee,
The livelong night.

Strike I my lute, he tunes the string;
He music plays if so I sing;
He lends me every lovely thing,
Yet cruel he my heart doth sting:
Whist, wanton, still ye.

Else I with roses every day

Will whip you hence,
And bind you, when you long to play,
For your offence;

I'll shut mine eyes to keep you in;
I'll make you fast it for your sin;
I'll count your power not worth a pin;
Alas! what hereby shall I win,

If he gainsay me?

What if I beat the wanton boy
With many a rod?

He will repay me with annoy,
Because a god.

Then sit thou safely on my knee,
And let thy bower my bosom be;
Lurk in mine eyes, I like of thee,
O Cupid! so thou pity me,

Spare not, but play thee.