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Him when the spiteful Briere he espyed, Causeless complained, and loudly cryed Unto his lord, stirring up stern strife:

'O my liege lord! the god of my life,
Please you ponder your suppliant's plaint,
Caused of wrong and cruel constraint,
Which I your poor vassal daily endure;
And but your goodness the same recure,
And like for desperate dole to die,
Through felonous force of mine enemy.'
Greatly aghast with this piteous plea,
Him rested the good man on the lea,
And bade the Briere in his plaint proceed.
With painted words then gan this proud weed
(As most usen ambitious folk)

His coloured crime with craft to cloke.

'Ah, my Sovereign! lord of creatures all,
Thou placer of plants both humble and tall,
Was not I planted of thine own hand,
To be the primrose of all thy land,
With flow'ring blossoms to furnish the prime,
And scarlet berries in summer-time?
How falls it then that this faded Oak,
Whose body is sere, whose branches broke,
Whose naked arms stretch unto the fire,
Unto such tyranny doth aspire,
Hindring with his shade my lovely light,
And robbing me of the sweet sun's sight?
So beat his old boughs my tender side,

That oft the blood springeth from wounds wide,
Untimely my flowers forced to fall,
That been the honour of your coronal;
And oft he lets his canker-worms light
Upon my branches, to work me more spight;
And of his hoary locks down doth cast,
Wherewith my fresh flowrets been defast:
For this, and many more such outrage,
Craving your godlyhead to assuage
The rancorous rigour of his might;
Naught ask I but only to hold my right,
Submitting me to your good sufferance,
And praying to be guarded from grievance.'
To this this Oak cast him to reply
Well as he couth; but his enemy
Had kindled such coals of displeasure
That the good man nould stay his leisure,
But home him hasted with furious heat,
Encreasing his wrath with many a threat;
His harmful hatchet he hent in hand-
Alas! that it so ready should stand!—
And to the field alone he speedeth-
Aye little help to harm there needeth-
Anger nould let him speak to the tree,
Enaunter his rage might cooled be,
But to the root bent his sturdy stroke,
And made many wounds in the waste Oak.
The axe's edge did oft turn again,
As half unwilling to cut the grain,
Seemed the senseless iron did fear,
Or to wrong holy eld did forbear;
For it had been an ancient tree,
Sacred with many a mystery,

And often crost with the priests' crew,
And often hallowed with holy-water dew;
But like fancies weren foolery,

And broughten this Oak to this misery;

For nought might they quitten him from decay,
For fiercely the good man at him did lay.

The block oft groaned under his blow,

And sighed to see his near overthrow.

In fine, the steel had pierced his pith,
Then down to the ground he fell forthwith.

His wondrous weight made the ground to quake,

Th' earth shrunk under him, and seemed to

shake;

There lieth the Oak pitied of none.

Now stands the Briere like a lord alone,

Puffed up with pride and vain pleasance;
But all this glee had no continuance :
For eftsoons winter 'gan to approach,
The blustering Boreas did encroach,
And beat upon the solitary Briere,
For now no succour was seen him near.
Now 'gan he repent his pride too late,
For naked left and disconsolate,
The biting frost nipt his stalk dead,
The watry wet weighed down his head,
And heaped snow burdned him so sore,
That now upright he can stand no more;
And being down, is trod in the dirt
Of cattle, and brouzed, and sorely hurt.
Such was th' end of this ambitious Briere,
For scorning eld.

From the Epithalamium.

Wake now, my love, awake; for it is time;
The rosy morn long since left Tithon's bed,
All ready to her silver coach to climb;
And Phoebus 'gins to shew his glorious head.
Hark! how the cheerful birds do chant their lays,
And carol of Love's praise.

The merry lark her matins sings aloft;

The thrush replies; the mavis descant plays;
The ouzel shrills; the ruddock warbles soft;
So goodly all agree, with sweet consent,
To this day's merriment.

Ah! my dear love, why do you sleep thus long,
When meeter were that you should now awake,
T' await the coming of your joyous make,
And hearken to the birds' love-learned song,
The dewy leaves among !

For they of joy and pleasance to you sing,

That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring.

My love is now awake out of her dream,

And her fair eyes, like stars that dimmed were
With darksome cloud, now shew their goodly beams
More bright than Hesperus his head doth rear.
Come now, ye damsels, daughters of delight,
Help quickly her to dight:

But first come, ye fair Hours, which were begot,
In Jove's sweet paradise, of Day and Night;
Which do the seasons of the year allot,
And all, that ever in this world is fair,
Do make and still repair;

And ye three handmaids of the Cyprian Queen,

The which do still adorn her beauty's pride,

Help to adorn my beautifullest bride:

And, as ye her array, still throw between

Some graces to be seen;

And, as ye use to Venus, to her sing,

The whiles the woods shall answer, and your echo ring.

Now is my love all ready forth to come :

Let all the virgins therefore well await;

And ye, fresh boys, that tend upon her groom, Prepare yourselves, for he is coming straight. Set all your things in seemly good array,

Fit for so joyful day:

The joyfullest day that ever sun did see.
Fair Sun! shew forth thy favourable ray,
And let thy lifeful heat not fervent be,
For fear of burning her sunshiny face,
Her beauty to disgrace.

O fairest Phoebus! father of the Muse!
If ever I did honour thee aright,

Or sing the thing that might thy mind delight,
Do not thy servant's simple boon refuse,
But let this day, let this one day be mine;
Let all the rest be thine.

Then I thy sovereign praises loud will sing,
That all the woods shall answer, and their echo ring.

Lo! where she comes along with portly pace,
Like Phoebe, from her chamber of the east,
Arising forth to run her mighty race,
Clad all in white, that seems a virgin best.
So well it her beseems, that ye would ween
Some angel she had been.

Her long loose yellow locks,1 like golden wire,
Sprinkled with pearl, and pearling flowers atween,
Do like a golden mantle her attire ;

And being crowned with a garland green,
Seem like some maiden queen.
Her modest eyes, abashed to behold
So many gazers as on her do stare,
Upon the lowly ground affixed are ;
Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold,
But blush to hear her praises sung so loud,
So far from being proud.

Natheless do ye still loud her praises sing,

That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring.

Tell me, ye merchants' daughters, did ye see
So fair a creature in your town before?
So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she,
Adorned with beauty's grace, and virtue's store;
Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright,
Her forehead ivory white,

Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips like cherries charming men to bite,
Her breast like to a bowl of cream uncrudded.
Why stand ye still, ye virgins in amaze,

Upon her so to gaze,

Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing,

...

Behold, whiles she before the altar stands,
Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks,
And blesseth her with his two happy hands,
How the red roses flush up in her cheeks,
And the pure snow, with goodly vermeil stain,
Like crimson dyed in grain;

That even the angels, which continually
About the sacred altar do remain,
Forget their service, and about her fly,

Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fair,
The more they on it stare.

But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground,
Are governed with goodly modesty,
That suffers not one look to glance awry,
Which may let in a little thought unsound.

Why blush ye, love, to give to me your hand,

The pledge of all our band?

Sing, ye sweet angels, alleluya sing,

That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring.*

ROBERT SOUTHWELL.

ROBERT SOUTHWELL is remarkable as a victim of the persecuting laws of the period. He was born in 1560, at St Faiths, Norfolk, of Roman Catholic parents, who sent him, when very young, to be educated at the English college at Douay, in Flanders, and from thence to Rome, where, at sixteen years of age, he entered the society of the Jesuits. In 1584, he returned to his native country

To which the woods did answer, and your echo ring? as a missionary, notwithstanding a law which

But if ye saw that which no eyes can see,
The inward beauty of her lively sprite,
Garnished with heavenly gifts of high degree,
Much more then would ye wonder at that sight,
And stand astonished like to those which read
Medusa's mazeful head.

There dwells sweet Love, and constant Chastity,
Unspotted Faith, and comely Womanhood,
Regard of Honour, and mild Modesty ;
There Virtue reigns as queen in royal throne,
And giveth laws alone,

The which the base affections do obey,
And yield their services unto her will;
Ne thought of things uncomely ever may
Thereto approach to tempt her mind to ill.
Had ye once seen these her celestial treasures,
And unrevealed pleasures,

Then would ye wonder and her praises sing,
That all the woods would answer, and your echo ring.

Open the temple gates unto my love,
Open them wide that she may enter in,
And all the posts adorn as doth behove,
And all the pillars deck with garlands trim,
For to receive this saint with honour due,
That cometh in to you.

With trembling steps, and humble reverence,
She cometh in, before the Almighty's view:
Of her, ye virgins, learn obedience,
When so ye come into those holy places,
To humble your proud faces :

Bring her up to the high altar, that she may
The sacred ceremonies there partake,
The which do endless matrimony make;
And let the roaring organs loudly play
The praises of the Lord in lively notes;
The whiles, with hollow throats,
The choristers the joyous anthem sing,
That all the woods may answer, and their echo ring.

1 It is remarkable, as Warton observes, that all Spenser's females, both in the Faery Queen and in his other poems, are described with yellow hair. This was perhaps in compliment to the queen, or to his fair Elizabeth, the object of this exquisite bridal-song.

threatened all members of his profession found in England with death. For eight years he appears to have ministered secretly but zealously to the scattered adherents of his creed; but, in 1592, he was apprehended at Uxenden, in Middlesex, and committed to a dungeon in the Tower. An imprisonment of three years, with ten inflictions of the rack, wore out his patience, and he entreated to be brought to trial. Cecil is said to have made the brutal remark, that 'if he was in so much haste to be hanged, he should quickly have his desire.' Being at this trial found guilty, upon his own confession, of being a Romish priest, he was condemned to death, and executed at Tyburn accordingly (February 21, 1595), with all the horrible circumstances dictated by the old treason-laws of England.

Southwell's poetical works were edited by W. B. Turnbull, 1856. The prevailing tone of his poetry is that of religious resignation. His short pieces are the best.

His two longest productions, St Peter's Complaint and Mary Magdalene's Funeral Tears, were written in prison. After experiencing great popularity in their own time, insomuch that eleven editions were printed between 1593 and 1600, the poems of Southwell fell, like other productions of the minor poets, into neglect. Some of his conceits are poetical in conception-for example:

He that high growth on cedars did bestow,
Gave also lowly mushrooms leave to grow.

It appears from the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (1874), that there exists in Lancashire an account-book containing interesting notices of Spenser. One Robert Nowell, of Gray's Inn, left certain sums to provide gowns for thirty-two poor scholars of the principal London schools, and at the head of the Merchant Taylors' poor boys is the name of Edmund Spenser. Other entries in Mr Nowell's book shew that, on going to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, Spenser received 10s., and afterwards 6s. and 2s. 6d. The Merchant Taylors' Company may well be proud of their 'poor scholar.'

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I read the label underneath,

That telleth me whereto I must;
I see the sentence too, that saith,
'Remember, man, thou art but dust.'
But yet, alas! how seldom I

Do think, indeed, that I must die!

Continually at my bed's head

A hearse doth hang, which doth me tell That I ere morning may be dead,

Though now I feel myself full well; But yet, alas! for all this, I

Have little mind that I must die!

The gown which I am used to wear,
The knife wherewith I cut my meat;
And eke that old and ancient chair,

Which is my only usual seat;
All these do tell me I must die,
And yet my life amend not I.

My ancestors are turned to clay,
And many of my mates are gone;
My youngers daily drop away,

And can I think to 'scape alone?
No, no; I know that I must die,
And yet my life amend not I. . . .

If none can 'scape Death's dreadful dart ; If rich and poor his beck obey;

If strong, if wise, if all do smart,

Then I to 'scape shall have no way: Then grant me grace, O God! that Í My life may mend, since I must die.

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Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke,

The ashes, shames and scorns;

The fuel justice layeth on,

And mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought

Are men's defiled souls:

For which, as now on fire I am,
To work them to their good,

So will I melt into a bath,

To wash them in my blood.'
With this he vanished out of sight,
And swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind
That it was Christmas Day.

Times go by Turns.

The lopped tree in time may grow again,

Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower; The sorriest wight may find release of pain,

The driest soil suck in some moistening shower: Time goes by turns, and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow;

She draws her favours to the lowest ebb: Her tides have equal times to come and go;

Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web: No joy so great but runneth to an end, No hap so hard but may in fine amend. Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring,

Not endless night, yet not eternal day : The saddest birds a season find to sing,

The roughest storm a calm may soon allay. Thus, with succeeding turns, God tempereth all, That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.

A chance may win that by mischance was lost

That net that holds no great, takes little fish ; In some things all, in all things none are crossed; Few all they need, but none have all they wish. Unmingled joys here to no man befall;

Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all.

WILLIAM WARNER.

A rhyming history entitled Albion's England, was published in 1586, by WILLIAM WARNER (1558-1609), an attorney of the Common Pleas. It was admired in its own day, and is said to have supplanted in popularity the Mirror for Magistrates. The poem is written in the long fourteensyllable verse, but is tedious and monotonous. A few lines will shew the style of the poem :

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SAMUEL DANIEL.

SAMUEL DANIEL, son of a music-master, was born in 1562, near Taunton, in Somersetshire, and seems to have been educated under the patronage of the Pembroke family. In 1579, he was entered a commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he chiefly devoted himself to the study of poetry and history; at the end of three years, he quitted the university, without taking a degree, and was appointed tutor to Anne Clifford, daughter of the Earl of Cumberland. After the death of Spenser, Daniel became what Mr Campbell calls 'voluntary laureate' to the court, but he was soon superseded by Ben Jonson. In the reign of James, he was appointed Master of the Queen's Revels, and inspector of the plays to be represented by the juvenile performers. He was also preferred to be a gentleman-extraordinary and groom of the chamber to Queen Anne. He lived in a gardenhouse in Old Street, St Luke's, where, according to Fuller, he would 'lie hid for some months together, the more retiredly to enjoy the company of the Muses, and then would appear in public to converse with his friends, whereof Dr Cowell and Mr Camden were principal.' Daniel is said also to have shared the friendship of Shakspeare, Marlowe, and Chapman. His character was irreproachable, and his society appears to have been much courted. 'Daniel,' says Coleridge, in a letter to Charles Lamb, 'caught and re-communicated the spirit of the great Countess of Pembroke, the glory of the north; he formed her mind, and her mind inspirited him. Gravely sober on all ordinary affairs, and not easily excited by any, yet there is one on which his blood boils-whenever he speaks of English valour exerted against a foreign enemy.' Coleridge seems to have felt a great admiration for the works and character of Daniel, and to have lost no opportunity of expressing it. Towards the close of his life, the poet retired to a farm he had at Beckington, in Somersetshire, where he died October 14, 1619.

The works of Daniel fill two considerable volumes. They include sonnets, epistles, masques, and dramas; but his principal production is a History of the Civil Wars between York and Lancaster, a poem in eight books, published in 1604. Musophilus, containing a General Defence of Learning, is another elaborate and thoughtful work by Daniel. His tragedies and masks fail in dramatic interest, and his epistles are perhaps the most pleasing and popular of his works. His style is remarkably pure, clear, and flowing, but wants animation. He has been called the 'well-languaged Daniel;' and certainly the copiousness, ease, and smoothness of his language distinguish him from his contemporaries. He is quite modern in style. In taste and moral feeling he was also pre-eminent. Mr Hallam thinks Daniel wanted only greater confidence in his own power; but he was deficient in fire and energy. His thoughtful, equable verse flows on unintermittingly, and never offends; but it becomes tedious and uninteresting from its sameness, and the absence of what may be called salient points. His quiet graces and vein of moral reflection are, however, well worthy of study. His Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland is a fine effusion of meditative thought.

From the Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland. He that of such a height hath built his mind, And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong, As neither hope nor fear can shake the frame Of his resolved powers; nor all the wind Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong His settled peace, or to disturb the same: What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey !

And with how free an eye doth he look down
Upon these lower regions of turmoil,
Where all the storms of passions mainly beat
On flesh and blood! where honour, power, renown,
Are only gay afflictions, golden toil;
Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet
As frailty doth; and only great doth seem
To little minds who do it so esteem.

He looks upon the mightiest monarch's wars,
But only as on stately robberies;
Where evermore the fortune that prevails
Must be the right: the ill-succeeding mars
The fairest and the best-faced enterprise.
Great pirate Pompey lesser pirates quails:
Justice he sees, as if reduced, still

Conspires with power, whose cause must not be ill.

He sees the face of right t' appear as manifold
As are the passions of uncertain man;
Who puts it in all colours, all attires,
To serve his ends, and makes his courses hold.
He sees that, let deceit work what it can,
Plot and contrive base ways to high desires;
That the all-guiding Providence doth yet
All disappoint and mocks the smoke of wit.

Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks
Of tyrants' threats, or with the surly brow
Of power, that proudly sits on others' crimes;
Charged with more crying sins than those he checks.
The storms of sad confusion, that may grow
Up in the present for the coming times,
Appal not him; that hath no side at all,
But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.

Richard II. the Morning before his Murder in
Pontefract Castle.

Whether the soul receives intelligence,
By her near genius, of the body's end,
And so imparts a sadness to the sense,
Foregoing ruin whereto it doth tend;
Or whether nature else hath conference
With profound sleep, and so doth warning send,
By prophetising dreams, what hurt is near,
And gives the heavy careful heart to fear:

However, so it is, the now sad king,
Tossed here and there his quiet to confound,
Feels a strange weight of sorrows gathering
Upon his trembling heart, and sees no ground;
Feels sudden terror bring cold shivering;
Lists not to eat, still muses, sleeps unsound;
His senses droop, his steady eyes unquick,
And much he ails, and yet he is not sick.

The morning of that day which was his last,
After a weary rest, rising to pain,
Out at a little grate his eyes he cast
Upon those bordering hills and open plain,
Where others' liberty make him complain
The more his own, and grieves his soul the more,
Conferring captive crowns with freedom poor.

'O happy man,' saith he, 'that lo I see,
Grazing his cattle in those pleasant fields,
If he but knew his good. How blessed he
That feels not what affliction greatness yields!
Other than what he is he would not be,

Nor change his state with him that sceptre wields.
Thine, thine is that true life: that is to live,
To rest secure, and not rise up to grieve.

"Thou sitt'st at home safe by thy quiet fire,
And hear'st of others' harms, but fearest none :
And there thou tell'st of kings, and who aspire,
Who fall, who rise, who triumph, who do moan.
Perhaps thou talk'st of me, and dost inquire
Of my restraint, why here I live alone,
And pitiest this my miserable fall;
For pity must have part—envy not all.

'Thrice happy you that look as from the shore,
And have no venture in the wreck you see;
No interest, no occasion to deplore

Other men's travels, while yourselves sit free.

How much doth your sweet rest make us the more

To see our misery, and what we be :

Whose blinded greatness, ever in turmoil,
Still seeking happy life, makes life a toil.'

Early Love.

Ah, I remember well-and how can I
But evermore remember well-when first

Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was
The flame we felt; when as we sat and sighed
And looked upon each other, and conceived
Not what we ailed, yet something we did ail,
And yet were well, and yet we were not well,
And what was our disease we could not tell.
Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look: and thus
In that first garden of our simpleness

We spent our childhood. But when years began
To reap the fruit of knowledge; ah, how then
Would she with sterner looks, with graver brow,
Check my presumption and my forwardness!
Yet still would give me flowers, still would shew
What she would have me, yet not have me know.

Sonnets.

I must not grieve my love, whose eyes would read
Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smile;
Flowers have time before they come to seed,
And she is young, and now must sport the while.
And sport, sweet maid, in season of these years,
And learn to gather flowers before they wither;
And where the sweetest blossom first appears,
Let love and youth conduct thy pleasures thither,
Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air,
And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise :
Pity and smiles do best become the fair;
Pity and smiles must only yield thee praise.
Make me to say, when all my griefs are gone,
Happy the heart that sighed for such a one.

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,
Relieve my anguish, and restore the light,
With dark forgetting of my care, return.
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwreck of my ill-advised youth;
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,
Without the torments of the night's untruth.
Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires,
To model forth the passions of to-morrow;
Never let the rising sun prove you liars,
To add more grief, to aggravate my sorrow.
Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,
And never wake to feel the day's disdain,

Ulysses and the Syren.

SYREN.

Come, worthy Greek, Ulysses, come,
Possess these shores with me;
The winds and seas are troublesome,
And here we may be free.

Here may we sit and view their toil,
That travail in the deep,

Enjoy the day in mirth the while,
And spend the night in sleep.

ULYSSES.

Fair nymph, if fame or honour were
To be attained with ease,
Then would I come and rest with thee,
And leave such toils as these:
But here it dwells, and here must I
With danger seek it forth;
To spend the time luxuriously
Becomes not men of worth.

SYREN.

Ulysses, oh, be not deceived
With that unreal name:
This honour is a thing conceived,
And rests on others' fame.
Begotten only to molest

Our peace, and to beguile

(The best thing of our life) our rest, And give us up to toil!

ULYSSES.

Delicious nymph, suppose there were No honour, or report,

Yet manliness would scorn to wear
The time in idle sport:

For toil doth give a better touch
To make us feel our joy;

And ease finds tediousness, as much
As labour yields annoy.

SYREN.

Then pleasure likewise seems the shore,
Whereto tends all your toil;

Which you forego to make it more,
And perish oft the while.
Who may disport them diversely,
Find never tedious day;
And ease may have variety,
As well as action may.

ULYSSES.

But natures of the noblest frame These toils and dangers please; And they take comfort in the same, As much as you in ease:

And with the thought of actions past Are recreated still :

When pleasure leaves a touch at last To shew that it was ill.

SYREN.

That doth opinion only cause, That's out of custom bred; Which makes us many other laws, Than ever nature did.

No widows wail for our delights, Our sports are without blood; The world we see by warlike wights Receives more hurt than good.

ULYSSES.

But yet the state of things require
These motions of unrest,
And these great spirits of high desire
Seem born to turn them best:

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