1

What pleasure then to walk and see,

Endlang a river clear,

The perfect form of every tree

Within the deep appear.

The salmon out of cruives and creels,

Uphailed into scouts1;

The bells and circles on the weills 5,

Through leaping of the trouts.

O sure it were a seemly thing,
While all is still and calm,

The praise of God to play and sing
With trumpet and with shalm.

Through all the land great is the gild
Of rustic folks that cry;

Of bleating sheep, fra they be fill'd,
Of calves and rowting kye.

All labourers draw hame at even,

And can to others say,

Thanks to the gracious God of Heaven,

Quhilk sent this summer day.

Along.-2 Places for confining fish, generally placed in the dam of a river.-3 Baskets.-4 Small boats or yawls.-5 Wells.

THOMAS NASH.

BORN 1558.-DIED ABOUT 1600.

THOMAS NASH was born at Lowenstoffe in Suffolk, was bred at Cambridge, and closed a calamitous life of authorship at the age of forty-two. Dr. Beloe' has given a list of his works, and Mr. D'Israelio an account of his shifts and miseries. Adversity seems to have whetted his genius, as his most tolerable verses are those which describe his own despair; and in the midst of his woes, he exposed to just derision the profound fooleries of the astrologer Harvey, who, in the year 1582, had thrown the whole kingdom into consternation by his predictions of the probable effects of the junction of Jupiter and Saturn. Drayton, in his Epistle of Poets and Poesy, says of him

Sharply satyric was he, and that way

He went, since that his being to this day,
Few have attempted, and I surely think,
These words shall hardly be set down with ink,
Shall blast and scorch so as his could.

From the allusion which he makes in the following quotation to Sir P. Sydney's compassion, before the introduction of the following lines, it may be conjectured that he had experienced the bounty of that noble character.

1 Anecdotes of Scarce Books.-2 Calamities of Authors.

DESPAIR OF A POOR SCHOLAR,

FROM PIERCE PENNILESS.

WHY is't damnation to despair and die,
When life is my true happiness' disease?
My soul, my soul, thy safety makes me fly
The faulty means that might my pain appease;
Divines and dying men may talk of hell,
But in my heart her several torments dwell.

Ah, worthless wit! to train me to this woe:
Deceitful arts! that nourish discontent:
Ill thrive the folly that bewitch'd me so !
Vain thoughts, adieu! for now I will repent,-
And yet my wants persuade me to proceed,
For none take pity of a scholar's need.

Forgive me, God, although I curse my birth,
And ban the air wherein I breathe a wretch,
Since misery hath daunted all my mirth,
And I am quite undone through promise breach;
Ah friends!-no friends that then ungentle frown,
When changing fortune casts us headlong down.

Without redress complains my careless verse, And Midas' ears relent not at my moan; In some far land will I my griefs rehearse, 'Mongst them that will be mov'd when I shall groan. England, adieu! the soil that brought me forth, Adieu! unkind, where skill is nothing worth.

EDWARD VERE,

EARL OF OXFORD.

BORN 1534.-DIED 1604.

THIS nobleman sat as Great Chamberlain of England upon the trial of Mary Queen of Scots. In the year of the armada he distinguished his public spirit by fitting out some ships at his private cost. He had travelled in Italy in his youth, and is said to have returned the most accomplished coxcomb of his age. The story of his quarrel with Sir Philip Sydney, as it is related by Collins, gives us a most unfavourable idea of his manners and temper, and shews to what a height the claims of aristocratical privilege were at that time carried1. Some still

1 The Earl of Oxford being one day in the tennis-court with Sir Philip Sydney, on some offence which he had taken, ordered him to leave the room, and, on his refusal, gave him the epithet of a puppy. Sir Philip retorted the lie on his lordship; and left the place, expecting to be followed by the peer. But Lord Oxford neither followed him nor noticed his quarrel, till her Majesty's council had time to command the peace. The queen interfered, reminding Sir Philip of the difference between " earls and gentlemen," and of the respect which inferiors owed their superiors. Sydney, boldly but respectfully, stated to her majestý, that rank among freemen could claim no other homage than precedency, and did not obey her commands to make submission to Oxford. For a fuller statement of this anecdote, vide the quotation from Collins, in the British Bibliographer, vol. i. p. 83.

more discreditable traits of his character are to be found in the history of his life 1.

FANCY AND DESIRE.

FROM THE PARADISE OF DAINTY DEVICES.

WHEN Wert thou born, Desire? In pride and pomp of May.

By whom, sweet boy, wert thou begot? By fond conceit, men say.

Tell me who was thy nurse? Fresh Youth, in sugar'd

joy.

What was thy meat and daily food? Sad sighs with great annoy.

What hadst thou then to drink? Unsavoury lover's

tears.

What cradle wert thou rocked in? In hope devoid of fears.

What lull'd thee, then, asleep? Sweet sleep, which likes me best.

Tell me where is thy dwelling-place? In gentle hearts I rest.

What thing doth please thee most? To gaze on beauty still.

What dost thou think to be thy foe? Disdain of my good-will.

Doth company displease? Yes, surely, many one. Where doth Desire delight to live? He loves to

1

live alone.

By Mr. Park, in the Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors.