Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound
Of all that mote delight a daintie eare

For all that pleasing is to liuing eare

Was there consorted in one barmonie

Birds, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree.

The joyous birdes shrouded in chearefull shade
Their notes unto the voice attempted sweet;
Th' Angelicall soft trembling voyces made
To th' instruments diuine respondence meet:
The siluer sounding instruments did meet
With the base murmure of the waters fall:
The waters fall with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call:
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.

Spenser, Canto 12, p. 382.

The first couplet of this stanza had been previously imitated by Niccols at the commencement of the poem.

While joyous birds beneath the leauie shade

With pleasant singing sweet respondence made.

Her Iuorie brests did euer open lie

To readie spoile of gazers greedie eie.

Niccols.

Her snowy brest was bare to ready spoyle

Of hungry eies.

Spenser, Canto 12, p. 384.

Even the fine description of Hyems, before quoted, is partly derived from the magnificent representation of the armour of Prince Arthur in the seventh canto, as for instance

And in the steade of plume stood thereupon

A bunch of ysacles by nature growen;

Which with pure snow being sprinckled diuerslie
Did seeme to daunce and leape for iollitie.

Vpon the top of all his loftie crest

A bounch of heares discoloured diuersly,

Niccols.

With sprincled pearle, and gold full richly drest
Did shake, and seemd to daunce for iollity.

Spenser, Canto 7, p. 98.

There are many other allusions also to the Faery Queen in the course of the poem, such as the names of Malbecco and Helinore, mentioned on the reverse of Sig. G 1, besides the allusiou to the "Squyre of Dames" and the "Damzell of low degree," Spenser's Faerie Queen, bk. iii, canto 7, on Sig. G 3, and others which might be enumerated.

We derive our principal information of Niccols from the pages of Ant. Wood, who says that he was born in London, of respectable parents, about the year 1584; and we are able, from his own writings, to state that, when only in his twelfth year, he accompanied the Earl of Nottingham, the Lord High Admiral of England, on the voyage to Cadiz in 1596, and was on board the Lord Admiral's ship (The Ark) at the taking of Cadiz, when a dove, during the siege, rested on the main-yard of the ship, and remained with it till the vessel arrived in triumph with the rest on the English coast. This little circumstance appears to have made considerable impression on the author at that early age, who alludes to it three several times in his poems. First, in the dedicatory sonnet prefixed to his "Winter Nights Vision," addressed to the Lord Admiral:

As once that Doue (true honors aged lord)

Houering with wearied wings about your Arke

When Cadiz towers did fal beneath your sword,
To rest herselfe did single out that barke :
So my meeke Muse, from all that conquering rout,
Conducted through the seas wilde wildernes
By your great selfe, to graue their names about
Th' Iberian pillars, of Ioues Hercules:

Most humblie craue your lordly Lion's aid, &c.

Again he records the same event in "England's Eliza," p. 861:

Recorded by the Author then present.

As that thrice happie bird, the peacefull Doue,
When the old world groaning beneath the raigne
Of Giants raging rule, was drown'd by Ioue,
Brought heau'nly newes of a new world againe
Unto the Arke, then floting on the maine:

So now a Doue did with her presence greet
Elizaes Arke, then Admirall of the fleet.
For loe the fleet riding at seas in sight
Of Cadiz towers, making that towne the marke
Of their desire, the Doue did stay her flight
Upon the maind yard of that stately barke,
Which long before that time was termd the Arke;
Whose unexpected presence did professe

Peace to the fleet; but to the foes distresse.

And again it is mentioned in the same poem, p. 869:
Leauing the towne despoil'd of all her store
All made returne unto the ships at shore;
At whose depart such after-signe was seene,
As had before at their arrivall been.

Recorded by the Author then present.

For hoysing saile at sea, loe as before
Upon the Arke a Doue her flight did stay,
With which departing from th' Iberian shore,
She from the same departed not away;
But kept her station till that happie day

That all the fleet did with the compleat hoast
Arriue in triumph on the English coast.

After his return from Cadiz he renewed his education, and became, in 1602, at the age of 18, a student of Magdalen College, Oxford, but removed from thence shortly afterwards to Magdalen Hall, and took his Bachelor's degree in 1606. In the year following, when only twenty-three, he produced the present poem of The Cuckow, a work displaying considerable powers of description, and proving him to be, at that early age, a finished

and melodious versifier. His next work was a remodification, or new arrangement or that popular work, The Mirror for Magistrates, in which he omitted some of the former lives, but added ten new histories, with a poetical induction of his own. This "last part" he entitled A Winter Nights Vision: Being an addition of such Princes especially famous, who were exempted in the former Historie. By Richard Niccols, Oxon. Mag. Hall. 4to, at London, Imprinted by Felix Kyngston 1610. In the Poetical Induction to this work he alludes to the present Poem:

My muse, that mongst meane birds whilome, did waue her flaggie wing
And Cuckow-like of Castaes wrongs, in rustick tunes did sing,

Now with the mornes cloud-climing Lark must mount a pitch more hie
And like Ioues bird with stedfast lookes outbraue the Sunnes bright eie.

At the end of the Winter Nights Vision there is subjoined, with a fresh title, a poem in the octave stanza, entitled “ Englands Eliza; or the victorious and triumphant reigne of that Virgin Empresse of sacred memorie, Elizabeth Queene of England, France, and Ireland," &c. 4to. At London, Imprinted by Felix Kyngston 1610. We have already mentioned the great obligations which Niccols owed to Spenser, and his ardent admiration of that author's writings. In his Induction to this Poem, which contains passages of much poetical beauty, after mentioning the dreadful Plague which ravaged London in 1606, from which, "struck terror-sicke with dread of heav'n's hot plague," the author had fled in the month of August to Greenwich, and after describing the ancient palace of that town,

Fam'd for the birth of great Elizaes grace,

and the neighbouring towers of Windsor, and

Wishing that heau'n into his infant Muse

That antique Poet's spirit would infuse

Who, when in Thracian land hee did rehearse

Iänthees wofull end, in tragick verse

Did make men, birds, beasts, trees, and rockes of ston

That virgins timelesse tragedie to mone:

he introduces the following honourable tribute to the memory of Spenser:

O did that Faerie Queenes sweet singer liue
That to the dead eternitie could giue,
Or if, that heauen by influence would infuse
His heauenlie spirit on mine earth-borne Muse,

Her name ere this a mirror should haue been
Lim'd out in golden verse to th' eyes of men:
But my sad Muse, though willing yet too weak

In her rude rymes Elizaes worth to speak,

Must yeeld to those, whose Muse can mount on high
And with braue plumes can clime the loftie skie.

In the following year he is supposed to have written a play called The Twynnes Tragedye, which was entered on the Stationers' Books the 15th Feb. 1611, but of which no copy is known to exist. After remaining for some time at the University of Oxford, and "being esteemed among the most ingenious men of his day," he removed to London, where, says Wood, "he obtained an employment suitable to his faculty." What this employment was, Wood does not inform us, but it appears to have occupied much of his time, and prevented him from accomplishing some other literary projects he had meditated. His other works are, The Three Sisters Teores. Shed at the late solemne Funerals of the Royall deceased Henry, Prince of Wales. Lond. 1613. 4to. The Furies: with Vertues Encomium: or, The Image of Honour. In two Bookes of Epigrammes satyricall and encomiasticke. Lond. 1614. 8vo. Monodia: or Waltham's Complaint upon the Death of the Lady Honor Hay. Lond. 1615. 8vo. London's Artillery, briefly containing the noble practise of that wo(r)thie Societie: with the Moderne and Ancient martiall exercises, natures of armes, vertue of Magistrates, Antiquitie, Glorie and Chronograpby of this honourable Cittie. Lond. 1616. 4to. Sir Thomas Overburies Vision. With the Ghoasts of Weston, Mrs. Turner, the late Lieutenant of the Tower, and Franklin. Lond. 1616. 4to. The Beggars Ape, a Poem. Lond. 1627. 4to. This last work, which was not published until 1627, and then anonymously, has not hitherto been generally included in the list of this author's writings, but we know it to be the production of Niccols from his own allusion to it in the Induction to his Winter Nights Vision. It was most probably a posthumous work, as no acknowledged production of his is known after 1616. The time and place of his death are not known, but it is generally supposed that he died young, soon after the year 1616.

The reader will find an excellent analysis of the allegory of the poem of The Cuckow in an article in the second volume of the Restituta, p. 1, by Mr. Park, from the present copy, which was formerly in his possession. And for further information concerning Niccols and his productions, consult also Wood's Ath. Oxon., vol. ii, p. 166, ed. Bliss; Warton's Hist. Eng. Poet.;