nominated one of the commissioners appointed to hold the great seal, and elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford, in opposition to Essex, the Queen determining the event by a letter in his favour. On the death of Burleigh he became Lord Treasurer; he afterwards assisted in promoting the peace with Denmark; and upon the occasion of the trial of Essex, was appointed Lord High Steward. He held the office of Lord High Treasurer till the death of Elizabeth, and in 1603 was confirmed in it for life by a patent from King James, who created him Earl of Dorset; but did not live to enjoy his new honours long. He was taken ill in July 1607, and struggled against age and disease till the 19th of April following, when he expired suddenly at the council table at Whitehall. On the 20th of May he was buried in Westminster Abbey; when Abbot, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, preached his funeral sermon.

His character as a statesman was distinguished for integrity. Few ministers maintained through so many important employments so unblemished a reputation. His style in speaking, as in writing, was remarkable for purity, vigour, and affluence of resources; and it is said of him, that even in that gloomy tribunal which was seldom cheered by melodious utterances he was called the Star Chamber Bell.' As a poet, his chief claim to a high place in the history of English literature arises from his share-by common assent, supposed to be the principal share-in the tragedy of Gordubuc, the first specimen of dramatic blank verse in our language: but it is by the Induction he is known to most readers; since, whatever may be the merits of Gordubuc in other respects, its poetical attractions are not of a kind to render it popular. Written subsequently to Surrey, it is more antique in manner-as, indeed, Sackville is at all times; while the extreme length of the speeches, and the heaviness of the incidents, accumulate. obstacles in the way of enjoyment which few have sufficient courage or patience to encounter.

The machinery prepared in the Induction for the general plan of the Mirror for Magistrates, exhibits in its boldness and

variety, a faithful reflection of the strength and prodigality of Sackville's genius. His plan differs materially from that of the other contributors. 'He lays the scene,' says Campbell, drawing a comparison between him and his associates, 'like Dante, in hell, and makes his characters relate their history at the gates of Elysium, under the guidance of Sorrow, while the authors of the other legends are generally contented with simply dreaming of the unfortunate personages, and by going to sleep, offer a powerful inducement to follow their example.”1 The Induction, however, labours under this disadvantage, that the extensive design for which it was originally intended as a prelude, having been abandoned, Sackville was obliged to adapt it to the single legend of Buckingham, which brings it to an abrupt and unsatisfactory termination. It is like a noble portico, with stately columns, to a very small house.

The rank and qualities of Sackville as a poet have been so accurately and comprehensively described by Hallam, that nothing can be added by others. "The Induction,' he observes, displays best his poetical genius; it is, like much earlier poetry, a representation of allegorical personages, but with a fertility of imagination, vividness of description, and strength of language, which not only leave his predecessors far behind, but may fairly be compared with some of the most poetical passages in Spenser. Sackville's Induction forms a link which unites the school of Chaucer and Lydgate to the Faery Queen. It would certainly be vain to look in Chaucer, wherever Chaucer is original, for the grand creations of Sackville's fancy, yet we should never find any one who would rate Sackville above Chaucer. The strength of an eagle is not to be measured by the height of his place, but by the time that he continues on the wing. Sackville's Induction consists of a few hundred lines; and even in these, there is a monotony of gloom and sorrow, which prevents us from wishing it to be longer.'

1 Specimens of the British Poets, ii. 135.

In this just and discriminating criticism will be found the reason for introducing the Induction into this volume, and for not following Sackville farther into that dismal landscape, upon which, as Campbell truly says, 'the sun never shines.' Connecting two distinct ages, and reflecting some of the attributes of both, Sackville cannot be omitted from a Collection of English Poets; but when we have traversed the Induction, the interest ceases. The Complaint only expands the monotony into a sort of miserable languor, which wearies the reader and disappoints his expectations.

The text has been adopted from Mr. Haslewood's accurate edition of 1815.

THE INDUCTION.

I

'HE wrathfull winter proching on apace,

THE

With blustering blasts had all ybarde the treene, And olde Saturnus with his frosty face

With chilling cold had pearst the tender greene :
The mantles rent, wherein enwrapped beene

The gladsom groues that now lay ouerthrowne,
The tapets1 torne, and euery blome downe blowne.

2

The soyle, that erst so seemly was to seene,
Was all despoyled of her beauties hewe:

And soote-fresh flowers (wherewith the sommer's queene
Had clad the earth) now Boreas' blasts downe blewe:
And small foules, flocking, in theyr song did rewe
The winter's wrath, wherewith ech thing defaste,
In woefull wise bewayld the sommer past.

3

Hawthorne had lost his motley liuery,

The naked twiges were shiuering all for cold:
And, dropping downe the teares aboundantly,

1 Tapestries, as explained In a former note; here applied imagerially to the foliage of the trees.

Ech thing, mee thought, with weeping eye mee tolde
The cruell season, bidding mee withholde

My selfe within, for I was gotten out
Into the fieldes, wheras I walkt about.

4

When loe the night with misty mantels spred
Gan darke the day, and dim the azure skies,
And Venus in her message Hermes sped
To bloudy Mars, to will him not to rise,
While shee her selfe approacht in speedy wise:
And Virgo hyding her disdaynefull brest,
With Thetis now had layde her downe to rest.

5

Whiles Scorpio dreading Sagittarius dart,

Whose bowe prest bent in fight, the string had slipt, Down slide into the Ocean flud aparte,

The Beare, that in the Irish seas had dipt

His griesly feete, with speede from thence hee whipt:
For Thetis, hasting from the virgin's bed,
Pursude the Beare, that, ere she came, was fled.

6

And Phaeton now, neare reaching to his race
With glistring beames, gold-streaming where they bent,
Was prest to enter in his resting place:

Erythius, that in the cart fyrst went,

Had euen now attaynd his iorney's stent:1
And, fast declining, hid away his head,
While Titan coucht him in his purple bed.

7

And pale Cinthea, with her borrowed light,
Beginning to supply her brother's place,
Was past the noonesteede sixe degrees in sight,
When sparkling stars amid the heauen's face,
With twinkling light shone on the earth apace,
That, while they brought about the nighte's chare,
The darke had dimd the day, ere I was ware.

1 End or termination, from stente, to desist.

8

And sorrowing I to see the sommer flowers,
The liuely greene, the lusty lease, forlorne,
The sturdy trees so shattred with the showers,
The fieldes so fade, that florisht so beforne :
It taught mee well, all earthly things be borne
To dye the death: for nought long time may last:
The sommer's beauty yeeldes to winter's blast.

9

Then looking vpward to the heauen's leames,
With nighte's starres thicke powdred euery where,
Which erst so glistned with the golden streames
That chearfull Phoebus spred downe from his sphere,
Beholding darke, oppressing day, so neare:

The sodayne sight reduced to my mynde,
The sundry chaunges that in earth wee finde.

IO

That musing on this worldly wealth in thought, Which coms, and goes, more faster than wee see The flickring flame that with the fyre is wrought, My busie mynde presented vnto mee

Such fall of peeres as in the realme had bee:

That oft I wisht some would their woes descryue, To warne the rest whome fortune left a liue.

II

And strait forth stalking with redoubled pace,
For that I sawe the night drew on so fast,
In blacke all clad there fell before my face
A piteous wight, whom woe had all forewast,
Forth on her eyes the cristall tears out brast,
And sighing sore her hands shee wrong and folde,
Tare all her hayre, that ruth was to beholde.

I2

Her body smale, forwithred, and forspent,
As is the stalke that sommer's drought opprest,
Her wealked face with woefull teares bee sprent,
Her colour pale, and, as it seemed her best,
In woe and plaint reposed was her rest: