Tell men of high condition,
That manage the estate,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate:
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most,

They beg for more by spending, Who, in their greatest cost,

Seek nothing but commending:
And if they make reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;

Tell honour how it alters; Tell beauty how she blasteth;

Tell favour how it falters:
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness;
Tell wisdom she entangles

Herself in over-wiseness:
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness;
Tell skill it is pretension;

Tell charity of coldness;

Tell law it is contention:

And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;
Tell justice of delay:
And if they will reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming ;

Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming:

If arts and schools reply,

Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it's fled the city;

Tell how the country erreth;
Tell manhood shakes off pity;
Tell virtue least preferreth:
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done blabbing,Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing,

Stab at thee he that will,

No stab the soul can kill.

HIS PILGRIMAGE.

Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,

My bottle of salvation,

My gown of glory, hope's true gage;
And thus I'll take my pilgrimage.

Blood must be my body's balmer;
No other balm will there be given;
Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer,

Travelleth towards the land of heaven?

Over the silver mountains,

Where spring the nectar fountains:
There will I kiss

The bowl of bliss ;

And drink mine everlasting fill
Upon every milken hill.

My soul will be a-dry before;
But after, it will thirst no more.

Then by that happy blissful day,
More peaceful pilgrims I shall see,
That have cast off their rags of clay,
And walk apparell'd fresh like me.
I'll take them first

To quench their thirst
And taste of nectar suckets,

At those clear wells

Where sweetness dwells,

Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.

And when our bottles and all we
Are fill'd with immortality,

Then the blessed paths we'll travel,
Strow'd with rubies thick as gravel;
Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,
High walls of coral and pearly bowers.
From thence to heaven's bribeless hall,
Where no corrupted voices brawl;
No conscience molten into gold,
No forg'd accuser bought or sold,

No cause deferr'd, no vain-spent journey,
For there Christ is the king's Attorney,
Who pleads for all without degrees,
And He hath angels, but no fees.
And when the grand twelve-million jury
Of our sins, with direful fury,

Against our souls black verdicts give,

Christ pleads His death, and then we live.

Be Thou my speaker, taintless pleader,
Unblotted lawyer, true proceeder !
Thou givest salvation even for alms;
Not with a bribed lawyer's palms.
And this is mine eternal plea

To Him that made heaven, earth, and sea,
That, since my flesh must die so soon,

And want a head to dine next noon,

Just at the stroke, when my veins start and spread, Set on my soul an everlasting head!

Then am I ready, like a palmer fit,

To tread those blest paths which before I writ.

Of death and judgment, heaven and hell,
Who oft doth think, must needs die well.

VERSES FOUND IN HIS BIBLE IN THE GATE-HOUSE AT WESTMINSTER.

Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days;
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust!

ELIZABETHAN MISCELLANIES.

THE Poetical Miscellanies are among the most characteristic productions of the age of Elizabeth, and no selection from the work of that age could be at all complete without a reference to them. Devised sometimes by an enterprising bookseller, sometimes by a literary editor like Clement Robinson or Francis Davison, they formed collections-cancioneros as it were-of the occasional verse of most of the poets of the day, and they thus preserve for us a mass of poems which, without such an opportunity for publication, the authors would infallibly have let die. Much of what is contained in the later miscellanies, especially in England's Helicon, was, it is true, reprinted from works already issued ; but much, on the other hand, was new. The value of the collections was at once recognised, and no work of any single author of the time had such success as fell to their lot; for example, Tottell's Miscellany went through eight editions before 1587, and the Paradyse of Dainty Devises through nine between 1576 and 1606. They were not, however, books likely to survive the shocks of time; and copies of these original editions are in almost all cases excessively rare. Fortunately most of the poems are now put beyond the risk of loss by the careful reprints of modern scholars, such as Sir Egerton Brydges, Mr. Park, Mr. Collier, and Mr. Arber. The following is a list of the printed Miscellanies which are known to exist :

(1) Tottell's Miscellany; properly called Songes and Sonettes, written by the ryght honorable Lorde Henry Haward, late Earle of Surrey, and other. 1557.

This, which is of course not strictly Elizabethan, contains the first edition of Surrey's and Wyatt's poems; poems by Nicholas Grimald, and about forty poems by uncertain authors, among whom are known to have been Thomas, Lord Vaux, Edward Somerset, and John Heywood.