a dying man, whose eye glares on eternity, and whose voice is raised by strength from another world.* Raleigh, also (according to Puttenham), had a "lofty and passionate" vein. It is difficult, however, to authenticate his poetical relics. Of the numerous sonnetteers of that time (keeping Shakspeare and Spenser apart), Drummond and Daniel are certainly the best. Hall was the master satirist of the age; obscure and quaint at times, but full of nerve and picturesque illustration. No contemporary satirist has given equal grace and dignity to moral censure. Very unequal to him in style, though often as original in thought, and as graphic in exhibiting manners, is Donne, some of whose satires have been modernized by Pope.† Corbet has left some humorous pieces of raillery on the Puritans. Wither, all fierce and fanatic on the opposite side, has nothing more to recommend him in invective, than the sincerity of that zeal for God's house, which ate him up. Marston, better known in the drama than in satire, was characterized by his contemporaries for his ruffian style. He has more will than skill in invective. "He puts in his blows with love," as the pugilists say of a hard but artless fighter; a degrading image, but on that account not the less applicable to a coarse satirist.

Donne was the "best good-natured man, with the worst-natured Muse." A romantic and uxorious lover, he addresses the object of his real tenderness with ideas that outrage decorum. He begins his own epithalamium with a most indelicate invocation to his bride. His ruggedness and whim are almost proverbially known. Yet there is a beauty of thought which at intervals rises from his chaotic imagination, like the form of Venus smiling on the waters. Giles and Phineas Fletcher possessed harmony and fancy. The simple Warner has left, in his 'Argentile and Curan," perhaps the finest pastoral episode in our language. Browne

Is not the Soul's Errand the same poem with the Soul's Knell, which is always ascribed to Richard Edwards? If so, why has it been inserted in Raleigh's poems by Sir Egerton Brydges? [They are distinct poems.-C.]

Would not Donne's satires, which abound with so much wit, appear more charming if he had taken care of his words and his numbers? . . I may safely

say of this present age, that if we are not so great wits as Donne, yet certainly we are better poets.-DRYDEN. -C.

was an elegant describer of rural scenes, though incompetent to fill them with life and manners. Chalkhill is a writer of pastoral romance, from whose work of Thealma and Clearchus a specimen should have been given in the body of these Selections, but was omitted by an accidental oversight. Chalkhill's numbers are as musical as those of any of his contemporaries, who employ the same form of versification. It was common with the writers of the heroic couplet of that age to bring the sense to a full and frequent pause in the middle of the line. This break, by relieving the uniformity of the couplet measure, sometimes produces a graceful effect and a varied harmony which we miss in the exact and unbroken tune of our later rhyme; a beauty of which the reader will probably be sensible, in perusing such lines of Chalkhill's as these:

"And ever and anon he might well hear
A sound of music steal in at his ear,
As the wind gave it being. So sweet an air
Would strike a siren mute.”

This relief, however, is used rather too liberally by the elder rhymists, and is perhaps as often the result of their carelessness as of their good taste. Nor is it at all times obtained by them without the sacrifice of one of the most important uses of rhyme; namely, the distinctness of its effect in marking the measure. The chief source of the gratification which the ear finds in rhyme is our perceiving the emphasis of sound coincide with that of sense. In other words, the rhyme is best placed on the most emphatic word in the sentence. But it is nothing unusual with the ancient couplet writers, by laying the rhyme on unimportant words, to disappoint the ear of this pleasure, and to exhibit the restraint of rhyme without its emphasis.

As a poetical narrator of fiction, Chalkhill is rather tedious; but he atones for the slow progress of his narrative by many touches of rich and romantic description.

Nothing could have made Donne a poet, unless as great a change had been worked in the internal structure of his ears, as was wrought in elongating those of Midas.-SOUTHEY, Specimens, p. xxiv.-C.

? Chalkhill was a gentleman and a scholar, the friend of Spenser. He died before he could finish the fable of his "Thealma and Clearchus," which was published, long after his death, by Isaak Walton.

And has been since reprinted; one of Mr. Singer's numerous contributions to our literature.-C.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIESTESS OF DIANA.

Within a little silent grove hard by,
Upon a small ascent, he might espy
A stately chapel, richly gilt without,
Beset with shady sycamores about;
And ever and anon he might well hear
A sound of music steal in at his ear,

As the wind gave it being. So sweet an air
Would strike a siren mute, and ravish her.
He sees no creature that might cause the same,
But he was sure that from the grove it came,
And to the grove he goes to satisfy

The curiosity of ear and eye.

Thorough the thick-leaved boughs he makes a way,
Nor could the scratching brambles make him stay,
But on he rushes, and climbs up a hill,
Thorough a glade. He saw and heard his fill-

A hundred virgins there he might espy,

Prostrate before a marble deity,
Which, by its portraiture, appear'd to be
The image of Diana. On their knee

They tended their devotions with sweet airs,
Offering the incense of their praise and prayers,
Their garments all alike.

And cross their snowy silken robes they wore
An azure scarf, with stars embroider'd o'er;
Their hair in curious tresses was knot up,
Crown'd with a silver crescent on the top;
A silver bow their left hand held, their right,
For their defence, held a sharp-headed flight
Of arrows..

Under their vestments, something short before,
White buskins, laced with ribbanding, they wore;
It was a catching sight to a young eye,
That Love had fix'd before. He might espy
One whom the rest had, sphere-like, circled round,
Whose head was with a golden chaplet crown'd:
He could not see her face, only his ear

Was blest with the sweet words that came from her.

THE IMAGE OF JEALOUSY IN THE CHAPEL OF DIANA. A curious eye

......

Might see some relics of a piece of art

That Psyche made, when Love first fired her heart;
It was the story of her thoughts, that she
Curiously wrought in lively imagery;
Among the rest she thought of Jealousy,
Time left untouch'd to grace antiquity,
She was decypher'd by a tim'rous dame,
Wrapt in a yellow mantle lined with flame;
Her looks were pale, contracted with a frown,
Her eyes suspicious, wandering up and down:
Behind her Fear attended, big with child,
Able to fright Presumption if she smiled;
After her flew a sigh between two springs
Of briny waters. On her dove-like wings
She bore a letter seal'd with a half moon,
And superscribed-this from Suspicion.

ABODE OF THE WITCH ORANDRA.

Her cell was hewn out in the marble rock
By more than human art. She need not knock-
The door stood always open, large and wide,
Grown o'er with woolly moss on either side,
And interwove with ivy's flattering twines,
Through which the carbuncle and diamond shines;
Not set by art, but there by Nature sown

At the world's birth; so starlike bright they shone,

.....

In they went:

The ground was strewn with flowers, whose sweet scent,
Mixt with the choice perfumes from India brought,
Intoxicates his brains, and quickly caught

His credulous sense. The walls were gilt, and set
With precious stones, and all the roof was fret
With a gold vine, whose straggling branches spread
O'er all the arch-the swelling grapes were red;
This art had made of rubies, cluster'd so.

To the quickest eye they more than seem'd to grow.
About the walls lascivious pictures hung,
Such as whereof loose Ovid sometimes sung;
On either side a crew of dwarfish elves
Held waxen tapers taller than themselves,
Yet so well shaped unto their little stature,
So angel-like in face, so sweet in feature,
Their rich attire so differing, yet so well
Becoming her that wore it, none could tell
Which was the fairest.

.......

After a low salute they all 'gan sing,
And circle in the stranger in a ring;
Orandra to her charms was stept aside,
Leaving her guest half won, and wanton eyed:
He had forgot his herb-cunning delight
Had so bewitch'd his ears, and blear'd his sight,
That he was not himself.

Unto his view

She represents a banquet, usher'd in
By such a shape as she was sure would win

His appetite to taste-so like she was
To his Clarinda both in shape and face,
So voiced, so habited-of the same gait
And comely gesture..

Hardly did he refrain
From sucking in destruction at her lip;
Sin's cup will poison at the smallest sip.
She weeps and wooes again with subtleness,
And with a frown she chides his backwardness:
Have you (said she) sweet prince, so soon forgot
Your own beloved Clarinda? Are you not
The same you were, that you so slightly set
By her that once you made the cabinet
Of your choice counsel ? Hath some worthier love
Stole your affections? What is it should move
You to dislike so soon? Must I still taste
No other dish but sorrow? When we last
Emptied our souls into each other's breast,
It was not so.

With that she wept afresh
She seem'd to fall into a swound;
And stooping down to raise her from the ground,
He puts his herb into his mouth, whose taste
Soon changed his mind: he lifts her-but in vain,
His hands fell off, and she fell down again:
With that she lent him such a frown as would
Have kill'd a common lover, and made cold
Even lust itself. . . . . .

The lights went out,
And darkness hung the chamber round about:
A yelling, hellish noise was each where heard.

In classical translation Phaer and Golding were the earliest successors of Lord Surrey. Phaer published his "Virgil" in 1562, and Golding his "Ovid" three years later.* Both of these translators, consi

[* The seven first books of Phaer's Virgil were first printed in 1558, the eighth, ninth, and the fragment of

dering the state of the language, have considerable merit. Like them, Chapman, who came later, employed in his version of the "Iliad" the fourteen-syllable rhyme, which was then in favourite use. Of the three translators, Phaer is the most faithful and simple, Golding the most musical, and Chapman the most spirited; though Chapman is prone to be turgid, and often false to the sense of Homer. Phaer's Eneid has been praised by a modern writer,+ in the "Lives of the Nephews of Milton," with absurd ex

the tenth in 1562. Twyne's continuation was first printed in 1573.

In 1565, Golding published the four first books of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and in 1567 a translation of the whole.

We have had the good fortune to fall in with a notice of Arthur Golding in a Museum MS. of orders made on petitions to the Privy Council from 1605 to 1616. "No particulars," says Mr. Collier, "of the life of Golding have been recovered. He does not appear to have written any thing after 1590, but the year of his death is uncertain."-Bridge. Cat. p. 130.

Arthure Golding to have the sole printing of some books translated by himself.

Hatfield, the xxvth of July, 1605. His Matee is graciouslie pleased that the lord Archbyshopp of Canterburie his Grace and his Mats Atturney Geñall shall advisedlie consider of this sut, and for such of the books as they shall think meete for the benefitt of the church and commonweale to be solie printed by this peticon and wherby noe enormious monopolies may ensue, his Mats Atturney is to drawe a book ready for his Mass signature, contayning agraunt hereof to the peticoner, leaving a blank for the number of yeires to be inserted at his Mats pleasure.

Lans. MSS. No. 266, Folio 61.-C.]

[+ William Godwin.-C.]

ENEAS'S NARRATIVE AFTER THE DEATH OF PRIAM.
ENEID II.

Than first the cruel fear me caught, and sore my sprites appail'd,

And on my father dear I thought, his face to mind I call'd,

Whan slain with grisly wound our king, him like of age in sight,

Lay gasping dead, and of my wife Creuse bethought the plight.

Alone, forsake, my house despoil'd, my child what chaunce had take,

I looked, and about me view'd what strength I might me make.

All men had me forsake for paynes, and down their bodies drew,

To ground they leapt, and some for woe themselves in fires they threw.

And now alone was left but I whan Vesta's temple stair

To keep and secretly to lurk all crouching close in chair,

Dame Helen I might see to sit; bright burnings gave me light,

Wherever I went, the ways I pass'd, all thing was set in sight.

aggeration. I have no wish to disparage the fair value of the old translator; but when the biographer of Milton's nephews declares, "that nothing in language or conception can exceed the style in which Phaer treats of the last day of the existence of Troy," I know of no answer to this assertion but to give the reader the very passage which is pronounced so inimitable, although, to save myself farther impediment in the text, I must subjoin it in a note.†

The harmony of Fairfax is justly cele

She fearing her the Trojans' wrath, for Troy destroy'd to wreke,

Greek's torments and her husband's force, whose wedlock she did break,

The plague of Troy and of her country, monster most ontame,

There sat she with her hated head, by the altars hid for shame.

Straight in my breast I felt a fire, deep wrath my heart did strain,

My country's fall to wreak, and bring that cursed wretch to pain.

What shall she into her country soil of Sparta and high Mycene,

All safe shall she return, and there on Troy triumph as queen?

Her husband, children, country, kynne, her house, her parents old,

With Trojan wives, and Trojan lords, her slaves shall she behold?

Was Priam slain with sword for this? Troy burnt with fire so wood?

Is it herefore that Dardan strondes so often hath sweat with blood?

Not so, for though it be no praise on woman kind to wreak,

And honour none there lieth in this, nor name for men to speak;

Yet quench I shall this poison here, and due deserts to dight,

Men shall commend my zeal, and ease my mind I shall outright:

This much for all my peoples' bones and country's flame to quite.

These things within myself I tost, and fierce with force I ran,

Whan to my face my mother great, so brim no time till than,

Appearing shew'd herself in sight, all shining pure by night,

Right goddess-like appearing, such as heavens beholds her bright.

So great with majesty she stood, and me by right-hand take,

She stay'd, and red as rose, with mouth these words to me she spake:

My son, what sore outrage so wild thy wrathful mind upstares?

Why frettest thou, or where alway from us thy care with

drawn appears?

Nor first unto thy father see'st, whom, feeble in all this woe, Thou hast forsake, nor if thy wife doth live thou know'st

or no,

Nor young Ascanius, thy child, whom throngs of Greeks

about

brated.* Joshua Sylvester's version of the "Divine Weeks and Works" of the French poet Dubartas was among the most popular of our early translations; and the obligations which Milton is alleged to have owed to it, have revived Sylvester's name with some interest in modern criticism. Sylvester was a puritan, and so was the publisher of his work, Humphrey Lownes, who lived in the same street with Milton's father; and from the congeniality of their opinions, it is not improbable that they might be acquainted. It is easily to be conceived that Milton often repaired to the shop of Lownes, and there first met with the pious didactic poem. Lauder was the earliest to trace Milton's particular thoughts and expres!sions to Sylvester; and, as might be expected,

maliciously exaggerated them. Later writers took up the subject with a very different spirit. Mr. Todd, the learned editor of Spenser, noticed in a number of the Gentleman's Magazine,† the probability of Milton's early acquaintance with the translation of Dubartas's poem; and Mr. Dunster has since, in his " Essay on Milton's early reading," supported the opinion, that the same work contains the prima stamina of Paradise Lost, and laid the first foundation of that "monumentum ære perennius.” Thoughts and expressions there certainly are in Milton, which leave his acquaintance with Sylvester hardly questionable; although some of the expressions quoted by Mr. Dunster, which are common to them both, may be traced back to other poets older than Syl

Doth swarming run, and, were not my relief, withouten

doubt

By this time flames had by devoured, or swords of en'mies killed.

It is not Helen's fate of Greece this town, my son, hath spill'd,

Nor Paris is to blame for this, but Gods, with grace unkind,

This wealth hath overthrown, a Troy from top to ground outwind.

Behold! for now away the cloud and dim fog will I take,

That over mortal eyes doth hang, and blind thy sight doth make;

Thou to thy parents haste, take heed (dread not) my mind obey.

In yonder place, where stones from stones, and buildings huge to sway,

Thou seest, and mixt in dust and smoke, thick streams of richness rise,

Himself the God Neptune that side doth turn in wonders wise,

With fork three-tined the walls uproots, foundations all

too shakes,

If

vester. The entire amount of his obligations, as Mr. Dunster justly admits, cannot detract from our opinion of Milton. Sylvester ever stood high in his favour, it must have been when he was very young.‡ The beauties which occur so strangely intermixed with bathos and flatness in Sylvester's poem, might have caught the youthful discernment, and long dwelt in the memory, of the great poet. But he must have perused it with disgust at Sylvester's general manner. Many of his epithets and happy phrases were really worthy of Milton; but by far the greater proportion of his thoughts and expressions have a quaintness and flatness more worthy of Quarles and Wither.

The following lines may serve as no unfavourable specimens of his translation of Dubartas's poem.

PROBABILITY OF THE CELESTIAL ORBS BEING INHABITED.

I not believe that the great architect
With all these fires the heavenly arches deck'd
Only for show, and with these glistering shields
T'amaze poor shepherds, watching in the fields;
I not believe that the least flower which pranks
Our garden borders, or our common banks,
And the least stone, that in her warming lap
Our mother earth doth covetously wrap,
Hath some peculiar virtue of its own,
And that the glorious stars of Heaven have none.