WITHOUT enduring Lord Orford's cold-blooded depreciation of this hero, it must be owned that his writings fall short of his traditional glory; nor were his actions of the very highest importance to his country. Still there is no necessity for supposing the impression which he made upon his contemporaries to have been either illusive or exaggerated. Traits of character will distinguish great men, independently of their pens or their swords. The contemporaries of Sydney knew the man: and foreigners, no less than his own countrymen, seem to have felt, from his personal influence and conversation, an homage for him, that could only be paid to a commanding intellect guiding the principles of a noble heart. The variety of his ambition, perhaps, unfavourably divided the force of his genius; feeling that he could take different paths to reputation, he did not confine himself to one, but was successively occupied in the punctilious duties of a courtier, the studies and pur

suits of a scholar and traveller, and in the life of a soldier, of which the chivalrous accomplishments could not be learnt without diligence and fatigue. All his excellence in those pursuits, and all the celebrity that would have placed him among the competitors for a crown, was gained in a life of thirty-two years. His sagacity and independence are recorded in the advice which he gave to his own sovereign. In the quarrel with Lord Oxford, he opposed the rights of an English commoner to the prejudices of aristocracy and of royalty itself. At home he was the patron of literature. All England wore mourning for his death. Perhaps the well-known anecdote of his generosity to the dying soldier speaks more powerfully to the heart than the whole volumes of elegies, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, that were published at his death by the universities.

Mr. Ellis has exhausted the best specimens of his poetry. I have only offered a few short ones.

COME sleep, O sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe;
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
Th' indifferent judge between the high and low.
With shield of proof shield me from out the
preased

Of those fierce darts despair doth at me throw:
O make in me those civil wars to cease,
I will good tribute pay if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,
A rosy garland and a weary head;
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me
Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see.
a Press, or crowd.

In martial sports I had my cunning tried,
And yet to break more staves did me address,
While with the people's shouts, I must confess,
Youth, luck, and praise, e'en fill'd my veins with
pride;

When Cupid having me his slave descried
In Mars's livery, prancing in the press,
"What now, Sir Fool ?" said he, "I would no less;
Look here, I say."-I look'd, and Stella spied,
Who hard by made a window send forth light;
My heart then quaked,then dazzled were mine eyes;
One hand forgot to rule, the other to fight;
Nor trumpet's sound I heard, nor friendly cries.
My foe came on and beat the air for me,
Till that her blush taught me my shame to see.
* Vide the biographical notice of Lord Oxford.

O HAPPY Thames, that didst my Stella bear,
I saw myself, with many a smiling line
Upon thy cheerful face, joy's livery wear,
While those fair planets on thy streams did shine;
The boat for joy could not to dance forbear;
While wanton winds, with beauties so divine
Ravish'd, staid not till in her golden hair
They did themselves, oh sweetest prison! twine;
And fain those Eol's youth there would their stay
Have made, but forced by Nature still to fly,
First did with puffing kiss those locks display:
She, so dishevell'd, blush'd:-from window I,
With sight thereof, cried out, O fair disgrace,
Let Honour's self to thee grant highest place.

WITH howsad steps,OMoon, thou climb'st the skies,
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be, that even in heavenly place
That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long with love acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks, thy languish'd grace;
To me that feel the like thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

WAS born at Norwich about 1560, was educated at Cambridge, travelled in Spain and Italy, and on his return held, for about a year, the vicarage of Tollesbury, in Essex. The rest of his life seems to have been spent in London, with no other support than his pen, and in the society of men of more wit than worldly prudence. He is said to have died about 1592,* from a surfeit occasioned by pickled herrings and Rhenish wine. Greene has acknowledged, with great contrition, some of the follies of his life; but the charge of profligacy which has been so mercilessly laid on his memory must be taken with great abatement, as it was chiefly dictated by his bitterest enemy, Gabriel Harvey, who is said to have trampled on his dead body when laid in the grave. The story, it may be hoped, for the credit of human nature, is untrue; but it shows to what a pitch the malignity of Harvey was supposed to be capable of being excited. Greene is accused of having deserted an amiable wife; but his traducers rather inconsistently reproach him also with the necessity of writing for her maintenance.

DORASTUS

Aн, were she pitiful as she is fair, Or but as mild as she is seeming so, Then were my hopes greater than my despair, Then all the world were Heaven, nothing woe. Ah, were her heart relenting as her hand, That seems to melt e'en with the mildest touch, Then knew I where to seat me in a land, Under the wide Heavens, but yet not such. So as she shows, she seems the budding rose, Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower; Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows; Compass'd she is with thorns and canker'd flower; Yet, were she willing to be pluck'd and worn, She would be gather'd, though she grew on thorn. Ah, when she sings, all music else be still, For none must be compared to her note; Ne'er breathed such glee from Philomela's bill, Nor from the morning singer's swelling throat.

[* Reduced to utter beggary.and abandoned by the friends of his festive hours, Greene died in London, on Sept. 3, 1592. See his Dramatic Works, by Dyce, London, 1831.-G.]

A list of his writings, amounting to forty-five separate productions, is given in the Censura Literaria, including five plays, several amatory romances, and other pamphlets, of quaint titles and rambling contents. The writer of that article has vindicated the personal memory of Greene with proper feeling, but he seems to overrate the importance that could have ever been attached to him as a writer. In proof of the once great popularity of Greene's writings, a passage is quoted from Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, where it is said that Saviolina uses as choice figures as any in the Arcadia, and Carlo subjoins, "or in Greene's works, whence she may steal with more security." This allusion to the facility of stealing without detection from an author surely argues the reverse of his being popular and well known.† Greene's style is in truth most whimsical and grotesque. He lived before there was a good model of familiar prose; and his wit, like a stream that is too weak to force a channel for itself, is lost in rhapsody and diffuseness.

ON FAWNIA.

And when she riseth from her blissful bed, She comforts all the world, as doth the sun.

JEALOUSY. FROM TULLY'S LOVE.

WHEN gods had framed the sweets of woman's face,

And lockt men's looks within her golden hair,
That Phoebus blush'd to see her matchless grace,
And heavenly gods on earth did make repair,
To quip fair Venus' overweening pride,
Love's happy thoughts to jealousy were tied.
Then grew a wrinkle on fair Venus' brow,
The amber sweet of love is turn'd to gall!
Gloomy was Heaven; bright Phoebus did avow
He would be coy, and would not love at all;
Swearing no greater mischief could be wrought,
Than love united to a jealous thought.

[† See Gifford's Ben Jonson, vol. ii. p. 71.-C.]
Qy. power or stoure. Dyce, vol. ii. p. 242.]

[CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, the son of a shoemaker, at Canterbury, was born in February, 1563-4,] took a bachelor's degree at Cambridge, [in 1683,] and came to London, where he was a contemporary player and dramatic writer with Shakspeare. Had he lived longer to profit by the example of Shakspeare, it is not straining conjecture to suppose, that the strong misguided energy of Marlowe would have been kindled and refined to excellence by the rivalship; but his death, at the age of thirty, is alike to be lamented for its disgracefulness and prematurity, his own sword being forced upon him, in a quarrel at a brothel.* Six tragedies, however, and his numerous translations from the classics, evince that if his life was profligate, it was not idle. The bishops ordered his translations of Ovid's Love Elegies to be burnt in public for their licentiousness. If all the licentious poems of that period had been included in the

THE PASSIONATE

COME live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies:
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle,

Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

martyrdom, Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis would have hardly escaped the flames.

In Marlowe's tragedy of "Lust's Dominion" there is a scene of singular coincidence with an event that was two hundred years after exhibited in the same country, namely Spain. A Spanish queen, instigated by an usurper, falsely proclaims her own son to be a bastard.

Prince Philip is a bastard born;

O give me leave to blush at mine own shame:
But I for love to you-love to fair Spain,
Chuse rather to rip up a queen's disgrace,
Than, by concealing it, to set the crown
Upon a bastard's head.-Lust's Dom. Sc. iv. Act 3.

Compare this avowal with the confession which Bonaparte either obtained, or pretended to have obtained, from the mother of Ferdinand VII., in 1808, and one might almost imagine that he had consulted Marlowe's tragedy.

[* Marlowe closed his life of gross impiety and careless debauchery, at Deptford, where, in the register of the church of St. Nicholas, may still be read the entry, "Christopher Marlow, slaine by ffrancis Archer, the I of June,

A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing,
For they delight each May morning.
If these delights thy mind may move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

1593." See for the circumstances of his death, and a very interesting biographical and critical notice of Marlowe and his works, Mr. Dyce's edition, 3 vols. 8vo, London, Pickering, 1850.-G.]

Is said to have been descended from an ancient and respectable family in Norfolk, and being sent abroad for his education, became a jesuit at Rome. He was appointed prefect of studies there in 1585, and, not long after, was sent as a missionary into England. His chief residence was with Anne, Countess of Arundel, who died in the Tower of London. Southwell was apprehended in July, 1592, and carried before Queen Elizabeth's agents, who endeavoured to extort from him some disclosure of secret conspiracies against the government; but he was cautious at his examination, and declined answering a number of ensnaring questions. Upon which, being sent to prison, he

remained near three years in strict confinement, was repeatedly put to the rack, and, as he himself affirmed, underwent very severe tortures no less than ten times. He owned that he was a priest and a jesuit, that he came into England to preach the Catholic religion, and was prepared to lay down his life in the cause. On the 20th of February, 1595, he was brought to his trial at the King's Bench, was condemned to die, and was executed the next day, at Tyburn. His writings, of which a numerous list is given in the sixty-seventh volume of the Gentleman's Magazine, together with the preceding sketch of his life, were probably at one time popular among the Catholics.

In a small collection of his pieces there are two specimens of his prose compositions, entitled "Mary Magdalene's Tears," and the " "Triumph over Death," which contain some eloquent sen

LOVE'S SERVILE LOT.

LOVE mistress is of many minds,
Yet few know whom they serve;
They reckon least how little hope
Their service doth deserve.

The will she robbeth from the wit,
The sense from reason's lore;
She is delightful in the rind,
Corrupted in the core. ....
May never was the month of love;
For May is full of flowers;
But rather April, wet by kind;
For love is full of showers.

With soothing words inthralled souls
She chains in servile bands!
Her eye in silence hath a speech
Which eye best understands.

Her little sweet hath many sours,
Short hap, immortal harms:

Her loving looks are murdering darts,
Her songs bewitching charms.

Like winter rose, and summer ice,
Her joys are still untimely;
Before her hope, behind remorse,
Fair first, in fine unseemly.

Plough not the seas, sow not the sands,
Leave off your idle pain;
Seek other mistress for your minds,
Love's service is in vain.

tences. Nor is it possible to read the volume without lamenting that its author should have been either the instrument of bigotry, or the object of persecution.

LOOK HOME.

RETIRED thoughts enjoy their own delights,
As beauty doth in self-beholding eye:
Man's mind a mirror is of heavenly sights,
A brief wherein all miracles summed lie;
Of fairest forms, and sweetest shapes the store,
Most graceful all, yet thought may grace them

more.

The mind a creature is, yet can create,
To nature's patterns adding higher skill
Of finest works; wit better could the state,
If force of wit had equal power of will.
Devise of man working hath no end;
What thought can think, another thought can
mend.

Man's soul of endless beauties image is,
Drawn by the work of endless skill and might:
This skilful might gave many sparks of bliss,
And, to discern this bliss, a native light,
To frame God's image as his worth required;
His might, his skill, his word and will con-
spired.

All that he had, his image should present;
All that it should present, he could afford;
To that he could afford his will was bent;
His will was followed with performing word.
Let this suffice, by this conceive the rest,
He should, he could, he would, he did the
best.

[Born, 1560.

WAS a native of London, and studied the common law, but from the variety of his productions (Vide Theatrum Poetarum, p. 213) would seem

THE NYMPHS TO THEIR MAY QUEEN.
From England's Helicon.
WITH fragrant flowers we strew the way,
And make this our chief holiday:
For though this clime was blest of yore,
Yet was it never proud before.
O beauteous queen of second Troy,
Accept of our unfeigned joy.

Now the air is sweeter than sweet balm,
And satyrs dance about the palm;
Now earth with verdure newly dight,
Gives perfect signs of her delight:
O beauteous queen!

Now birds record new harmony,
And trees do whistle melody:
And every thing that nature breeds
Doth clad itself in pleasant weeds.

The word Sonnet, in its laxest sense, means a small copy of verses; in its true and accepted sense, a poem of

Died about 1592.]

to have devoted himself to lighter studies. Mr. Steevens has certainly overrated his sonnets in preferring them to Shakspeare's.*

SONNET.

ACTEON lost, in middle of his sport,
Both shape and life for looking but awry:
Diana was afraid he would report
What secrets he had seen in passing by.
To tell the truth, the self-same hurt have I,
By viewing her for whom I daily die;

I leese my wonted shape, in that my mind
Doth suffer wreck upon the stony rock
Of her disdain, who, contrary to kind,
Does bear a breast more hard than any stock;
And former form of limbs is changed quite
By cares in love, and want of due delight.
I leave my life, in that each secret thought
Which I conceive through wanton fond regard,
Doth make me say that life availeth nought,
Where service cannot have a due reward.

I dare not name the nymph that works my smart,
Though love hath graven her name within myheart.

fourteen lines, written in heroic verse, with alternate and couplet rhymes. Watson's sonnets are all of eighteen lines.

DESCENDED from the ancient and honourable family of Spenser, was born in London, in East Smithfield, by the Tower, probably about the year 1553. He studied at the university of Cambridge, where it appears, from his correspondence, that he formed an intimate friendship with the learned, but pedantic, Gabriel Harvey.* Spenser, with Sir P. Sydney, was, for a time, a convert to Harvey's Utopian scheme for changing the measures of English poetry into those of the Greeks and Romans.

Spenser even wrote trimeter iambicst sufficiently bad to countenance the English hexameters of his friend; but the Muse would not suffer such a votary to be lost in the pursuit after chimeras, and recalled him to her natural strains. From Cambridge Spenser went to reside with some relations in the north of England, and, in this retirement, conceived a passion for a mistress, whom he has celebrated under the name of Rosalind. It appears, however, that she trifled with his affection, and preferred a rival.

Harvey, or Hobinol (by so uncouth a name did the shepherd of hexameter memory, the learned Harvey, deign to be called in Spenser's eclogues), with better judgment than he had shown in poetical matters, advised Spenser to leave his rustic obscurity, and introduced him to Sir Philip Sydney, who recommended him to his uncle, the Earl of Leicester. The poet was invited to the family seat of Sydney at Penshurst, in Kent, where he is supposed to have assisted the Platonic studies of his gallant and congenial friend. To him he dedicated his "Shepheard's Calendar." Sydney did not bestow unqualified praise on those eclogues; he allowed that they contained much poetry, but condemned the antique rusticity of the language. It was of these eclogues, and not of the Fairy Queen (as has been frequently misstated), that Ben Jonson said, that the author in affecting the ancients had written no language at all. They gained, however, so many admirers, as to pass through five editions in Spenser's lifetime; and though Dove, a contemporary scholar, who translated them into Latin, speaks of the author being unknown, yet when Abraham Fraunce, in 1583, published his "Lawyer's Logicke," he illustrated his rules by quotations from the Shepheard's Calendar.

Pope, Dryden and Warton have extolled those eclogues, and Sir William Jones has placed Spenser and Gay as the only genuine descendants of

For an account of Harvey, the reader may consult Wood's Athen. Oxon. vol. i. Fasti col. 128.

A short example of Spenser's Iambicum Trimetrum will suffice, from a copy of verses in one of his own letters to Harvey.

Unhappy verse! the witness of my unhappy state,

Theocritus and Virgil in pastoral poetry. This decision may be questioned. Favourable as the circumstances of England have been to the development of her genius in all the higher walks of poetry, they have not been propitious to the humbler pastoral muse. Her trades and manufactures, the very blessings of her wealth and industry, threw the indolent shepherd's life to a distance from her cities and capital, where poets, with all their love of the country, are generally found; and impressed on the face of the country, and on its rustic manners, a gladsome, but not romantic appearance.

In Scotland, on the contrary, the scenery, rural economy of the country, and the songs of the peasantry, sung, "at the watching of the fold," presented Ramsay with a much nearer image of pastoral life, and he accordingly painted it with the fresh feeling and enjoyment of nature. Had Sir William Jones understood the dialect of that poet, I am convinced that he would not have awarded the pastoral crown to any other author. Ramsay's shepherds are distinct, intelligible beings, neither vulgar, like the caricatures of Gay, nor fantastic, like those of Fletcher. They afford such a view of national peasantry as we should wish to acquire by travelling among them; and form a draft entirely devoted to rural manners, which for truth, and beauty, and extent, has no parallel in the richer language of England. Shakspeare's pastoral scenes are only subsidiary to the main interest of the plays where they are introduced. Milton's are rather pageants of fancy than pictures of real life. The shepherds of Spenser's Calendar are parsons in disguise, who converse about heathen divinities and points of Christian theology. Palinode defends the luxuries of the Catholic clergy, and Piers extols the purity of Archbishop Grindal; concluding with the story of a fox, who came to the house of a goat, in the character of a pedlar, and obtained admittance by pretending to be a sheep. This may be burlesquing sop, but certainly is not imitating Theocritus. There are fine thoughts and images in the Calendar, but, on the whole, the obscurity of those pastorals is rather their covering than their principal defect.

In 1580, Arthur Lord Grey, of Wilton, went as lord-lieutenant to Ireland, and Spenser accompanied him as his secretary; we may suppose by the recommendation of the Earl of Leicester. Lord Grey was recalled from his Irish govern

Make thyself fluttering wings of thy fast flying
Thought, and fly forth unto my love, wheresoever she be
Whether lying restless in heavy bed, or else
Sitting so cheerless at the cheerful board, or else
Playing alone, careless on her heavenly virginals.
[Ben Jonson's Works, by Gifford, vol. ix. p. 215.-C.]