THOMAS NASH. [Born, 1560? Died about 1600-4.] THOMAS NASH was born at Lowestoft in Suffolk, was bred at Cambridge, and closed a calamitous life of authorship at the age, it is said, of forty-two. Dr. Beloe has given a list of his works, and Mr. Disraeli + an account of his shifts and miseries. Adversity seems to have whetted his genius, as his most tolerable verses are those which describe his own despair; and in the midst of his woes, he exposed to just derision the profound fooleries of the astrologer Harvey, who, in the year 1582, had thrown the whole kingdom into consternation by his predictions of the probable effects of the junction of WHY is't damnation to despair and die, Į Ill thrive the folly that bewitch'd me so! Vain thoughts, adieu ! for now I will repent, And yet my wants persuade me to proceed, For none take pity of a scholar's need. * Anecdotes of Scarce Books. + Calamities of Authors. Ah, worthless wit! to train me to this woe : Deceitful arts! that nourish discontent : DESPAIR OF A POOR SCHOLAR. Jupiter and Saturn. Drayton, in his Epistle of Poets and Poesy, says of him— THIS nobleman sat as Great Chamberlain of England upon the trial of Mary Queen of Scots. In the year of the Armada, he distinguished his public spirit by fitting out some ships at his private cost. He had travelled in Italy in his youth, and is said to have returned the most accomplished coxcomb of his age. The story of his quarrel with Sir Philip Sydney, as it is related by Collins, gives us a most unfavourable idea of his manners and temper, and shows to what a height the claims of aristocratical privilege were a that time carried. Some still more discredit Sharply satyric was he, and that way : The Earl of Oxford being one day in the tennis-court with Sir Philip Sydney, on some offence which he had From the allusion which he makes in the following quotation to Sir P. Sydney's compassion, before the introduction of the following lines, it bounty of that noble character. may be conjectured that he had experienced the Forgive me, God, although I curse my birth, EDWARD VERE, EARL OF OXFORD. [Born, 1534. Died, 1604.] groan. England, adieu! the soil that brought me forth, Adieu! unkind, where skill is nothing worth. able traits of his character are to be found in the history of his life§. taken, ordered him to leave the room, and, on his refusal, gave him the epithet of a puppy. Sir Philip retorted the lie on his lordship, and left the place, expecting to be followed by the peer. But Lord Oxford neither followed him nor noticed his quarrel, till her majesty's council had time to command the peace. The queen interfered, reminding Sir Philip of the difference between" earls and gentlemen," and of the respect which inferiors owed their superiors. Sydney, boldly but respectfully, stated to her majesty, that rank among freemen could claim no other homage than precedency, and did not obey her commands to make submission to Oxford. For a fuller statement of this anecdote, vide the quotation from Collins, in the British Bibliographer, vol. i. p. 83. § By Mr. Park, in the Cat. of Royal and Noble Authors. FANCY AND DESIRE. FROM THE PARADISE OF DAINTY DEVICES. WHEN Wert thou born, Desire? In pride and pomp of May. By whom, sweet boy, wert thou begot? By fond conceit, men say. Tell me who was thy nurse? Fresh Youth, in sugar'd joy. What was thy meat and daily food? Sad sighs with great annoy. What hadst thou then to drink? Unsavoury lovers' tears. What cradle wert thou rock'd in? In hope de- What lull'd thee, then, asleep? Sweet sleep, which one. What thing doth please thee most? To gaze on What dost thou think to be thy foe? Disdain of Where doth Desire delight to live? He loves to live alone. * To mark the choice they make, and how they change, thy dwelling-place? In gentle How oft from Phoebus they do flee to Pan; Unsettled still, like haggards wild they range, These gentle birds that fly from man to man ; Who would not scorn and shake them from the fist, And let them fly, fair fools, where'er they list? THE date of this writer's birth can only be generally conjectured from his having been elected a Student of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1587. The slight notice of him by Wood only mentions that he was the son of John Storer, a Londoner, * Doth either Time or Age bring him into decay? No, no, Desire both lives and dies a thousand times a day. Then, fond Desire, farewell! thou art no mate for me : I should, methinks, be loth to dwell with such a one as thee. LINES ATTRIBUTED TO THE EARL OF IN A MS. OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY. IF women could be fair, and yet not fond, PERCHANCE the tenor of my mourning verse THOMAS STORER. [Died, 1604.] Yet, for disport, we fawn and flatter both, FROM THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CARDINAL WOLSEY. and that he died in the metropolis. Besides the History of Cardinal Wolsey in three parts, viz. his aspiring, his triumph, and death, he wrote several pastoral pieces in England's Helicon. WOLSEY'S AMBITION. Yet, as through Tagus' fair transparent streams, A more than heavenly nymph I did behold, * For sure no sense such sight can comprehend, FROM that rich valley where the angels laid him, Except her beams their fair reflection lend. His unknown sepulchre in Moab's land, WOLSEY'S VISION. Moses, that Israel led, and they obey'd him, 11 In glorious view before my face did stand, Then passing forth a joyful troop ensued * After several personages of sacred history, some allegorical ones condescend to visit the sleeping Cardinal, among whom Theology naturally has a place, and is thus described In chariot framed of celestial mould, In his Satires, which were published at the [age of twenty-three, he discovered not only the early vigour of his own genius, but the powers and pliability of his native tongue. Unfortunately, perhaps unconsciously, he caught, from studying Juvenal and Persius as his models, an ellip Her beauty with Eternity began, [* Donne appears to have been the first in order of composition-though Hall and Marston made their appearance in print before him.] ! + His name is therefore placed in these Specimens with a variation from the general order, not according to the date of his death, but about the time of his appearance | as a poet. She came to him and gladly would have been JOSEPH HALL. [Born, 1574. Died, 1656.] BISHOP HALL, who for his ethical eloquence | tical manner and an antique allusion, which cast has been sometimes denominated the Christian Seneca, was also the first who gave our language an example of epistolary composition in prose. He wrote besides a satirical fiction, entitled Mundus alter et idem, in which, under pretence of describing the Terra Australis Incognita, he reversed the plan of Sir Thomas More's Utopia, and characterized the vices of existing nations. Of our satirical poetry, taking satire in moral and dignified sense, he claims, and may be allowed, to be the founder: for the ribaldry of Skelton, and the crude essays of the graver Wyat, hardly entitle them to that appellation. Though he lived till beyond the middle of the seventeenth century, his satires were written before, and his Mundus alter et idem about, the year 1600 so that his antiquity, no less than his strength, gives him an important place in the formation of our literaturet. Since when, at sundry times in sundry ways, obscurity over his otherwise spirited and amusing traits of English manners; though the satirist himself was so far from anticipating this objection, that he formally apologises for "too much stooping to the low reach of the vulgar." But in many instances he redeems the antiquity of his allusions by their ingenious adaptation to modern manners; and this is but a small part of his praise; for in the point, and volubility, and vigour of Hall's numbers, we might frequently imagine ourselves perusing Dryden‡. This may be exemplified in the harmony and picturesqueness of the following description of a magnificent rural mansion, which the traveller approaches in the hopes of reaching the seat of ancient hospitality, but finds it deserted by its selfish owner. Beat the broad gates, a goodly hollow sound, The satire which I think contains the most vigorous and musical couplets of this old poet, is the first of Book 3rd, beginning, Time was, and that was term'd the time of gold, I preferred, however, the insertion of others as examples of his poetry, as they are more descriptive of English manners than the fanciful praises of the golden age which that satire contains. It is flowing and fanciful, but conveys only the insipid moral of men decaying by the progress of civilisation; a doctrine not unlike that which Gulliver found in the book of the old woman of Brobdignag, whose author lamented the tiny size of the modern Brobdignagdians compared with that of their ancestors. His satires are neither cramped by personal hostility, nor spun out to vague declamations on vice, but give us the form and pressure of the times exhibited in the faults of coeval literature, and in the foppery or sordid traits of prevailing manners. The age was undoubtedly fertile in eccentricity. His picture of its literature may at first view appear to be overcharged with severity, accustomed as we are to associate a general idea of excellence with the period of Elizabeth; but when Hall wrote there was not a great poet firmly established in the language except Spenser, and on him he has bestowed ample applause. With regard to Shakspeare, the reader will observe a passage in the first satire, where the poet speaks of resigning the honours of heroic and tragic poetry to more inspired geniuses; and it is possible that the great dramatist may be here alluded to, as well as Spenser. But the allusion is indistinct, and not necessarily applicable to the bard of Avon. Shakspeare's Romeo and Juliet, Richard II. and III. have been traced in print to no earlier date than the year 1597, in which Hall's first series of satires appeared; and we have no sufficient proof of his previous fame as a dramatist having been so great as to leave Hall without excuse for omitting to pay him homage. But the sunrise of the drama with Shakspeare was not without abundance of attendant mists in the contemporary fustian of inferior playmakers, who are severely ridiculed by our satirist. In addition to this, our poetry was still haunted by the whining ghosts of the Mirror for Magistrates, while obscenity walked in barbarous nakedness, and the very genius of the language was threatened by revolutionary prosodists. From the literature of the age Hall proceeds to its manners and prejudices, and among the latter derides the prevalent confidence in alchymy and astrology. To us this ridicule appears an ordinary effort of reason; but it was in him a common sense above the level of the times. If any proof were required to illustrate the slow departure of prejudices, it would be found in the fact of an astrologer being patronised, half a century afterwards, by the government of England*. * William Lilly received a pension from the council of state, in 1648. He was, besides, consulted by Charles; During his youth and education he had to struggle with poverty; and in his old age he was one of those sufferers in the cause of episcopacy whose virtues shed a lustre on its fall. He was born in the parish of Ashby de la Zouche, in Liecestershire, studied and took orders at Cambridge, and was for some time master of the school of Tiverton, in Devonshire. An accidental opportunity which he had of preaching before Prince Henry seems to have given the first impulse to his preferment, till by gradual promotion he rose to be bishop of Exeter, having previously accompanied King James, as one of his chaplains, to Scotland, and attended the Synod of Dort at As a convocation of the protestant divines. bishop of Exeter he was so mild in his conduct towards the puritans, that he, who was one of the last broken pillars of the church, was nearly persecuted for favouring them. Had such conduct been, at this critical period, pursued by the high churchmen in general, the history of a bloody age might have been changed into that of peace; but the violence of Laud prevailed over the milder counsels of a Hall, an Usher, and a Corbet. When the dangers of the church grew more instant, Hall became its champion, and was met in the field of controversy by Milton, whose respect for the bishop's learning is ill concealed under the attempt to cover it with derision. By the little power that was still left to the sovereign in 1641, Hall was created bishop of Norwich; but having joined, almost immediately after, in the protest of the twelve prelates against the validity of laws that should be passed in their compelled absence, he was committed to the Tower, and, in the sequel, marked out for sequestration. After suffering extreme hardships, he was allowed to retire, on a small pittance, to Higham, near Norwich, where he continued, in comparative obscurity, but with indefatigable zeal and intrepidity, to exercise the duties of a pastor, till he closed his days at the venerable age of eighty-two. SATIRE L. BOOK I. NOR ladies' wanton love, nor wand'ring knight, Nor under every bank and every tree, As might the Graces move my mirth to praise*. SATIRE III†. BOOK I. WITH some pot fury, ravish'd from their wit, * In this satire, which is not perfectly intelligible at the first glance, the author, after deriding the romantic and pastoral vein of affected or mercenary poetasters, proceeds to declare, that for his own part he resigns the higher walks of genuine poetry to others; that he need not crave the "Muse's midwifery," since not even a baser muse would now haunt the shore of Granta (the Cam), which they have left deserted, and crowned with willows, the types of desertion ever since Spenser celebrated the marriage of the Medway and the Thames.-E. + This satire is levelled at the intemperance and bombastic fury of his contemporary dramatists, with an evident allusion to Marlowe; and in the conclusion he attacks the buffoonery that disgraced the stage.-E. Or some upreared, high-aspiring swain, With gladsome noise of that applauding crowd. To curse and ban, and blame his likerous eye, SATIRE V. BOOK III. FIE on all courtesy and unruly winds, |
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