1568 A.D.] HENRY CONSTABLE-JOSHUA SYLVESTER. 155

I now, alas, must leave all these,

And make good cheer with bread and cheese!

And now, all orders due, farewell!

My table laid when it was noon;

My heavy heart it irks to tell

My dainty dinners are all done;
With leeks and onions, whig and whey,
I must content me as I may.

And farewell all gay garments now,
With jewels rich of rare device!
Like Robin Hood, I wot not how,
I must go range in woodman's wise;
Clad in a coat of green or gray,
And glad to get it if I may.

What shall I say, but bid adieu

To every dream of sweet delight,
In place where pleasure never grew
In dungeon deep of foul despite.
I must, ah me! wretch as I may,
Go sing the song of welaway!

Of HENRY CONSTABLE less even is known than of Breton. He was a very popular writer of sonnets, though his sentiments are usually strained and conceited. But in the midst of his affectations and conceits, many happy thoughts and much beautiful imagery may be found. The following sonnet from his Diana contains much epigrammatic power :

To live in hell, and heaven to behold,
To welcome life, and die a living death,
To sweat with heat, and yet be freezing cold,
To grasp at stars, and lie the earth beneath,
To tread a maze that never shall have end,
To burn in sighs, and starve in daily tears,
To climb a hill, and never to descend,
Giants to kill, and quake at childish fears,

To pine for food, and watch the Hesperian tree,

To thirst for drink, and nectar still to draw,

To live accurs'd, whom men hold blest to be,

And weep those wrongs, which never creature saw;

If this be love, if love in these be founded,
My heart is love, for these in it are grounded.

JOSHUA SYLVESTER was born in 1563. He was bred to ordinary mercantile pursuits, but the delicacy of his wit eventually brought him into notice, and he was patronized both by Elizabeth and James. For some cause, not now known, he was obliged to leave England, and he soon after died in Holland, on the twenty-eighth of September, 1618. Sylvester was the author of the following impressive poem, long attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh:

THE SOUL'S ERRAND.

Go, soul, the body's guest,

Upon a thankless errand!
Fear not to touch the best,
The truth shall be thy warrant;

Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.

Go, tell the court it glows,

And shines like rotten wood;
Go, tell the church it shows
What's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live

Acting by others' actions,
Not loved unless they give,

Not strong but by their factions.
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lie.

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

Tell them that brave the 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 lacks 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 she 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 the 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 then thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done babbling:

Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing;

Yet stab at thee who will

No stab the soul can kill.

RICHARD BARNFIELD was the author of a volume of poems of very unequal merit, published between 1594 and 1598. Among these poems, however, is found the following Address to the Nightingale, which is of so rare excellence, that it was, for a long time, ascribed to Shakspeare.

ADDRESS TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

As it fell upon a day,

In the merry month of May,

Sitting in a pleasant shade

Which a grove of myrtles made;

Beasts did leap and birds did sing,

Trees did grow, and plants did spring;

Every thing did banish moan,

Save the Nightingale alone.

She, poor bird, as all forlorn,

Lean'd her breast up-till a thorn;

And there sung the dolefull'st ditty,

That to hear it was great pity.

Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry;

Teru, teru, by and by;

That, to hear her so complain,
Scarce I could from tears refrain;
For her griefs so lively shown,
Made me think upon mine own.

Ah! (thought I,) thou mourn'st in vain;
None takes pity in thy pain:

Senseless trees they can not hear thee,

Ruthless bears they will not cheer thee:

King Pandion he is dead;

All thy friends are lapp'd in lead;

All thy fellow-birds do sing,
Careless of thy sorrowing!

While as fickle Fortune smil'd,
Thou and I were both beguil'd.
Every one that flatters thee

Is no friend in misery.

Words are easy, like the wind;

Faithful friends are hard to find.

Every man will be thy friend

While thou hast wherewith to spend:
But, if store of crowns be scant.
No man will supply thy want.
If that one be prodigal,
Bountiful they will him call;
And with such like flattering,
'Pity but he were a king.'
If he be addict to vice,
Quickly him they will entice;
But if fortune once do frown,
Then farewell his great renown:
They that fawn'd on him before
Use his company no more.
He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need;
If thou sorrow, he will weep,
If thou wake he can not sleep:
Thus. of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know,
Faithful friend from flattering foe.

It must be remembered, that this was the age when collections of fugitive and miscellaneous poems first became common in England. Several volumes of this kind, published in the reign of Elizabeth, contain poems of high merit without any author's name attached to them; and, therefore, it is not remarkable that the last two poems introduced, should have been so long attributed to Raleigh and Shakspeare.

The miscellaneous poets of the reign of Elizabeth thus far noticed, bring us down to Spenser, whose genius is one of the peculiar glories of that ro mantic age.

EDMUND SPENSER was of an ancient though poor family, and was bor in the city of London, in 1553. From the circumstances of his parents it i.

difficult to conjecture how he obtained his preparation for admission into the university; but it is certain that in May, 1569, he entered Pembroke College, Cambridge, as a charity student, and there continued until 1576, when he took his master's degree. His design evidently was to remain permanently attached to the university, and with this view, immediately after he was graduated, he made every effort that his limited resources would permit, to obtain a fellowship. But having neither friends nor influential patrons to make interest for him, he was disappointed in this important object, in consequence of which he accepted an invitation from some distant relatives in the north of England, to take up his residence with them until his future prospects should, in some degree, become determined.

While residing in the North, Spenser formed an attachment for a young lady whom he designates as Rosalind, and whose attractive beauty and graces first inspired his muse. To win her favor he composed his Shepherd's Calender, a pastoral poem, in twelve eclogues, one for each month, but with out strict keeping as to natural description and rustic character, and deformed by a number of obsolete uncouth phrases; yet containing traces of a superior original genius. The fable of the Oak and Brier is finely told; and in verses like the following we see the germ of that tuneful harmony and pensive reflection in which the author afterward so remarkably excelled :--

You naked buds, whose shady leaves are lost,

Wherein the birds were wont to build their bower,
And now are clothed with moss and hoary frost,
Instead of blossoms wherewith your buds did flower:
I see your tears that from your boughs do rain,
Whose drops in dreary icicles remain.

All so my lustful life is dry and sere,

My timely buds with wailing all are wasted;
The blossom which my branch of youth did bear,
With breathed sighs is blown away and blasted,
And from mine eyes the drizzling tears descend,
As on your boughs the icicles depend.

The fair Rosalind, however, preferred a less poetical rival, and Spenser soon after left the country and repaired to London, there to seek his fortune in the midst of the more busy scenes of life. To this step he was induced by Gabriel Harvey, a fellow-student at Cambridge, and by whom he was introduced to Sir Philip Sidney, 'one of the very diamonds of her majesty's court.' Sir Philip being himself a man of wit and polite accomplishments, immediately became sensible of Spenser's morit, and so long as that nobleman remained at court, the poet never wanted a judicious friend, nor a generous patron. In gratitude for Sidney's kindness, Spenser now revised and published the 'Shepherd's Calender,' with an appropriate dedication to him.

The 'Shepherd's Calender' appeared in 1579, and such was its popularity that even royalty itself smiled upon its author, and Spenser was raised to