Elizabeth's reign he was one of the gentlemen of her chapel, and master of the children there, having the character of an excellent musician.

WILLIAM HUNNIS

WAS a gentleman of Edward VI.'s Chapel, and afterwards master of the boys of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel. He translated the Psalms, and was author of 'A Hive of Honey,' 'A Handful of Honeysuckle,' and other godly works. He died in 1568.*

THOMAS SACKVILLE,

BARON BUCKHURST, AND EARL OF DORSET,

[Born, 1536. Died, April 19, 1608.]

Was the son of Sir Richard Sackville, and was born at Withyam, in Sussex, in 1536. He was educated at both universities, and enjoyed an early reputation in Latin as well as in English poetry. While a student of the Inner Temple he wrote his tragedy of 'Gorboduc,' which was played by the young students, as a part of a Christmas entertainment, and afterwards before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall, in 1561. In a subsequent edition of this piece it was entitled 'The Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex.' He is said to have been assisted in the composition of it by Thomas Norton, but to what extent does not appear. T. Warton disputes the fact of his being at all indebted to Norton. The merit of the piece does not render the question of much importance. This tragedy, and his contribution of the Induction and Legend of the Duke of Buckingham to The Mirror for Magistrates,'† compose the poetical history of Sackville's life.

* [Hunnis was also a writer of interludes.-See Collier's Annals of the Stage, vol. i. p. 235.]

The Mirror for Magistrates' was intended to celebrate the chief unfortunate personages in English history, in a series of poetical legends spoken by the characters themselves, with epilogues interspersed to connect the stories, in imitation of Boccaccio's Fall of Princes,' which had been translated by Lydgate. The historian of English poetry ascribes the plan

The rest of it was political. He had been elected to parliament at the age of thirty. Six years afterwards, in the same year that his Induction and Legend of Buckingham were published, he went abroad on his travels, and was, for some reason that is not mentioned, confined, for a time, as a prisoner at Rome; but he returned home, on the death of his father, in 1566, and was soon after promoted to the title of Baron Buckhurst. Having entered at first with rather too much prodigality on the enjoyment of his patrimony, he is said to have been reclaimed by the indignity of being kept in waiting by an alderman, from whom he was borrowing money, and to have made a resolution of economy, from which he never departed. The Queen employed him, in the fourteenth year of her reign, in an embassy to Charles IX. of France. In 1587 he went as ambassador to the United Provinces, upon their complaint against the Earl of Leicester; but, though he performed his trust with integrity, the favourite had sufficient influence to get him recalled, and on his return he was ordered to confinement in his own house for nine or ten months. On Leicester's death, however, he was immediately reinstated in royal favour, and was made Knight of the Garter and Chancellor of Oxford. On the death of Burleigh he became Lord High Treasurer of England. At Queen Elizabeth's demise he was one of the privy councillors on whom the administration of the kingdom devolved, and he concurred in proclaiming King James. The new sovereign confirmed him in the office of High Treasurer by a patent for life, and on all occa

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of this work to Sackville, and seems to have supposed that his Induction and Legend of Henry Duke of Buckingham appeared in the first edition; but Sir E. Brydges has shown that it was not until the second edition of The Mirror for Magistrates' that Sackville's contribution was published, viz. in 1563. Baldwin and Ferrers were the authors of the first edition, in 1559. Higgins, Phayer, Churchyard, and a crowd of inferior versifiers, contributed successive legends, not confining themselves to English history, but treating the reader with the lamentations of Geta and Caracalla, Brennus, &c. &c., till the improvement of the drama superseded those dreary monologues, by giving heroic history a more engaging air. Sackville's contribution to The Mirror for Magistrates' is the only part of it that is tolerable. It is observable that his plan differs materially from that of the other contributors. He lays the scene, like Dante, in Hell, and makes his characters relate their history at the gates of Elysium, under the guidance of Sorrow; while the authors of the other legends are generally contented with simply dreaming of the unfortunate personages, and, by going to sleep, offer a powerful inducement to follow their example.

sions consulted him with confidence. In March, 1604, he was created Earl of Dorset. He died suddenly [1608] at the counciltable, in consequence of a dropsy on the brain. Few ministers, as Lord Orford remarks, have left behind them so unblemished a character. His family considered his memory so invulnerable, that, when some partial aspersions were thrown upon it after his death, they disdained to answer them. He carried taste and elegance even into his formal political functions, and for his eloquence was styled the bell of the Star Chamber. As a poet, his attempt to unite allegory with heroic narrative, and his giving our language its earliest regular tragedy, evince the views and enterprise of no ordinary mind; but, though the Induction to The Mirror for Magistrates' displays some potent sketches, it bears the complexion of a saturnine genius, and resembles a bold and gloomy landscape on which the sun never shines. As to Gorboduc,' it is a piece of monotonous recitals, and cold and heavy accumulation of incidents. As an imitation of classical tragedy it is peculiarly unfortunate, in being without even the unities of place and time to circumscribe its dulness.

GEORGE GASCOIGNE

[Born, 1536. Died, 1577.]

Was born in 1536,* of an ancient family in Essex, was bred at Cambridge, and entered at Gray's-Inn; but being disinherited by his father for extravagance, he repaired to Holland, and obtained a commission under the Prince of Orange. A quarrel with his colonel retarded his promotion in that service; and a circumstance occurred which had nearly cost him his life. A lady at the Hague (the town being then in the enemy's possession) sent him a letter, which was intercepted in the camp, and a report against his loyalty was made by those who had seized it. Gascoigne immediately laid the affair before the Prince, who saw through the design of his accusers, and gave him a passport for visiting his female friend. At the siege of Middleburgh he displayed so much bravery that the Prince rewarded

* Mr. Ellis conjectures that he was born much earlier.

him with 300 guilders above his pay; but he was soon after made prisoner by the Spaniards, and, having spent four months in captivity, returned to England, and resided generally at Walthamstow. In 1575 he accompanied Queen Elizabeth in one of her stately progresses, and wrote for her amusement a masque, entitled 'The Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth Castle.' He is generally said to have died at Stamford in 1578; but the registers of that place have been searched in vain for his name by the writer of an article in the Censura Literaria,' * who has corrected some mistakes in former accounts of him. It is not probable, however, that he lived long after 1576, as, from a manuscript in the British Museum, it appears that in that year he complains of his infirmities, and nothing afterwards came from his pen.

Gascoigne was one of the earliest contributors to our drama. He wrote The Supposes,' a comedy, translated from Ariosto, and Jocasta,' a tragedy from Euripides, with some other pieces,

JOHN HARRINGTON.

[Born, 1534. Died, 1582.]

JOHN HARRINGTON, the father of the translator of Ariosto, was imprisoned by Queen Mary for his suspected attachment to Queen Elizabeth, by whom he was afterwards rewarded with a grant of lands. Nothing that the younger Harrington has written seems to be worth preserving; but the few specimens of his father's poetry which are found in the Nugæ Antiquæ' may excite a regret that he did not write more. His love-verses have an elegance and terseness, more modern, by a hundred years, than those of his contemporaries.

*Cens. Lit.,' vol. i. p. 100. [Gascoigne died at Stamford on the 7th of October, 1577.-See Collier's Annals, vol. i. p. 192.]

SIR PHILIP SYDNEY.

[Born, 1554. Died, 1586.]

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 pursuits 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.

* Vide the biographical notice of Lord Oxford.