ings wishes her to speak more loudly, that he may have a proof of her taciturnity from her own lips; but, recollecting himself, he gives way to the rapturous satisfaction of having found a silent woman, and exclaims to Cutbeard, "Go thy ways and get me a clergyman presently, with a soft low voice, to marry us, and pray him he will not be impertinent, but brief as he can."

The art of Jonson was not confined to the cold observation of the unities of place and time, but appears in the whole adaptation of his incidents and characters to the support of each other. Beneath his learning and art he moves with an activity which may be compared to the strength of a man who can leap and bound under the heaviest armour*.

The works of Jonson bring us into the seventeenth century; and early in that century, our language, besides the great names already mentioned, contains many other poets whose works may be read with a pleasure independent of the interest which we take in their antiquity.

Drayton and Daniel, though the most opposite in the cast of their genius, are pre-eminent in the second poetical class of their age, for their common merit of clear and harmonious diction. Drayton is prone to Ovidian conceits, but he plays with them so gaily, that they almost seem to become him as if natural. His feeling is neither deep, nor is the happiness of his fancy of long continuance, but its short April gleams are very beautiful. His Legend of the Duke of Buckingham opens with a fine description. Unfortunately, his descriptions in long poems are, like many fine mornings, succeeded by a cloudy day.

"The lark, that holds observance to the sun,
Quaver'd her clear notes in the quiet air,
And on the river's murmuring base did run,
Whilst the pleased heavens her fairest livery wear;
The place such pleasure gently did prepare,

[* He (Jonson) was deeply conversant in the ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them; there is scarce a poet or historian among the Roman authors of those times whom he has not translated in Sejanus and Catiline. But he has done his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him. With the spoils of these writers he so represented old Rome to us in its rites. ceremonies, and customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies we had seen less of it than in him.-DRYDEN.]

To whom the nymphs, upon their lyres,
Tune many a curious lay,
And, with their most melodious quires,
Make short the longest day.

Daniel is "somewhat a-flat," as one of his contemporaries said of him, but he had more sensibility than Drayton, and his moral reflection rises to higher dignity. The lyrical poetry of Elizabeth's age runs often into pastoral insipidity and fantastic carelessness, though there may be found in some of the pieces of Sir Philip Sydney, Lodge, Marlowe, and Breton, not only a sweet wild spirit but an exquisite finish of expression. Of these combined beauties Marlowe's song, "Come live with me, and be my love," is an example. The "Soul's Errand," by whomsoever it was written, is a burst of genuine poetry. I know not how that short production has ever affected other readers, but it carries to my imagination an appeal which I cannot easily account for from

[† Bolton in his Hypercritica, 1622.]
+ Vide these Selections, p. 57.

a few simple rhymes. It places the last and inexpressibly awful hour of existence before my view, and sounds like a sentence of vanity on the things of this world, pronounced by 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 Popet. 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 characterised 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

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.]

[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.]

[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.]

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 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.

§ 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.]

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.

FROM "THEALMA AND CLEARCHUS."
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 tím'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.

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.

*

*

*

*

*

*

Hardly did he refrain From sucking in destruction at her lip; Sin's cup will poison at the smallest sip. She weeps and woos 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,

Of

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, considering 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. the three translators, Phaer is the most faithful and simple, Golding the most musical, and Chapman the most spirited; though Chapman is prone to the turgid, and often false to the sense of Homer. Phaer's Eneid has been praised by a modern writert, in the "Lives of the Nephews of Milton," with absurd exaggeration. 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 inimit

[* The seven first books of Phaer's Virgil were first printed in 1558, the eighth, ninth, and the fragment of 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 par ticulars," says Mr. Collier, "of the life of Golding have been recovered. He does not appear to have written anything 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 Gen all 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 Mats signature, contayning a graunt 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.] [t William Godwin.]

able-although, to save myself farther impediment in the text, I must subjoin it in a note*.

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

Than first the cruel fear me caught, and sore my sprites appall'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.

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

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: