And, of these chanting fowls, the goldfinch not behind, The laughing hecco; then, the counterfeiting jay. We will add a short specimen of Drayton's lighter style from his Nymphidia-the account of the equipage of the Queen of the Fairies, when she set out to visit her lover Pigwiggen. The reader may compare it with Mercutio's description in Romeo and Juliet: Her chariot ready straight is made; Upon the coach-box getting. The seat the soft wool of the bee, I trow 'twas simple trimming. The wheels composed of cricket's bones, For all her maidens much did fear If Oberon had chanced to hear That Mab his queen should have been there, She mounts her chariot with a trice, Nor would she stay for no advice Until her maids, that were so nice, To wait on her were fitted; But ran herself away alone; Which when they heard, there was not one As she had been diswitted. Hop, and Mop, and Drab so clear, Her special maids of honour; JOSEPH HALL. Joseph Hall was born in 1574, and was successively bishop of Exeter and Norwich, from the latter of which sees having been expelled by the Long Parliament, he died, after protracted sufferings from imprisonment and poverty, in 1656. Hall began his career of authorship by the publication of Three Books of Satires, in 1597, while he was a student at Cambridge, and only in his twenty-third year. A continuation followed the next year under the title of Virgidemiarum the Three last Books; and the whole were afterwards republished together, as Virgidemiarum Six Books; that is, six books of bundles of rods. "These satires," says Warton, who has given an elaborate analysis of them, are marked with a classical precision to which English poetry had yet early attained. They are replete with animation of style and sentiment. . . . The characters are delineated in strong and lively colouring, and their discriminations are touched with the masterly traces of genuine humour. The versification is equally energetic and elegant, and the fabric of the couplets approaches to the modern standard."* Satires have been repeatedly reprinted in modern times. SYLVESTER. Hall's One of the most popular poets of this date was Joshua Sylvester, the translator of The Divine Weeks and Works, and *Hist. of Eng. Poet. iv. 338. other productions, of the French poet Du Bartas. Sylvester has the honour of being supposed to have been one of the early favourites of Milton. In one of his publications he styles himself a Merchant-Adventurer, and he seems to have belonged to the Puritan party, which may have had some share in influencing Milton's regard. His translation of Du Bartas was first published in 1605; and the seventh edition (beyond which, we believe, its popularity did not carry it) appeared in 1641. Nothing can be more uninspired than the general run of Joshua's verse, or more fantastic and absurd than the greater number of its more ambitious passages; for he had no taste or judgment, and, provided the stream of sound and the jingle of the rhyme were kept up, all was right in his notion. His poetry consists chiefly of translations from the French; but he is also the author of some original pieces, the title of one of which, a courtly offering from the poetical Puritan to the prejudices of King James, may be quoted as a lively specimen of his style and genius :-" Tobacco battered, and the pipes shattered, about their ears that idly idolize so base and barbarous a weed, or at leastwise overlove so loathsome a vanity, by a volley of holy shot thundered from Mount Helicon." But, with all his general flatness and frequent absurdity, Sylvester has an uncommon flow of harmonious words at times, and occasionally even some fine lines and felicitous expressions. His contemporaries called him the "Silver-tongued Sylvester," for what they considered the sweetness of his versification--and some of his best passages justify the title. Indeed, even when the substance of what he writes approaches nearest to nonsense, the sound is often very graceful, soothing the ear with something like the swing and ring of Dryden's heroics. The commencement of the following passage from his translation of Du Bartas may remind the reader of Milton's "Hail, holy light! offspring of heaven first-born": All hail, pure lamp, bright, sacred, and excelling; But yet, because all pleasures wax unpleasant 8vo. Lond. 1615. And swans seem whiter if swart crows be by The All's architect alternately decreed That Night the Day, the Day should Night succeed... Sweet Night! without thee, without thee, alas ! CHAPMAN'S HOMER. "He George Chapman was born at Hitching Hill, in the county of Hertford, in 1557, and lived till 1634. Besides his plays, which will be afterwards noticed, he is the author of several original poetical pieces; but he is best and most favourably known by his versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey. would have made a great epic poet," Charles Lamb has said, in his Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets, turning to these works after having characterized his dramas, "if, indeed, he has not abundantly shown himself to be one: for his Homer is not so properly a translation as the stories of Achilles and Ulysses re-written. The earnestness and passion which he has put into every part of these poems would be incredible to a reader of mere modern translations. His almost Greek zeal for the honour of his heroes is only paralleled by that fierce spirit of Hebrew bigotry with which Milton, as if personating one of the zealots of the old law, clothed himself when he sat down to paint the acts of Samson against the uncircumcised. The great obstacle to Chapman's translations being read is their unconquerable quaintness. He pours out in the same breath the most just and natural, and the most violent and forced expressions. He seems to grasp whatever words come first to hand during the impetus of inspiration, as if all other must be inadequate to the divine meaning. But passion (the all in all in poetry) is everywhere present, raising the low, dignifying the mean, and putting sense into the absurd. He makes his readers glow, weep, tremble, take any affection which he pleases, be moved by words or in spite of them, be disgusted and overcome that disgust." Chapman's Homer is, in some respects, not unworthy of this enthusiastic tribute. Few writers have been more copiously inspired with the genuine frenzy of poetry. With more judgment and more care he might have given to his native language, in his version of the Iliad, one of the very greatest of the poetical works it possesses. In spite, however, of a hurry and impetuosity which betray him into many mistranslations, and, on the whole, have the effect perhaps of giving a somewhat too tumultuous and stormy representation of the Homeric poetry, the English into which Chapman transfuses the meaning of the mighty ancient is often singularly and delicately beautiful. He is the author of nearly all the happiest of the compound epithets which Pope has adopted, and of many others equally musical and expressive. "Far-shooting Phoebus," -"the ever-living gods,"-" the many-headed hill,"—" the ivorywristed queen,' are a few of the felicitous combinations with which he has enriched his native tongue. Carelessly executed, indeed, as the work for the most part is, there is scarcely a page of it that is not irradiated by gleams of the truest poetic genius. Often in the midst of a long paragraph of the most chaotic versification, the fatigued and distressed ear is surprised by a few lines, or it may be sometimes only a single line,-"musical as is Apollo's lute," and sweet and graceful enough to compensate for ten times as much ruggedness. HARINGTON; FAIRFAX; FANSHAWE. Of the translators of foreign poetry which belong to this period, three are very eminent. Sir John Harington's translation of the Orlando Furioso first appeared in 1591, when the author was in his thirtieth year. It does not convey all the glow and poetry of Ariosto; but it is, nevertheless, a performance of great ingenuity and talent. The translation of Tasso's great epic by Edward Fairfax was first published, under the title of Godfrey |