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Inn, for the purpose of studying the law. Like many men, however, of warm passions and strong imagination, he neglected his profession for the amusements and dissipation of a court, and having exhausted his paternal property, he found himself under the necessity of seeking abroad, in a military capacity, that support which he had failed to acquire at home. He accordingly accepted a Captain's commission in Holland, in 1572, under William Prince of Orange, and having signalised his courage at the siege of Middleburg, had the misfortune to be captured by the Spaniards near Leyden, and, after four months' imprisonment, revisited his native country.

He now resumed his profession and his apartments at Gray's Inn; but in 1575, on his return from accompanying Queen Elizabeth in her progress to Kenilworth Castle, he fixed his residence at his "poore house," at Walthamstow, where he employed himself in collecting and publishing his poems. He was not long destined, however, to enjoy this literary leisure; for, according to George Whetstone, who was "an eye-witness of his godly and charitable end in this world," he expired at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, on the 7th of October, 1577, when he was probably under forty years of age.*

The poetry of Gascoigne was twice collected during his life-time; firstly, in 1572, in a quarto volume, entitled, "A Hundredth sundrie Flowres bounde up in one small Poesie. Gathered partely (by translation) in the fyne outlandish Gardins of Euripides, Ovid, Petrarke, Ariosto, and others: and partly by invention, out of our owne fruitefull Orchardes in Englande: Yielding sundrie sweet savours of Tragical, Comical, and Morall Discourses, both pleasaunt and profitable to the well smellyng noses of learned Readers. Meritum petere, grave. At London, Imprinted for Richarde Smith;" and secondly in 1575, with the title of "The Posies of George Gascoigne, Esquire. Corrected, perfected, and augmented by the Authour. Tam Marti, quam Mercurio. Imprinted at London by H. Bynneman, for Richard Smith." This edition is divided into three parts, under the appellation of "Flowers, Hearbes, and Weedes," to which are annexed "Certayne notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English, written at the request of Master Edouardo Donati."

Besides these collections, Gascoigne published separately, "The Glasse of Government. A Tragical Comedie," 1575. "The Steele Glass. A Satyre," 1576. "The Princely Pleasures, at the Court of Kenelworth," 1576; and "A Delicate Diet for daintie mouthed Drunkards," a prose tract, 1576. After his death appeared, in 1586, his tract, entitled, "The Droome of Doomes day; and in 1587, was given to the world, a complete edition of his works, in small quarto, black

letter.

Gascoigne, though patronized by several illustrious characters, among whom may be enumerated, Lord Grey of Wilton, the Earl of Bedford, and Sir Walter Raleigh, appears to have suffered so much from the envy and malignity of his critics, as to induce him to intimate, that the disease of which he died, was occasioned by the irritability of mind resulting from these attacks; and yet, as far as we have an opportunity of judging, his contemporaries seem to have done justice to his talents; at least Gabriel Harvey and Arthur Hall, Nash, Webbe, and Puttenham, have together praised him for his wit, his imagination, and his metre; and in the Glosse to Spenser's Calender, he is styled "the very chief of our late rymers."

The poetry of our author has not, in modern times, met with all the attention which it deserves; specimens, it is true, have been selected by Cooper, Percy, Warton, Headley, Ellis, Brydges, and Haslewood; but, with the exception of the re-impression of 1810, in Mr. Chalmers's English Poets, no edition of his works has been published since 1587. This is the more extraordinary, for, as the in

For further particulars of his life see Chalmers's English Poets, vol. ii. p. 447. et seq., Censura Literara, vol. i. p. 110, and British Bibliographer, vol. i p. 73.

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genious editor has just remarked, "there are three respects in which his claims to originality require to be noticed as eras in a history of poetry. His Steele Glass is among the first specimens of blank verse in our language; his Jocasta is the second theatrical piece written in that measure; and his Supposes is the first comedy written in prose.' Warton has pronounced him to have "much exceeded all the poets of his age in smoothness and harmony of versification. an encomium which particularly applies to the lyrical portion of his works, which is indeed exquisitely polished, though not altogether free from affectation and antithesis. Among these pieces, too, is to be discovered a considerable range of fancy, much tenderness and glow of sentiment, and a frequent felicity of expres sion. In moral and didactic poetry, he has likewise afforded us proofs approaching to excellence, and his satire entitled "The Steele Glass," includes a curious and minute picture of the manners and customs of the age.

To the "Supposes" of Gascoigne, a translation from the Suppotiti of Ariosto, executed with peculiar neatness and ease, Shakspeare has been indebted for a part of his plot of the "Taming of the Shrew."

19. GREENE, ROBERT. Of this ingenious and prolific writer, we have already related so many particulars, that nothing more can be wanting here, than a brie character of his poetical genius. Were his poetry collected from his various pamphlets and plays, of which nearly fifty are known to be extant, a most inte resting little volume might be formed. The extreme rarity, however, of his preductions, may render this an object of no easy attainment; but of its effect a pretty accurate idea may be acquired from what has been done by Mr. Beloe, who, in his Anecdotes of Literature, has collected many beautiful specimens from the fol lowing pieces of our author. "Tullie's Love, 1616; Penelope's Web, 1601: Farewell to Follie, 1617; Never Too Late, 1590; History of Arbasto, 1617; Arcadia, or Menaphor, 1589; Orphanion, 1599; Philomela, 1592."

Though most of the productions of Greene were written to supply the wants of the passing hour, yet the poetical effusions scattered through his works betray few marks of haste or slovenliness, and many of them, indeed, may be classed among the most polished and eminent of their day. To much warmth and ferti lity of fancy, they add a noble strain of feeling and enthusiasm, together with many exquisite touches of the pathetic, and so many impressive lessons of mo rality, as, in a great measure, to atone for the licentiousness of several of his prose tracts.

20, HALL, JOSEPH, Bishop of Exeter and Norwich, was born on the first of July, 1574, at Brestow Park, Leicestershire. He was admitted of Emanuel Col lege, Cambridge, at the age of fifteen, and when twenty-three years old, pullished his satires, under the title of Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes. First Thre Bookes of Tooth-less Satyrs: 1. Poetical; 2. Academicall; 3. Moral: printed by T. Creede for R. Dexter, 1597. The Three last Bookes of Byting Satyrs, by R. Bradock for Dexter, 1598. Both parts were reprinted together in 1599, and have conferred upon their author a just claim to the appellation of one of our earliest and best satiric poets. Of the legitimate satire, indeed, he appears to have given us the first example, an honour upon which he justly prides himself, for, in the opening of his prologue, he tells us

"I first adventure, with fool-hardy might,
To tread the steps of perilous despight:
I first adventure, follow me who list,
And be the second English satirist."

On the republication of the Virgidemiarum at Oxford, in 1752, Gray, in a let

Chalmers's English Poets, vol. ii. 455. + Observations on the Fairy Queen, vol. ii. p. 16. The reprint which has just appeared of our author's "Philomela," is a proof, however, that his prose was occasionally the medium of sound instruction; for the moral of this piece is unexceptionable. We may also remark, that the confessions wrung from him in the hour of repentance are highly monitory, and calculated to make the most powerful and salutary impression.

ter to Dr. Wharton, speaking of these satires, says, "they are full of spirit and poetry, as much of the first as Dr. Donne, and far more of the latter;" and Warton, at the commencement of of an elaborate and extended critique on Hall's poetic genius, in the Fragment of his fourth volume of the History of English Poetry, gives the following very discriminative character of these satires. They are marked," he observes," with a classical precision, to which English poetry had yet rarely attained. They are replete with animation of style and sentiment. The animation of the satirist is always the result of good sense. Nor are the thorns of severe invective unmixed with the flowers of pure poetry. 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. It is no inconsiderable proof of a genius predominating over the general taste of an age when every preacher was a punster, to have written verses, where laughter was to be raised, and the reader to be entertained with sallies of pleasantry, without quibbles and conceits. His chief fault is obscurity, arising from a remote phraseology, constrained combinations, unfamiliar allusions, elliptical apostrophes, and abruptness of expression. Perhaps some will think that his manner betrays too much of the laborious exactness and pedantic anxiety of the scholar and the student. Ariosto in Italian, and Regnier in French, were now almost the only writers of satire; and I believe there had been an English translation of Ariosto's Satires. But Hall's acknowledged patterns are Juvenal and Persius, not without some touches of the urbanity of Horace. His parodies of these poets, or rather his adaptations of ancient to modern manners, a mode of imitation not unhappily practised by Oldham, Rochester, and Pope, discover great facility and dexterity of invention. The moral gravity and the censorial declamation of Juvenal he frequently enlivens with a train of more refined reflection, or adorns with a novelty and variety of images."

The Satires of Hall exhibit a very minute and curious picture of the literature and manners, the follies and vices of his times, and numerous quotations in the course of our work will amply prove the wit, the sagacity, and the elegance of his Muse. Poetry was the occupation merely of his youth, the vigour and decline of his days being employed in the composition of professional works, calculated, by their piety, eloquence, and originality, to promote in the most powerful manner the best interets of morality and religion. This great and good man died, after a series of persecution from the republican party, at his little estate at Heigham, near Norwich, on the 8th of September, 1656, and in the eighty-second year of his

aze.

21. HARINGTON, SIR JOHN. Among the numerous translators of the Elizabethan period, this gentleman merits peculiar notice, as having, through the medium of his Ariosto, "enriched our poetry by a communication of new stores of fiction and imagination, both of the romantic and comic species, of Gothic machinery and familiar manners." His version of the Orlando Furioso, of which the first edition was published in 1591, procured him a large share of celebrity. Stowe, in las Annals, has classed him among those excellent poets which worthily flourish in their own works, and lived together in Queen Elizabeth's reign;" and Fuller, † Philips, Dryden, and others, to the middle of the eighteenth century, have spoken of him in terms of similar commendation. In point of poetical execution, however, his translation, whatever might be its incidental operation on our poetic literature, must now be considered as vulgar, tame, and inaccurate. Sir John was born at Kelston near Bath, in 1561, and died there in 1612, aged fifty-one. His "Epigrams," in four Books, were published after his death; first in 1615, when the * Chalmers's English Poets, vol. v. p. 226.

Warton's Hist. of English Poerty, vol. iii. p. 485. This writer terms Sir John "one of the most ingenious poets of our English nation," and says "he was Poet in all things, save in his wealth, leaving a fair estate to a learned and religious son.”—Worthies, Fart in p. 28.

fourth book alone was printed; again in 1618, including the whole collection; and a third time in 1625, small 8vo. The poetical merit of these pieces is very trifling, but they throw light upon contemporary character and manners.

22. JONSON, BENJAMIN. Of this celebrated poet, the friend and companion of Shakspeare, a very brief notice, and limited to his minor pieces, will here be necessary, as his dramatic works and some circumstances of his life will hereafter occupy their due share of attention. His poems were divided by himself into "Epigrams," "The Forest,' "Under-woods," and a translation of Horace's Art of Poetrie;" to which his late editors have added, "Miscellaneous Pieces." The general cast of these poems is not such as will recommend them to a modern ear; they are but too often cold and affected; but occasionally, instances of a description the very reverse of these epithets are to be found, where simplicity and beauty of expression constitute the prominent features. It is chiefly, if not altogether, among his minor pieces in the lyric measure that we meet with this peculiar neatness and concinnity of diction: thus, in "The Forest," the lines from Catullus, beginning "Come, my Celia, let us prove," and the well-known song

66

"Drink to me only with thine eyes ;"

in the Underwoods," the stanzas commencing

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"Queene and huntresse, chaste and faire;"
"Still to be neat, still to be drest;"

are striking proofs of these excellencies.

We must also remark that, among his "Epistles" and "Miscellaneous Pieces," there are discoverable a few very conspicuous examples of the union of correc: and nervous sentiment with singular force and dignity of elocution. Of this happy combination, the lines to the Memory of Shakspeare, an eulogium which wil claim our attention in a future page, may be quoted as a brilliant model.

23. LODGE, THOMAS, M. D. This gentleman, though possessing celebrity, is his day, as a physician, is chiefly entitled to the attention of posterity as a poet He was a native of Lincolnshire, and born about 1556; educated at Oxford, et which he became a member about 1573, and died of the plague at London, in September, 1625. He has the double honour of being the first who published, in our language, a Collection of Satires, so named, and of having suggested to Shakspeare the plot of his As You Like It. Philips, in his Theatrum Poetarum, châracterises him as 66 one of the writers of those pretty old pastoral songs, which were very much the strain of those times;" but as strangely overlooked his satirical powers; these, however, have been noticed by Meres, who remarks, that ** as Horace, Lucilius, Juvenal, Persius and Lucullus are the best for Satyre among the Latins, so with us in the same faculty, these are chiefe: Piers Plowman, Ledia. Hall of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge, the author of Pigmalion's Image, etc. The work which gives him precedence, as a writer of professed satires, is entitled "A Fig for Momus; containing pleasant Varietie, included in satyrs, Eclogues, and Epistles, by T. L. of Lincolnes Inne, Gent." 1595. ‡ It is dedi cated to "William, Earle of Darbie," and though published two years before the

:

* The popularity of these epigrams, notwithstanding their poetical mediocrity, may be estimated from the opinion of the publisher of the edition of 1625. “If in poetry," he remarks, heraldry were aca leng he would be found in happiness of wit near allied to the great Sidney ; yet but near; for the Apix of the Cœlum Empyrium is not more inaccessible, than is the height of Sidney's pocsy, which by imagiatus #2 may approach, by imitation never attain to."-Vide Nuga Antique, vol. i. p. xxiii. + Ibid. p. 115.

Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature, vol. ii. p. 114.

appearance of Hall's Satires, possesses a spirit, ease and harmony, which that more celebrated poet has not surpassed. Than the following lines, selected from the first satire, we know few which, in the same department, can establish a better claim to vigour, truth, and melody:

"All men are willing with the world to haulte,

But no man takes delight to knowe his faulte

Tell bleer-eid Linus that his sight is cleere,

Heele pawne himselfe to buy thee bread and beere ;

Find me a niggard that doth want the shift

To call his cursed avarice good thrift;

A rakehell sworne to prodigalitie,

That dares not terme it liberalitie;

A letcher that hath lost both flesh and fame,
That holds not letcherie a pleasant game:-
Thus with the world, the world dissembles still,
And to their own confusions follow will,
Holding it true felicitie to flie,

Not from the sinne, but from the seeing eie."*

The debt of Shakspeare to our author is to be found in a pamphlet entitled "Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacie, found after his Death in his Cell at Silexdra, by T. L. Gent." The poetical pieces interspersed through this tract correspond with the character given of Lodge's composition by Phillips; for they are truly pastoral, and are finished in a style of great sweetness, delicacy, and feeling. Want of taste, or want of intimacy with this production, has induced Mr. Steevens to give a very improper estimate of it; "Shakspeare," he remarks, "has followed Lodge's novel more exactly than is his general custom when he is indebted to such worthless originals; and has sketched some of his principal characters, and borrowed a few expressions from it."

The poetry of Lodge is to be gleaned from his pamphlets; particularly from the two which we have mentioned, and from the two now to be enumerated, namely, "Phillis: honoured with pastorall sonnets, elegies and amorous delights. Whereunto is annexed, the tragicall complaynt of Elstred," 1593, 4to, and "A most pleasant historie of Glaucus and Scilla: with many excellent poems, and delectable sonnets," 1610, 4to. He contributed, likewise, to the Collection termed "The Phoenix Nest," 1593, and "England's Helicon," 1600; and in the Preface, by Sir Egerton Brydges, to the third edition of the latter Miscellany, so just a tribute is paid to his genius as imperatively demands insertion; more particularly if we consider the obscurity into which this poet has fallen. "In ancient writings," observes the critic, "we frequently meet with beautiful passages; but whole compositions are seldom free from the most striking inequalities; from inharmonious verses; from lame, or laboured and quaint expressions; and creeping or obscure thoughts. In Lodge we find whole pastorals and odes, which have all the ease, polish, and elegance of a modern author. How natural is the sentiment, and how sweet the expression of the following in Old Damon's Pastoral :'

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