complishments and amiable qualities, Sydney was the most admired and popular man of his times. At the early age of thirty-two, he received a mortal wound at a battle near Zutphen, in the Netherlands, when his generous character was manifested by an incident which will never be forgotten in the history of England, and of humanity. Being overcome with thirst from excessive bleeding, he called for drink, which, though not easily procured, was brought to him. At the moment he was lifting it to his mouth, a poor soldier was carried by, desperately wounded, who fixed his eyes eagerly upon the cup-Sydney, observing this, instantly delivered the beverage to him, saying, Thy necessity is yet greater than mine.' Spenser, Sydney, and Shakspeare, may be considered as the chief poetical names which fall more particularly under the reign of Elizabeth. The last, who will be noticed more at large in the department of the Dramatists, published, in early life, two poems of considerable length, one of which referred to the story of Venus and Adonis, and the other to the story of Lucretia; but his best productions in miscellaneous poetry are his sonnets, one hundred and fifty-four in number, in which he embodies much of his own character and daily thought, with a pathos in the highest degree interesting. As specimens, the following may be given : CONSOLATION FROM FRIENDSHIP. When to the sessions of sweet silent thought, And with old thoughts new wail my dear time's waste: Then can I drown an eye unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long-since cancell'd woe, Then can 1 grieve at grievances foregone, SELF-ABANDONMENT. No longer mourn for me when I am dead, SYDNEY.-SOUTHWELL. Give warning to the world that I am fled The hand that writ it; for I love you so, When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Lest the wise world should look into your moan, 35 Other poets immediately belonging to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, were Sir Walter Raleigh, who will presently be spoken of as a prose-writer; John Lylly, author of several plays, and originator of an affected and conceited style of speech called Euphuism; Sackville, Earl of Dorset; George Gascoigne; Thomas Lodge; and Robert Southwell; in all of whose works are to be found some strikingly beautiful pieces. *Gascoigne who died 1578, though called "one of the smaller poets of Queen Elizabeth's days," possesses, however, no inconsiderable merit. His Steel Glass is one of the earliest specimens of original blank verse in the English tongue, and after some of the pieces of Wyatt, the first regular satire of which it can boast. According to the fashion of the times, he fancifully divided his poems into Weeds, Flowers, and Herbs, &c., under which titles, are several happy specimens of versification.* It may be mentioned that this was the age when collections of fugitive and miscellaneous poetry first became common. Several volumes of this kind were published in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, and contain some lyrical poetry of the greatest merit, without any author's name. As a specimen of one of the forms of composition, and one of the styles of thinking, followed in this age, we may give Southwell's little poem, entitled, SCORN NOT THE LEAST. Where wards are weak, and foes encountering strong, The feebler part puts up enforced wrong, And silent sees that speech could not amend ; Yet higher powers must think, though they repine, * AM. ED. While pike do range, the silly tench doth fly, These fleet afloat, while those do fill the dish; Nor greedy greyhound still pursue the chase, And fearful hare to run a quiet race. We trample grass, and prize the flowers of May; Among the poets more immediately belonging to the seventeenth century, or the reigns of James and Charles, the earliest presented to our notice is SAMUEL DANIEL (1562-1619), who spent the greater part of his life under the protection of noble and royal personages, and was distinguished as a writer of masques-namely, a dramatic kind of entertainment which, at this period, became fashionable at court, consisting chiefly of a few dialogues, supported by allegorical characters. The miscellaneous poems of Daniel were in general so applicable only to the and circumstances of his own age, that they persons have fallen almost entirely out of notice. Yet he wrote in a style rather in advance of his time, and in some of his pieces rises to a high degree of excellence. His address to the Countess of Cumberland is still ranked among the finest effusions of meditative thought in the English language. It opens with the following stanzas, to which we shall give the title of THE PHILOSOPHICAL OBSERVER. He that of such a height hath built his mind, Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong And with how free an eye doth he look down DRAYTON. Where all the storms of passions mainly beat Where greatness. stands upon as feeble feet He looks upon the mightiest monarch's wars, Where evermore the fortune that prevails Conspires with power, whose cause must not be ill. He sees the face of right t' appear as manifold To serve his ends, and makes his courses hold. 37 MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563-1631), is a very voluminous author, but, throughout the whole extent of his writings, shows the fancy and feeling of a true poet. His chief work is entitled Polyolbion, a poem in thirty parts, which he calls songs, constructed in an uncommon measure of twelve syllables, and containing a description of the island of Great Britain. The Polyolbion, is a work entirely unlike any other in English poetry, both in its subject, and the manner in which it is written. It is full of topographical and antiquarian details, with innumerable allusions to remarkable events and persons, as connected with various localities; yet such is the poetical genius of the author, so happily does he idealize almost every thing he touches on, and so lively is the flow of his verse, that we do not readily tire in perusing this vast mass of information. He seems to have followed the manner of Spenser in his unceasing personifications of natural objects, such as hills, rivers, and woods. The prevailing taste of Drayton is a mixture of the historical and the poetical; and besides the Polyolbion, he wrote several poems, in which these two characteristics are very happily blended—such as the Baron's Wars, and England's Heroical Epistles. His miscellaneous writings are chiefly odes and pastorals. As a specimen of his cheerful and vivacious style, we may quote from the Polyolbion a description of the hunting of the hart in the forest of Arden in Warwickshire : THE HUNTING OF THE HART. Now, when the hart doth hear, Put quite out of his walk, the ways and fallows tries. Whom when the ploughman meets, his teem he letteth stand, The shepherd him pursues, and to his dog doth hollow; When, with tempestuous speed, the hounds and huntsman follow; His long and sinewy legs then failing him at length, The cruel rav'nous hounds and bloody hunters near, This noblest beast of chase, that vainly doth but fear, Some bank or quickset finds; to which his haunch opposed, A peculiar kind of blast upon the hunting horn. |