...

dream, being merrily past in a catch of four parts, a deep health to a light mistress, and a knot of brave blades to make up the consort. . . A weak blast of light fame was a great part of that portion I aimed at. And herein was my madness! I held nothing so likely to make me known to the world, or admired in it, as to be debauched, and to purchase a parasite's praise by my riot.'

He may, perhaps, deepen the colour of his pictures, after the manner of certain religionists who take a fond pleasure in blackening their former complexion, perhaps in order to make their present exceeding fairness the better appreciated— or is it because the 'Old Adam' likes lingering over those old days, and describing, with not unaffectionate emphasis, their once sweet deliriousness? But probably, even in the midst of his wildnesses, Brathwaite was not without compunctious visitings. We doubt whether he was ever altogether a reformed character. Barnabae Itinerarium, or Barnabee's Journal, was not published till 1638, when he was some fifty years of age. It may have been written in part long before; but it certainly was not all so. Anyhow there is no reason for supposing that it was published, when it was published, against the author's will. Late in life, too, he reprinted one or two not very edifying pieces from the Strappado: e.g., as late as 1665 in his Comment upon the Two Tales of Our Ancient, Renowned, and Ever living Poet Sir Geoffrey Chaucer, Knight, the story of how a 'wily wench' 'capricorned' her husband. Thus we have in Brathwaite a man of a curiously mixed nature, or rather—for that description would apply to us all-a man who displays his mixedness with a curious frankness and fulness. We see him in his cups; we see him at his prayers. A strange figure this, now reeling, now kneeling. Do not let us doubt his sincerity: he drinks with zest; he prays with all earnestness. He is a vehement, impulsive man, who must still be talking, still unbosoming himself, still giving voice to the passion of the

moment. Always hating Puritanism-it had no heartier. enemy-he struggles to be religious and to recommend religiousness in what he thought a more liberal spirit than the Puritanic; yet in the midst of his aspirations and efforts there would intrude at times far other thoughts, and all of a sudden the paraphrast of 'The Psalms of David the King and Prophet and of other Holy Prophets' is busy conjugating his favourite verb :—

Sat est, verbum declinavi,
Titubo titubas-titubavi.

The Psalms of David and the songs of Anacreon, he can sing them both con amore, this versatile gentleman. In other writers of the time, as in Herrick, one may see something of the same odd combination, or rather of the same plenary representation, of two different sides of our complex nature; but perhaps in no one so clearly and so abruptly, so to speak, as in the subject of the present notice.

The reprint before us, for which Mr Ebsworth is to be thanked, is of one of his earliest works. It appeared in 1615, the year before Shakespeare's death. The volume consists of two parts: first, the Strappado for the devil, and secondly, Love's Labyrinth or the True Lover's Knot, including the disastrous falls of two Star-crost lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe.

The Strappado is a miscellany of epigrams, satires, and occasional pieces. The origin of the collection is no doubt sufficiently indicated in his Spiritual Spicery, 1638, when he is talking of his early life, how he 'held it in those days an incomparable grace to be styled one of the wits; where, if at any time invited to a public feast, or some other meeting of the Muses, we hated nothing more than losing time; reserving even some select hours of that solemnity, to make proof of our Conceits in a present provision of Epigrams,

Anagrams, with other expressive (and many times offensive) fancies. By this time I got an eye in the world; and a finger in the streets. There goes an author! One of the wits!' The title should mean, we suppose, a flogging for the Archfiend, a scourge for evil, very much what Wither meant by his Abuses Stript and Whipt (1613); but Brathwaite, in a passage in a subsequent volume, leads us to understand that by 'Devil' was thought to be meant especially one particular form of evil-detraction. Whatever is the precise meaning of this fantastic title—it was an age of such—the collection included under it may be briefly described as the characteristic offspring of a young Jacobean wit-of a lively Bohemian of the early seventeenth century. It jokes as men joked then, outspokenly and often coarsely. The epigrams might occasionally have more point, the satires bite more keenly. But, as we said to begin with, Brathwaite has always some vivacity and vigour ; he is never utterly dull; now and then he writes with true force and dignity, and he furnishes here many of those illustrations of contemporary life and literature which we have mentioned as giving value to his works. He quotes 'a horse, a kingdom for a horse,' from Richard III.; and Halloa ye pampered Jades,' from Tamberlaine the Great, second part. Here is an early reference to Cervantes'

famous romance :—

If I had lived but in Don Quixote's time,
His Rozinant had been of little worth;
For mine was bred within a colder clime,
And can endure the motion of the earth
With greater patience; nor will he repine

At any provender, so mild is he.

How many men want his humility!

All true-bred northern sparks' will find something to

interest them in his lines To the Cottoners. There he speaks of Wakefield and its Pindar, of Bradford and its 'Souter,' of Kendal and its white coats. Bradford, it seems, was notable for its Puritanism :—

Bradford, if I should rightly set it forth,

Style it I might the Banbury of the North;

And well this title with the town agrees

Famous for twanging, Ale, Zeal, Cakes, and Cheese.

But why should I set zeal behind their ale !
Because zeal is for some, but ale for all;
Zealous, indeed, some are (for I do hear

Of many zealous simpring sister there

Who love their brothers from their heart i' faith).

The English of the last line but one is noticeable.

Brath

waite says 'many sister,' according to the older—the proper -usage: so many burden' (p. 67, etc.).

occur in this couplet from Gower :

With many an herb and many a stone

Whereof she hath there many one.

Both usages

IT

XVI

MILTON'S 'MACBETH'

(From The Nineteenth Century for Dec. 1891)

T is one of the most curious facts in literary history that Milton at one time proposed to write a drama on the story of Macbeth—that more than thirty years after Shakespeare's great tragedy had been before the world, Milton proposed to take up the theme already treated with such incomparable power. Such a design seems at first sight to imply a strange want of discernment, or an extraordinary self-confidence, or a reckless audacity; 'for what can the man do that cometh after the King?' But the evidence of its entertainment is decisive; and I wish now to consider what motives could have induced Milton to think of such a thing.

The evidence that he did think of it is to be found in a well-known MS. in his own handwriting, now one of the treasures of the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. This MS. was in all probability written shortly after his return from his Continental tour, when at last he was leaving his father's roof and beginning an independent life. Till the year 1639, at the close of which he became thirtyone, Milton had been permitted by a highly appreciative