RICHARD EDWARDS [Born, 1523. Died, 1566] WAS a principal contributor to the Paradise of Dainty Devices, and one of our earliest dramatic authors. He wrote two comedies, one entitled Damon and Pythias, the other Palamon and Arcite, both of which were acted before Queen Elizabeth. Besides his regular dramas, he appears to have contrived masques, and to have written verses for pageants; and is described as having been the first fiddle, the most fashion able sonneteer, and the most facetious mimic of the court. In the beginning of Elizabeth's reign he was one of the gentlemen of her chapel, and master of the children there, having the character of an excellent musician. His pleasing little poem, the Amantium Iræ, has been so often reprinted, that, for the sake of variety, I have selected another specimen of his simplicity. HE REQUESTETH SOME FRIENDLY COMFORT, AFFIRMING HIS CONSTANCY. THE mountains high, whose lofty tops do meet the haughty sky; The craggy rock, that to the sea free passage doth deny; The aged oak, that doth resist the force of blustring blast; My faith, lo here! I vow to thee, my troth thou know'st too well; My goods, my friends, my life, is thine; what need I more to tell? I am not mine, but thine; I vow thy hests I will obey, The pleasant herb, that everywhere a pleasant And serve thee as a servant ought, in pleasing if The roaring of the cannon shot, that makes the piece to shake, Or terror, such as mighty Jove from heaven above can make: Thus Love, as victor of the field, triumphs above the rest, And joys to see his subjects lie with living death in breast; All these, in fine, may not compare, experience | But dire Disdain lets drive a shaft, and galls this so doth prove, Unto the torments, sharp and strange, of such as be in love. bragging fool, He plucks his plumes, unbends his bow, and sets him new to school; Whereby this boy that bragged late, as conqueror over all, Love looks aloft, and laughs to scorn all such as griefs annoy, The more extreme their passions be, the greater Now yields himself unto Disdain, his vassal and is his joy; his thrall. THOMAS SACKVILLE, BARON BUCKHURST, AND EARL OF DORSET, WAS the son of Sir Richard Sackville, and was * The Mirror for Magistrates" was intended to celebrate the chief unfortunate personages in English history, in a series of poetical legends spoken by the characters themselves, with epilogues interspersed to connect the stories, in imitation of Boccaccio's Fall of Princes, which had been translated by Lydgate. The historian of English poetry ascribes the plan of this work to Sackville, and seems to have supposed that his Induction and legend of Henry Duke of Buckingham appeared in the first edition: but Sir E. Brydges has shown that it was not until the second edition of the Mirror for Magistrates that Sackville's contribution was published, viz. in 1563. Baldwin and Ferrers were the authors of the first edition, in 1559. Higgins, Phayer, Churchyard, and a crowd of inferior versifiers, contributed successive legends, not confining themselves to English history, but treating the reader with the lamentations of Geta and Caracalla, Brennus, &c. &c. till the improvement of the drama superseded those dreary monologues, by giving heroic history a more engaging air. Sackville's contribution to *The Mirror for Magistrates," is the only part of it that is tolerable. It is observable that his plan differs materially from that of the other contributors. He lays compose the poetical history of Sackville's life. The rest of it was political. He had been elected to parliament at the age of thirty. Six years afterwards, in the same year that his Induction and legend of Buckingham were published, he went abroad on his travels, and was, for some reason that is not mentioned, confined, for a time, as a prisoner at Rome; but he returned home, on the death of his father, in 1566, and was soon after promoted to the title of Baron Buckhurst. Having entered at first with rather too much prodigality on the enjoyment of his patrimony, he is said to have been reclaimed by the indignity of being kept in waiting by an alderman, from whom he was borrowing money, and to have made a resolution of economy, from which he never departed. The queen employed him, in the fourteenth year of her reign, in an embassy to Charles IX. of France. In 1587 he went as ambassador to the United Provinces, upon their complaint against the Earl of Leicester; but, though he performed his trust with integrity, the favourite had sufficient influence to get him recalled; and on his return, he was ordered to confinement in his own house, for nine or ten months. On Leicester's death, however, he was immediately reinstated in royal favour, and was made knight of the garter, and chancellor of Oxford. On the death of Burleigh he became lord high treasurer of England. At Queen Elizabeth's demise he was one of the privy councillors on whom the administration of the kingdom devolved, and he concurred in proclaiming the scene, like Dante, in Hell, and makes his characters relate their history at the gates of Elysium, under the guidance of Sorrow; while the authors of the other legends are generally contented with simply dreaming of the unfortunate personages, and, by going to sleep, offer a powerful inducement to follow their example. King James. The new sovereign confirmed him in the office of high treasurer by a patent for life, and on all occasions consulted him with confidence. In March 1604, he was created Earl of Dorset. He died suddenly [1608] at the council table, in consequence of a dropsy on the brain. Few ministers, as Lord Orford remarks, have left behind them so unblemished a character. His family considered his memory so invulnerable, that when some partial aspersions were thrown upon it, after his death, they disdained to answer them. He carried taste and elegance even into his formal political functions, and for his eloquence was styled the bell of the Star Chamber. As a poet, his attempt to unite allegory with heroic narrative, and his giving our language its earliest regular tragedy, evince the views and enterprise of no ordinary mind; but, though the induction to the Mirror for Magistrates displays some potent sketches, it bears the complexion of a saturnine genius, and resembles a bold and gloomy landscape on which the sun never shines. As to Gorboduc, it is a piece of monotonous recitals, and cold and heavy accumulation of incidents. As an imitation of classical tragedy it is peculiarly unfortunate, in being without even the unities of place and time, to circumscribe its dulness. FROM SACKVILLE'S INDUCTION TO THE COMPLAINT OF HENRY, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. THE wrathful Winter, 'proaching on apace, The soil that erst so seemly was to seen, Had clad the earth, now Boreas blasts down blew ; ALLEGORICAL PERSONAGES DESCRIBED IN HELL. And first within the porch and jaws of Hell Her eyes unstedfast, rolling here and there, Whirl'd on each place, as place that vengeance brought, So was her mind continually in fear, Next saw we Dread, all trembling how he shook, And next within the entry of this lake When fell Revenge, with bloody foul pretence, * Stopped. e Fetched. His face was lean and sonie-deal pined away, His food, for most, was wild fruits of the tree; Whose wretched state, when we had well beheld The morrow gray no sooner had begun By him lay heavy Sleep, the cousin of Death, The body's rest, the quiet of the heart, And next in order sad Old Age we found, Crook'd-back'dhewas,tooth-shaken,andblear-eyed, GEORGE GASCOIGNE [Born, 1536. Died, 1577.] WAS born in 1536*, of an ancient family in Essex, was bred at Cambridge, and entered at Gray's-Inn; but being disinherited by his father for extravagance, he repaired to Holland, and obtained a commission under the Prince of Orange. A quarrel with his Colonel retarded his promotion in that service; and a circumstance occurred which had nearly cost him his life. A lady at the Hague (the town being then in the enemy's possession) sent him a letter, which was intercepted in the camp, and a report against his loyalty was made by those who had seized it. Gascoigne immediately laid the affair before the Prince, who saw through the design of his accusers, and gave him a passport for visiting his female friend. At the siege of Middleburgh he displayed so much bravery, that the Prince rewarded him with 300 gilders above his pay; but he was soon after made prisoner by the Spaniards, and having spent four months in captivity, re turned to England, and resided generally at Walthamstow. In 1575 he accompanied Queen Elizabeth in one of her stately progresses, and wrote for her amusement a mask, entitled the Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth Castle. He is generally said to have died at Stamford, in 1578; but the registers of that place have been searched in vain for his name, by the writer of an article in the Censura Literaria, who has corrected some mistakes in former accounts of him. It is not probable, however, that he lived long after 1576, as, from a manuscript in the British Museum, it appears that, in that year, he complains of his infirmities, and nothing afterwards came from his pen. Gascoigne was one of the earliest contributors to our drama. He wrote The Supposes, a comedy, translated from Ariosto, and Jocasta, a tragedy from Euripides, with some other pieces. THE ARRAIGNMENT OF A LOVER. Ar Beauty's bar as I did stand, My lord, quod I, this lady here, Quoth Beauty, No, it fitteth not * Mr. Ellis conjectures that he was born much earlier. ↑ Cens. Lit. vol. i. p. 100. [Gascoigne died at Stamford on the 7th of October, 1577.-See COLLIER's Annals, vol. i. p. 192.] |