which was too licentious in attacking establishments, and has a vein of severity unseasoned by wit, he suffered an imprisonment for many months in the Marshalsea. Not being debarred the use of paper, pens and ink*, he wrote during his confinement, an apology to James the First, under the title of A SATYRE, printed the following year, for his censures of the government in his first book. But, like Prynne in the pillory railing at the bishops, instead of the lenient language of recantation and concession, in this piece he still perseveres in his invectives against the court. Being taken prisoner in the rebellion by the royalists, he was sentenced to be hanged; but sir John Denham the poet prevailed with the king to spare his life, by telling his majesty, So long as Wither lives, I shall not be the worst poet in England. The revenge of our satirist was held so cheap, that he was lampooned by Taylor the water-poet P. Richard Brathwayte, a native of Northumberland, admitted at Oriel college, Oxford, in 1604, and afterwards a student at

[Such was the unsubdued addiction

of Wither to poetical composition, that when he was debarred the use of paper, pens, and ink, during a subsequent confinement in the Tower, he continued to write verses with ochre on three trenchers, which he afterwards printed in a tract entitled "A Proclamation," &c. See the Brit. Bibliogr. p. 434.-PRICE.]

• Reprinted 1615, 1622, 8vo.

P The titles of Wither's numerous pieces may be seen in Wood, Ath. Oxon. i. 392. seq. He was born in 1588, and died in 1667. He has left some anecdotes of the early part of his life, in the first book of his Abuses. The Occasion, p. 1. seq. In Hayman's Epigrams, 1628, there is one, "To the accute Satyrist, Master George Wither." Epigr. 20. And 21. p. 61.

Here might be mentioned, "Essayes and Characters, ironicall and instructive, &c. By John Stephens the younger, of Lincolnes inne, Gent." Lond. 1615. 12mo. Mine is a second impression. Many of the Essayes are Satires in verse.

There is also a collection of Satyrical poems called the Knave of Clubbs, 1611. another, the Knave of Harts, 1612. and More Knaves yet, the Knaves of Spades and Diamonds; with new additions, 1612. 4to. Among Mr. Capell's Shaksperiana, at Trinity college, Cambridge, are "Dobson's Dry Bobs," 1610. bl. lett. 4to. and Heath's Epigrams, 1610. 8vo.

[Those Epigrammatic Knaves appear to have been the fabrication of Samuel Rowlands. The first of them has his initials, and consists of satirical characters. The second is undesignated, and comprises Knaves of all kinds, with several sarcastic appendages. The third has an introductory Epistle, with the name of this versatile author at length, and chiefly is com

posed of Epigrams or Proverbs, but not at all on the plan of ancient Heywood. The following specimen, though very hyperbolical, will exhibit the prevalence of certain fashions in the age of our first James.

To Madam MASKE or Francis FAN. When men amazed at their busines stood, A speech was used, "Faith, I am in a wood."

To make an end of that same wooden phrase,

There's order taken for it now adaies, To cut downe wood with all the speed they can,

Transforming trees to maintaine Maske and Fan:

So that the former speech being errour
tried,

A new way turn'd it must be verified.
My ladies worship, ev'n from head to foot,
Is in a wood; nay, scarse two woods will
doo't:

To such a height Lucifer's sinne is growne,
The devill, pride, and Maddam are all one.
Rents rais'd, woods sold, house-keeping

laid aside,

In all things sparing, for to spend on pride:
The poore complaining country thus doth

say

"Our fathers lopt the boughs of trees away:

We, that more skill of greedy gaine have found,

Cut down the bodies levil with the ground:

The age that after our date shall succeed, Will dig up roots and all to serve their need." Sig. F. 1.

The Knave of Hearts is made to say, that "the idle-headed French devis'd cards first.”—PARK.]

Cambridge, chiefly remembered, if remembered at all, as one of the minor pastoral poets of the reign of James the First, published in 1619,"NATVRES embassie, or the Wilde-mans measures, danced naked, by twelve Satyres, with sundry others," &c..-Donne's SATIRES were written early in the reign of James the First, though they were not published till after his death, in the year 1633. Jonson sends one of his Epigrams to Lucy Countess of Bedford, with Mr. DONNES SATYRES". It is conjectured by Wood, that a lively satirical piece, on the literature of the times, which I have already cited, with Donne's initials, and connected with another poem of the same cast, is one of Donne's juvenile performances. I had supposed John Davies *. But I will again exhibit the whole title of the Bodleian edition :-" A Scourge for paperpersecutors, by I. D. With an Inquisition against paper-persecutors, by A. H. London, for H. H. 1625," in quarto. But Wood had seen a detached edition of the former piece. He says, "Quære, whether John Donne published A Scourge for Paper Persecutors, printed in quarto, tempore Jacobi primi. The running title at the top of every page is PAPER'S COMPLAINT, in three sheets and a half. The date on the title pared out at the bottoms." This must have been an older edition, than that in which it appears connected, from similarity of subject, with its companion, An Inquisition against paper-persecutors, in the year 1625, as I have just noticed.

For R. Whitcher, 12mo. They were reprinted for the same, 1621. 12mo. In his satire on Adulterie, are these lines, p. 30:

And when you haue no favours to bestow, Lookes are the lures which drawe Affection's bow.

To these pieces is annexed, "The second Section of Divine and Morall Satyres," &c. This is dedicated to S. W. C. by R. B. See also Brathwayte's Strappado for the Devil, 1615. 8vo.

T Epigr. xciii. See xcvi. Though Jonson's Epigrams were printed in 1616, many were written long before. And among Freeman's Epigrams, Run and a Great Cast, 1614, we have the following. Epigr. 84.

TO JOHN DONNE.

The STORME described hath set thy name afloat,

Thy CALME a gale of famous winde hath got:

Thy SATYRS short too soone we them o'erlook,

I prithee, Persius, write another booke!

* [Mr. Warton's supposition was better founded than the conjecture of Wood. Davies of Hereford was the undoubted author of this piece, since it was first printed in his "Scourge of Folly" about the year 1612.-PARK.]

VOL. III.

Ath. Oxon. i. 556. [See above, p. 462.] He thus ridicules the minute commemorations of unhistorical occurrences in the Chronicles of Hollinshead and Stowe. Signat. B. 3.

Some chroniclers that write of kingdoms'
states,

Do so absurdly sableize my white
With maskes, and interludes, by day and
night,

Bald may games, beare baytings, and
poore orations,

Made to some prince, by some poore cor-
porations.

And if a bricke-bat from a chimney falls,
When puffing Boreas nere so little bralls;
Or wanton rig, or leacher dissolute,

Doe stand at Paules-crosse in a sheeten
sute:

All these, and thousand such like toyes
as these,

They close in Chronicles like butterflies,
And so confound grave matters of estate
With plaies of poppets, and I know not
what.

Ah, good sir Thomas More, fame be with
thee,

Thy hand did blesse the English historie!

*

As also when the weathercock of Paules Amended was, this chronicler enroules, &c.

2 H

Owen's idea of an epigram points out the notion which now prevailed of this kind of composition, and shows the propriety of blending the epigrams and satires of these times under one class. A satire, he says, is an epigram on a larger scale. Epigrams are only satires in miniature. An epigram must be satirical, and a satire epigrammaticalt. And Jonson, in the Dedication of his EPIGRAMS to Lord Pembroke, was so far from viewing this species of verse, in its original plan, as the most harmless and inoffensive species of verse, that he supposes it to be conversant above the likenesse of vice and facts, and is conscious that epigrams carry danger in the sound. Yet in one of his epigrams, addressed TO THE MEERE ENGLISH CENSVRER, he professes not exactly to follow the track of the late and most celebrated epigrammatists.

To thee my way in EPIGRAMMES seemes newe,

When both it is the old way and the true.

Thou saist that cannot be: for thou hast seene
DAVIS, and WEEVER, and the BEST have BEENE,
And mine come nothing like, &c."

This, however, discovers the opinion of the general reader*.

Of the popularity of the epigram about the year 1600, if no specimens had remained, a proof may be drawn, together with evidences of the nature of the composition, from Marston's humorous character of Tuscus, a retailer of wit.

But roome for Tuscus, that iest-moungering youth,
Who neer did ope his apish gerning mouth,
But to retaile and broke another's wit.
Discourse of what you will, he straight can fit

Robert Hayman above quoted thus recommends his own Epigrams. Quodlibets, B. iv. 19. P. 61.

Epigrams are like Satyrs, rough without,

Like chesnuts sweet; take thou the kernell out.

Our bastard eglets dare not see the sun So boldly as your true-borne babes have donne.

Yet bee it knowne, wee dare look tow❜rds the light,

Though not like you, nor in so great a height.

MSS. Sloan. 1489. 1889. 1947.-PARK.]

In Dunbar's Latin Epigrams, published 1616, there is a compliment to Davies of Hereford, author of the Scourge of Folly, as a Satirist or Epigrammatist. Cent. xx. p. 66.

* [Hust, in his "Clara Stella," has the following odd tribute, addressed "To one that asked me why I would write an English epigram after Ben Jonson."

How! dost thou ask me why my ventrous pen

Durst write an English epigram after Ben? Oh! after him is manners:-though it would

'Fore him have writ, if how it could have

told.

Hust's Cl. St. 1650. p. 33.-PARK.]

Your present talke, with, Sir, I'll tell a iest,—
Of some sweet ladie, or grand lord at least.
Then on he goes, and neer his tongue shall lie,
Till his ingrossed iests are all drawne dry:
But then as dumbe as Maurus, when at play,
Hath lost his crownes, and paun'd his trim array.
He doth nought but retaile iests: breake but one,
Out flies his table-booke, let him alone,
He'll haue it i' faith: Lad, hast an EPIGRAM,
Wil't haue it put into the chaps of Fame?
Giue Tuscus copies; sooth, as his own wit,
His proper issue, he will father it, &c.w

And the same author says, in his Postscript to PIGMALION,

Now by the whyppes of EPIGRAMMATISTS,

One of Harrington's Epigrams is a comparison of the Sonnet and the Epigram.

Once by mishap two poets fell a squaring,
The Sonnet and our Epigram comparing.
And Faustus hauing long demur'd vpon it
Yet at the last gaue sentence for the Sonnet.
Now, for such censvre, this his chiefe defence is,
Their sugred tast best likes his likrous senses.
Well, though I grant sugar may please the tast,
Yet let my verse haue salt to make it last*.

In the RETURN FROM PARNASSUs, acted 1616*, perhaps written some time before, Sir Roderick says, "I hope at length England will be wise enough: then an old knight may haue his wench in a corner, without any SATIRES or EPIGRAMS." In Decker's VNTRUSSING of THE HUMOROUS POET, Horace, that is Jonson, exclaims in a passion, "Sirrah! I'll compose an EPIGRAM vpon him shall thus go

or honest citizen, shall not sit in your pennie-bench theaters with his squirrell by his side cracking nuttes, but he shall be satyred and epigrammed upon," &c. H. 3. "It shall not be the whippinge o' th' satyre nor the whipping of the blind beare," &c. L. 3. "He says here, you diuulged my Epigrams." H. "And that' same Pasquills-madcap nibble," &c. A.

INDEX.