trophel,' and published without signature. There is proof enough that Raleigh wrote the poem. It consists of sixty lines, but we can only give the first three verses. The elegiac nature of the poem, and the form of the versification, remind us of Mr. Tennyson's In Memoriam.'

On Sir Philip Sidney.

To praise thy life, or wail thy worthy death,
And want thy wit-thy wit high, pure, divine-
Is far beyond the power of mortal line,

Nor any one hath worth that draweth breath.

Yet rich in zeal, though poor in learning's lore,
And friendly care obscured in secret breast,
And Love that envy in thy life suppressed,
Thy dear life done, and death, hath doubled more.

And I, that in thy time and living state,

Did only praise thy virtues in my thought,

As one that seeled the rising sun hath sought,
With words and tears now wail thy timeless fate.

This 'bold and spirited poem,' as Campbell has justly termed it, is traced in manuscript to 1593. It first appeared in print in Davison's Poetical Rhapsody,' second edition, 1608. It has been assigned to various authors, but on Raleigh's side there is good evidence besides the internal testimony, which appears to us irresistible. Two answers to it, written in Raleigh's lifetime, ascribe it to him; and two manuscript copies of the period of Elizabeth bear the title of Sir Walter Rawleigh his Lie.'

1 Errand. Arrant and errunt were then common forms of the word.

Tell fortune of her blindness,

Tell nature of decay,

Tell friendship of unkindness,
Tell justice of delay,

And if they will reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming ;

Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming.
If arts and schools reply,
Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it's fled the city,
Tell how the country erreth,
Tell manhood shakes off pity,
Tell virtue least preferreth.
And if they do reply
Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing;
Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing;
Yet stab at thee who will,
No stab the soul can kill.

The editor of the 'Poetical Rhapsody'in which so much of the fugitive poetry of the age appeared-was FRANCIS DAVISON (1575– 1618), the eldest son of the unfortunate Secretary Davison. He was himself a poet of no mean order, though he wrote only short copies of verses, and those in his youth; and he made a translation of the 'Psalms,' certainly more poetical than the version of Sternhold and Hopkins.

JOSHUA SYLVESTER.

JOSHUA SYLVESTER (1563-1618) was author of several poetical works now forgotten (Poems,' two parts, 1614-20), but is well known as the translator of the 'Divine Weeks and Works' of the French poet Dubartas, which was highly popular, and earned for the translator among his contemporaries the epithet, silver-tongued Sylvester.' Spenser, Bishop Hall, Izaak Walton, and others, praise it, and Milton has copied some of its choice expressions. One critic (Dunster) has even said that Sylvester's Dubartas contains the prima stamina of Paradise Lost;' but this is much too unqualified a stateWe subjoin one short specimen :

ment.

Satan's Temptation of Eve.

As a false lover, that thick snares hath laid
To entrap the honour of a fair young maid,
When she (though little) listening ear affords
To his sweet courting, deep-affected words,
Feels some assuaging of his freezing flame,
And soothes himself with hope to gain his game;
And rapt with joy, upon this point persists,
That parleying city never long resists:
Even so the Serpent, that doth counterfeit
A guileful call to allure us to his net,
Perceiving Eve his flattering gloze digest,
He prosecutes; and, jocund, doth not rest,
Till he have tried foot, hand, and head, and all
Upon the breach of this new-battered wall.

'No, Fair!' quoth he, believe not that the care
God hath, mankind from spoiling Death to spare,
Makes him forbid you, on so strict condition,
This purest, fairest, rarest fruit's fruition.

A double fear, an envy, and a hate,
His jealous heart for ever cruciate;
Sith the suspected virtue of this tree
Shall soon disperse the cloud of idiocy

Which dims your eyes; and, further, make you seem
Excelling us-even equal gods to him.

O world's rare glory! reach thy happy hand;

Reach, reach, I say; why dost thou stop or stand?
Begin thy bliss, and do not fear the threat

Of an uncertain God-head, only great

Through self-awed zeal: put on the glistering pall
Of immortality! Do not forestall,
As envious step-dame, thy posterity
The sovereign honour of divinity.'

The compound epithets of Sylvester are sometimes happy and picturesque. Campbell cites the following as containing a beautiful ex

pression:

Morning.

Arise, betimes, while the opal-coloured morn,
In golden pomp, doth May-day's door adorn.

On the other hand, some of his images are in ludicrously bad taste. Dryden says when he was a boy he was rapt into ecstasy with these lines:

Now, when the Winter's keener breath began

To crystallise the Baltic Ocean;

To glaze the lakes, to bridle up the floods,
And periwig with wool the bald-pate woods.

Two favourable specimens may be added:

The Sun.

All hail, pure lamp, bright, sacred, and excelling;
Sorrow and care, darkness and dread, repelling;
Thou world's great taper, wicked men's just terror,
Mother of truth, true beauty's only mirror,
God's eldest daughter: oh, how thou art full
Of grace and goodness! Oh, how beautiful!

Plurality of Worlds.

I not believe that the great Architect
With all these fires the heavenly arches decked
Only for show, and with these glistering shields
To amaze poor shepherds watching in the fields;
1 not believe that the least flower which pranks
Our garden borders, or our common banks,
And the least stone that in her warming lap
Our mother earth doth covetously wrap,

Hath some peculiar virtue of its own,

And that the glorious stars of heaven have none.

Sylvester's translation of Dubartas appeared in 1598. Some of his original pieces have quaint titles, such as were then affected by many authors; for example: Lachrymæ Lachrymarum, or the Spirit of Teares distilled for the ontymely Death of the incomparable Prince Panaretus' (Henry, son of King James I.), 1612; 'Tobacco Battered

and the Pipes Shattered about their Eares, that idely Idolize so base and barbarous a weed, or at least overlove so loathsome a Vanity, by a Volley of Holy Shot thundered from Mount Helicon,' 1615.

BEN JONSON.

In 1616, BEN JONSON collected the plays he had then written, adding at the same time a book of epigrams and a number of poems, which he entitled The Forest' and The Underwood' The whole were comprised in one folio volume, which Jonson dignified with the title of his Works,' a circumstance which exposed him to the ridicule of some of his contemporaries.* There is much delicacy of fancy, fine feeling, and sentiment in some of Jonson's lyrical and descriptive effusions. He grafted a classic grace and musical expression on parts of his masks and interludes, which could hardly have been expected from his massive and ponderous hand. In some of his songs he equals Carew and Herrick in picturesque images, and in portraying the fascinations of love. A taste for nature is strongly displayed in his fine lines on Penshurst, that ancient seat of the Sidneys. It has been justly remarked by one of his critics, that Jonson's dramas do not lead us to value highly enough his admirable taste and feeling in poetry; and when we consider how many other intellectual excellences distinguished him-wit, observation, judgment, memory, learning-we must acknowledge that the inscription on his tomb, "O rare Ben Jonson!" is not more pithy than it is true.'

To Celia.-From

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

The Forest.'

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee,

As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me;

Since when, it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

The Sweet Neglect.-From 'The Silent Woman.'

Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,

Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free;
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all th' adulteries of art:

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

* An epigram addressed to him on the subject is as follows:

Pray tell us, Ben, where does the mystery lurk ?

What others call a play you call a work,

On behalf of Jonson an answer was returned, which seems to glance at the labour which Jonson bestowed on all his publications:

The author's friend thus for the author says

Ben's plays are works, while others' works are plays.

Hymn to Diana.- From 'Cynthia's Revels.

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep;
Seated in thy silver chair.
State in wanted manner keep.
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright!

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made

Heaven to clear when day did close; Bless us, then, with wished sight, Goddess excellently bright!

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,

And thy crystal shining quiver:
Give unto the flying hart

Space to breathe, how short soever;
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright!

To Night.-From The Vision of Delight.'

Break, Phantasy, from thy cave of cloud,
And spread thy purple wings;
Now all thy figures are allowed,
And various shapes of things;
Create of airy forms a stream; [phlegm;
It must have blood, and nought of

Song-From

Oh, do not wanton with those eyes,
Lest I be sick with seeing;
Nor cast them down, but let them rise,
Lest shame destroy their being.

Oh, be not angry with those fires,
For then their threats will kill me;

And though it be a waking dream,
Yet, let it like an odor rise

To all the senses here,
And fall like sleep upon their eyes,
Or music in their ear.

The Forest.'

Nor look too kind on my desires,
For then my hopes will spill me.

Oh, do not steep them in thy tears,
For so will sorrow slay me;
Nor spread them as distraught with tears;
Mine own enough betray me.

Good Life, Long Life.

It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be,
Or standing long an oak, three hundred

year,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear.

A lily of a day

Is fairer far, in May,
Although it fall and die that night,
It was the plant and flower of light!
In small proportions we just beauties see:
And in short measures life may perfect be.

Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke.

Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,

Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death! ere thou hast slain another,
Learned, and fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.

Epitaph on Elizabeth, L. H.

Wouldst thou hear what man can say
In a little ?-reader, stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbour give
To more virtue than doth live.

If at all she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault.
One name was Elizabeth

The other, let it sleep with death:
Fitter where it died to tell,

Than that it lived at all. Farewell!