They now to fight are gone:
Armor on armor shone,

Drum now to drum did groan-
To hear was wonder;

That, with the cries they make,
The very earth did shake;
Trumpet to trumpet spake,—
Thunder to thunder.

Well it thine age became,
O noble Erpingham!
Which didst the signal aim
To our hid forces,

When from a meadow by,
Like a storm suddenly,

The English archery

Stuck the French horses.

With Spanish yew so strong,
Arrows a cloth-yard long
That like to serpents stung,
Piercing the weather,-

None from his fellow starts,
But, playing manly parts,
And like true English hearts

Stuck close together.

When down their bows they threw,
And forth their bilboes drew,

And on the French they flew,
Not one was tardy;

Arms from the shoulders sent,

Scalps to the teeth were rent, Down the French peasants went,Our men were hardy.

This while our noble king,

His broad sword brandishing,
Into the host did fling,

As to o'erwhelm it,

And many a deep wound lent
His arm with blood besprent;
And many a cruel dent

Bruised his helmet.

Glo'ster, that duke so good,
Next of the royal blood,
For famous England stood.

With his brave brother!
Clarence, in steel so bright,
Though but a maiden knight,
Yet in that furious fight
Scarce such another.

Warwick in blood did wade;
Oxford the foe invade,

And cruel slaughter made,

Still as they ran up;

Suffolk his axe did ply;
Beaumont and Willoughby
Bare them right doughtily,
Ferrers and Fanhope.

Upon St. Crispin's Day
Fought was this noble fray,
Which Fame did not delay
To England to carry.
O when shall Englishmen
With such acts fill a pen,
Or England breed again
Such a King Harry?

THOMAS DEKKER.

WHETHER 1570 was the year of Dekker's birth, or 1641 that of his death, is not quite known. Certain it is that in 1599 Dekker was engaged in touching up a dozen or more popular plays by various hands, besides having written "Orestes' Furies," "Truth's Supplication," and "The Shoemaker's Holiday." This latter, published in 1600, held and still holds its own by force of its photographic delineation of the London life of the day. The moral is allowed to look after itself. Dekker's ready pen found other avenues for its piquant jibes at sundry brother-poets besides that of comedy. There are poems and rhymes, with prose pieces such as "The Seven Deadly Sins of London" and the "Gull's Hornbook," which well sustain the lively sketchiness, with keen point and truth,

for which he has been compared to Dickens, and with less force, to Lamb. It was for liberties taken in his " Shoemaker's Holiday" that Ben Jonson retorted in "The Poetaster," published a few months after the former, in which Dekker is pilloried as Crispinus. To this Dekker replied with "SatiroMastix, or, The Untrussing of the Humorous Poets," a satire on Jonson mainly, under the name of Young Horace, as his chief aim was to depict men's humors. With John Webster he wrote "Westward Ho!" and with Middleton "The Converted Courtesan," two strong plays, owing more of their strength than their charm to his aids, for none surpassed Dekker in wit, raciness, and the dainty lyrics, sprinkled through the plays. His great value, however, is that of giving us the faithfullest realization of life as it was in that brilliant time, so remote in its domestic and city-life aspect, though so near by the largeness of its historical and literary achievements.

FORTUNATUS REVIEWS THE WORLD.

FORTUNATUS first obtained from Fortune a purse that is inexhaustible, afterwards from the Soldan of Babylon a hat which at his wish transports him wherever he pleases. He returns to his home in Cyprus and tells his sons of his travels.

Fortunatus. Touch me not, boys, I am nothing but air; let none speak to me till you have marked me well. Am I as you are, or am I transformed?

Andelocia. Methinks, my father, you look as you did, only your face is withered.

Fort. Boys, be proud; your father hath the whole world

in this compass. I am all felicity, up to the brims. In a minute am I come from Babylon; I have been this half hour in Famagosta.

And. How! in a minute, father? I see travelers must lie.

Fort. I have cut through the air like a falcon. I would have it seem strange to you. But 'tis true. I would not have you believe it neither. But 'tis miraculous and true. Desire to see you brought me to Cyprus. I'll leave you more gold, and go to visit more countries.

Ampedo. The frosty hand of age now nips your blood, And strews her snowy flowers upon your head,

And gives you warning that within few years

Death needs must marry you: those short lines, minutes,
That dribble out your life, must needs be spent

In peace, not travel; rest in Cyprus then.

Could you survey ten worlds, yet you must die;
And bitter is the sweet that's reaped thereby.

And. Faith, father, what pleasure have you met by walking your stations?

Fort. What pleasure, boy? I have revelled with kings, danced with queens, dallied with ladies; worn strange attires; seen fantasticoes; conversed with humorists; been ravished with divine raptures of Doric, Lydian and Phrygian harmonies; I have spent the day in triumphs and the night in banqueting.

And. Oh, rare! this was heavenly. He that would not be an Arabian phoenix to burn in these sweet fires, let him live like an owl for the world to wonder at.

Amp. Why, brother, are not all these vanities?

Fort. Vanities! Ampedo, thy soul is made of lead, too dull, too ponderous, to mount up to the incomprehensible glory that travel lifts men to.

And. Sweeten mine ears, good father, with some more.
Fort. When in the warmth of mine own country's arms
We yawned like sluggards, when this small horizon
Imprisoned up my body, then mine eyes

Worshiped these clouds as brightest: but, my boys,
The glistering beams which do abroad appear
In other heavens, fire is not half so clear.
For still in all the regions I have seen,

I scorned to crowd among the muddy throng
Of the rank multitude, whose thickened breath
(Like to condensed fogs) do choke that beauty,
Which else would dwell in every kingdom's cheek.
No; I still boldly stepped into their courts:
For there to live 'tis rare, Oh, 'tis divine
There shall you see faces angelical:

There shall you see troops of chaste goddesses,
Whose star-like eyes have power (might they still shine)
To make night day, and day more crystalline.
Near these you shall behold great heroes,
White-headed counsellors, and jovial spirits,
Standing like fiery cherubims to guard
The monarch, who in godlike glory sits
In midst of these, as if this deity
Had with a look created a new world,

The standers-by being the fair workmanship.
And. Oh, how my soul is rapt to a third heaven!
I'll travel sure, and live with none but kings.
Amp. But tell me, father, have you in all courts
Beheld such glory, so majestical,

In all perfection, no way blemished?

Fort. In some courts shall you see ambition
Sit, piecing Dædalus's old waxen wings;
But being clapped on, and they about to fly,
Even when their hopes are busied in the clouds,
They melt against the sun of majesty,

And down they tumble to destruction.

By travel, boys, I have seen all these things.
Fantastic compliment stalks up and down,
Tricked in outlandish feathers; all his words,
His looks, his oaths, are all ridiculous,
All apish, childish, and Italianate.

JOHN WEBSTER.

Or Webster's origin we know nothing, and very little of his life. He was probably a year or so younger than Fletcher (which would make his birth-year 1579), or about three and twenty when James I. came to the throne, and he had done some stage work two years before that. Whether he was the son of an established merchant-tailor, or had to take to the thimble and tape-measure for a living, is past knowing; this is how he is described on the title page of the book of words of the London city pageant for 1624, of which this literary tailor was author. He was then about forty-five, certainly no prentice hand at play-writing. Twelve years before this he had produced a remarkable tragedy, "The White Devil, or,