POETRY OF UNCERTAIN AUTHORS OF THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. THE SOUL'S ERRAND. FROM DAVISON'S POETICAL RHAPSODY. THIS bold and spirited poem has been ascribed to several authors, but to none on satisfactory authority. It can be traced to MS. of a date as early as 1593, when Francis Davison, who published it in his Poetical Rhapsody, was too young to be supposed, with much probability, to have written it; and as Davison's work was a compilation, his claims to it must be very doubtful. Sir Egerton Brydges has published it among Sir Walter Raleigh's poems, but without a tittle of evidence to shew that it was the production of that great man. Mr. Ellis gives it to Joshua Sylvester, evidently by mistake. Whoever looks at the folio vol. of Sylvester's poems, will see that Joshua uses the beautiful original merely as a text, and has the conscience to print his own stuff in a way that shews it to be interpolated. Among those additions there occur some such execrable stanzas as the following: Say, soldiers are the sink Giv'n all to whore and drink, Tell townsmen, that because that Which makes them beetle-brow'd. Tell men of high condition That rule affairs of state, Tell them that brave it most, Tell Zeal it lacks devotion, Tell Love it is but lust, Tell Age it daily wasteth, Tell Wit how much it wrangles In treble points of niceness, Tell Wisdom she entangles And when they do reply, Tell Physic of her boldness, So give them still the lie. 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 its fled the city, And if they do reply, Spare not to give the lie. And when thou hast, as I Deserves no less than stabbing; CANZONET. FROM DAVISON'S RHAPSODY. EDIT. 1608. THE golden sun that brings the day, But thou, my sun, more bright than he I heard the praise of Beauty's grace, |