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THE INDUCTION TO THE MIRROR FOR MAGISTRATES.

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LORD SACKVILLE.

(1527 ?-1608.)

"THOMAS SACKVILLE, the first Lord Buckhurst and Earl of Dorset, was the son of Richard Sackville, Esq. of Buckhurst, in Sussex." He is almost the only light in poetry that illuminates the gloomy reign of Mary. From his early years he manifested great vivacity of talent. He enjoyed the advantage of the education of both universities. While a student in the Inner Temple he composed his tragedy of "Gorboduc," or, as it was afterwards entitled, "Ferrex and porrex." This is the first specimen in English literature of the tragic drama. "This tragedy, and his contribution of the "Induction," and "Legend of the Duke of Buckingham" to the “Mirror for Magistrates," compose the poetical history of Lord Sackville's life."-(Campbell.) The statesman soon superseded the poet in Sackville's career. He filled various important and conspicuous situations during the reign of Elizabeth; and, on the accession of James, was confirmed for life in his office of Lord High Treasurer of England. His career as a minister reflects great honour on the integrity and vigour of his character. He died suddenly, in his vocation at the council board, of disease in the brain, in 1608.

"As to Gorboduc' it is a piece of monotonous recitals, and cold and heavy accumulation of incidents."—(Campbell.) It is, however, praised for the purity of its language, and the dignity and correctness of its sentiments. The Mirror for Magistrates" is a collection of narratives by several poets of the misfortunes of the great in English history. It was planned by Sackville on the scheme of Dante's "Inferno." His contributions to it, however, as above noticed, were slight. Sorrow conducts the poet through the infernal regions: the "Induction" is filled with scenic allegory, little inferior in vigour of execution to that of Spencer. This collection of tragical histories is said to have furnished hints to Shakespeare, and to have suggested the historical plays,

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ALLEGORICAL PERSONAGES IN HELL DESCRIBED.

AND first within the porch and jaws of hell
Sat deep Remorse of Conscience, all besprent
With tears and to herself oft would she tell
Her wretchedness, and, cursing, never stent
To sob and sigh; but ever thus lament,
With thoughtful care, as she that all in vain
Would wear and waste continually in pain.

Her eyes undstedfast rolling here and there,
Whirled on each place, as place that vengeance brought;

See Dodsley's " Old Plays."

Stinted, ceased. "And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse!"

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1. Sc. 3

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So was her mind continually in fear,

Tossed and tormented with the tedious thought
Of those detested crimes which she had wrought;
With dreadful cheare1 and looks thrown to the sky,
Wishing for death, and yet she could not die.

And next, within the entry of this lake,
Sat fell Revenge gnashing her teeth for ire,
Devising means how she may vengeance take,
Never to rest till she have her desire:
But frets within so far forth3 with the fire
Of wreaking flames, that now determines she
To die by death, or venged by death to be.

When fell Revenge with bloody foul pretence
Had showed herself, as next in order set,
With trembling limbs we softly parted thence,
Till in our eyes another sight we met:
When from my heart a sigh forthwith I fet,
Rueing alas upon the woful plight

Of Misery, that next appeared in sight.

His face was lean, and some deal pined away,
And eke his hands consumed to the bone;
But what his body was I cannot say,
For on his carcase raiment had he none,
Save clouts and patches piecéd one by one;
With staff in hand, and scrip on shoulders cast,
His chief defence against the winter's blast.

His food for most, was wild fruits of the tree,
Unless sometimes some crumbs fell to his share,
Which in his wallet long, God wot, kept he,
As on the which full daintily would he fare.
His drink the running stream; his cup the bare
Of his palm closed; his bed the hard cold ground.
To this poor life was Misery ybound.

By him lay heavy Sleep, the cousin of death,
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,
A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath.
Small kepe took he whom Fortune frownéd on,
Or whom she lifted up into the throne
Of high renown; but as a living death,
So dead alive, of life he drew the breath.

#

1 Countenance.-See note 10, p. 32. 2 Revenge is masculine in Collins' Ode on the Passions. 3 To such an extent. 4 Fetched. "Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine."-Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 4.

THE COMPLAINT OF HENRY DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

And next in order sad Old Age we found,
His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind,
With drooping cheer still poring on the ground,
As on the place where nature him assigned
To rest, when that the sisters1 had untwined
His vital thread, and ended with their knife
The fleeting course of fast declining life.

3

Crookbacked he was, tooth shaken, and blear eyed,
Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four,2
With old lame bones, that rattled by his side,
His scalp all pilde, and he with elde forlore:
His withered fist still knocking at death's door,
Tumbling and driveling as he draws his breath;
For brief, the shape and messenger of death.

FROM THE COMPLAINT OF HENRY DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.⭑

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Ye kings and peers that swim in worldly good,

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In seeking blood, the end, advert, you playne,

And see if blood aye ask not blood again.

Consider Cyrus in your cruel thought,

A makeless prince in riches and in might,

And weigh in mind the bloody deeds he wrought,
In shedding which he set his whole delight:
But see the guerdon? lotted to this wight,
He whose huge power no man might overthrow,
Tomyris queens with great despite hath slew.

His head dismembered from his mangled corpse,
Herself she cast into a vessel fraught

With clottered blood of them that felt her force.
And with these words a just reward she taught:
"Drink now thy fill of thy desiréd draught.
Lo mark the fine9 that did this prince befall:10
Mark not this one, but mark the end of all.

Behold Cambyses and his fatal day,

Where murder's mischief mirror like11 is left:

1 The Fates.-See Keightley's Mythology, p. 153.

2 An allusion to the riddle of the Sphinx.

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* Deprived of hair. Lat pilus, hair. "I had as lief be the list of an English kersey as be piled, as thou art piled for a French velvet."-Measure for Measure, Act i. Sc. 2.

The accomplice and victim of Richard III.

5 Consider that you lament the result. Lat. advertere.

6 Matchless.

Reward. Ang. Sax. wardian; to look at; to regard; hence the idea of recompense. 8 Of Scythia.-Herodotus, I. c. 205.

• End.

"Riches fineless."-Shakesp. Othello.

10 For the opposite accounts of the historical Cyrus see Xenophon and Herodotus; for the Cyrus of Scripture, see Skene's Sacred Chronology.

Where, in whom; like, alike.

1 Smerdis.

While he his brother Mergus1 cast2 to slay,
A dreadful thing, his wits were him bereft.
A sword he caught, wherewith he piercéd eft3
His body gored, which he of lief benooms:4
So just is God in all his dreadful dooms.

O bloody Brutus, rightly didst thou rue,
And thou Cassius justly came thy fall,

That with the sword wherewith thou Cæsar slew
Murd'rest thyself, and reft thy life withal.
A mirror let him be unto you all

That murderers be, of murder to your meed:
For murder crieth out vengeance on your seed.

Lo Bessus," he that, armed with murderer's knife
And traitorous heart against his royal king,
With bloody hands bereft his master's life,
Advert the fine his foul offence did bring:
And loathing murder as most loathly thing,
Behold in him the just deserved fall,
That ever bath, and shall betide them all.

What booted him his false usurpéd reign,
Whereto by murder he did so ascend?
When like a wretch, led in an iron chain,
He was presented by his chiefest friend
Unto the foes of him whom he had slain:
That even they should venge so foul a guilt
That rather sought to have his blood yspilt.

Take heed, ye princes and ye prelates all,
Of this outrage, which though it sleep awhile,
And not disclosed, as it doth seeld befall,
Yet God that suff'reth silence to beguile

Such guilts, wherewith both earth and air ye file,"
At last descries them to your foul deface;

You see the examples set before your face.

2 See note 16, p. 11.

3 Afterwards.

Lief, also written leve (adj. noun, and adv.) wilfully; benoom or benum; commonly now written benumb; to deprive, (viz of sensation). Old English, nim; German, nehmen, to take; hence numskull, one deprived of intellect, a blockhead. This word furnishes with his name Corporal Ným, the follower of Falstaff. "Overnome."-Chaucer. See note 8, p. 13.

The murderer of Darius Codomannus. See any history of Alexander the Great.

6 Secretly. "To seel her father's eyes up."-Othello, Act iii. Sc. 3. "To seel a hawk is to sew up his eyelids."-Malone.

7 Defile. "For Banquo's issue I have 'filed my mind."-Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 2. Byron uses the same form.-Childe Harold, Canto iií. St. 113.

ROBERT SOUTHWELL.

(1550-1595.)

SOUTHWELL, descended from an ancient family in Norfolk, entered the order of Jesuits at Rome. He was involved in persecution, resulting from the intrigues of that order in Elizabeth's reign, and was seized, racked, and executed at Tyburn. The features of his poetry are sad and contemplative; breathing a spirit of gentleness and amiability. "It is not possible," says Campbell, referring to his prose compositions, " Mary Magdalene's Tears," and the "Triumph over Death," "to read the volume without lamenting that its author should have been either the instrument of bigotry or the object of persecution." See Gentleman's Magazine, for November 1798, p. 983.'-Ritson.

SELF-CONTEMPLATION.

Retiréd thoughts enjoy their own delights,
As beauty doth in self-beholding eye:
Man's mind a mirror is of heavenly sights,

A brief wherein all miracles summéd lie,

Of fairest forms and sweetest shapes the store,

Most graceful all, yet thought may grace them more.

The mind a creature is, yet can create,

To nature's patterns adding higher skill
Of finest works; wit better could the state,
If force of wit had equal power of will.
Devise of man in working hath no end;

What thought can think another thought can mend.

Man's soul of endless beauties image is,
Drawn by the work of endless skill and might.
This skilful might gave many sparks of bliss,
And, to discern this bliss, a native light;
To frame God's image as his worth required,
His might, his skill, his word, and will conspired.

TIMES GO BY TURNS.

The loppéd tree in time may grow again,
Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower,
The sorriest wight may find release of pain,
The driest soil suck in some moistening shower;
Time goes by turns, and chances change by course,
From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow;
She draws her favours to the lowest ebb;

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