The pastor quits the slothful sleep, ing the classical fame, no less than in establishing the • Then. f Abroad. ¡Early. Emboldened. b Shining. * The misty reek m, the clouds of rain q Begaired is the sapphire pend P With spraings of scarlet hue; And preciously from end to end, Damasked white and blue. The ample heaven, of fabric sure, The time so tranquil is and clear, All trees and simples, great and small, Than they were painted on a wall, The rivers fresh, the callours streams, The water clear like crystal beams, * * * * Calm is the deep and purple sea, THOMAS NASH. [Born, 1560? Died about 1600-4.] THOMAS NASH was born at Lowestoft in Suffolk, was bred at Cambridge, and closed a calamitous life of authorship at the age, it is said, of forty-two. Dr. Beloe has given a list of his works, and Mr. Disraeli + an account of his shifts and miseries. Adversity seems to have whetted his genius, as his most tolerable verses are those which describe his own despair; and in the midst of his woes, he exposed to just derision the profound fooleries of the astrologer Harvey, who, in the year 1582, had thrown the whole kingdom into consternation by his predictions of the probable effects of the junction of DESPAIR OF A POOR SCHOLAR. FROM PIERCE PENNILESS. WHY is't damnation to despair and die, Ah, worthless wit! to train me to this woe: * Anecdotes of Scarce Books. † Calamities of Authors. Forgive me, God, although I curse my birth, Without redress complains my careless verse, England, adieu! the soil that brought me forth, EDWARD VERE, EARL OF OXFORD. [Born, 1534. Died, 1604.] able traits of his character are to be found in the THIS nobleman sat as Great Chamberlain of England upon the trial of Mary Queen of history of his life§. Scots. In the year of the Armada, he distinguished his public spirit by fitting out some ships at his private cost. He had travelled in Italy in his youth, and is said to have returned the most accomplished coxcomb of his age. The story of his quarrel with Sir Philip Sydney, as it is related by Collins, gives us a most unfavourable idea of his manners and temper, and shows to what a height the claims of aristocratical privilege were at that time carried. Some still more discredit The Earl of Oxford being one day in the tennis-court with Sir Philip Sydney, on some offence which he had taken, ordered him to leave the room, and, on his refusal, P Doth either Time or Age bring him into decay? No, no, Desire both lives and dies a thousand times a day. Then, fond Desire, farewell! thou art no mate for me: I should, methinks, be loth to dwell with such a one as thee. LINES ATTRIBUTED TO THE EARL OF IN A MS. OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY. IF women could be fair, and yet not fond, To mark the choice they make, and how they change, Yet, for disport, we fawn and flatter both, BISHOP HALL, who for his ethical eloquence has been sometimes denominated the Christian Seneca, was also the first who gave our language an example of epistolary composition in prose. He wrote besides a satirical fiction, entitled Mundus alter et idem, in which, under pretence of describing the Terra Australis Incognita, he reversed the plan of Sir Thomas More's Utopia, and characterized the vices of existing nations. Of our satirical poetry, taking satire in its moral and dignified sense, he claims, and may be allowed, to be the founder: for the ribaldry of Skelton, and the crude essays of the graver Wyat, hardly entitle them to that appellation*. Though he lived till beyond the middle of the seventeenth century, his satires were written before, and his Mundus alter et idem about, the year 1600 so that his antiquity, no less than his strength, gives him an important place in the formation of our literaturet. In his Satires, which were published at the age of twenty-three, he discovered not only the early vigour of his own genius, but the powers and pliability of his native tongue. Unfortunately, perhaps unconsciously, he caught, from studying Juvenal and Persius as his models, an ellip [* Donne appears to have been the first in order of composition-though Hall and Marston made their appearance in print before him.] + His name is therefore placed in these Specimens with a variation from the general order, not according to the date of his death, but about the time of his appearance as a poet. tical manner and an antique allusion, which cast obscurity over his otherwise spirited and amusing traits of English manners; though the satirist himself was so far from anticipating this objection, that he formally apologises for "too much stooping to the low reach of the vulgar." But in many instances he redeems the antiquity of his allusions by their ingenious adaptation to modern manners; and this is but a small part of his praise; for in the point, and volubility, and vigour of Hall's numbers, we might frequently imagine ourselves perusing Dryden‡. This may be exemplified in the harmony and picturesqueness of the following description of a magnificent rural mansion, which the traveller approaches in the hopes of reaching the seat of ancient hospitality, but finds it deserted by its selfish owner. Beat the broad gates, a goodly hollow sound, The satire which I think contains the most vigorous and musical couplets of this old poet, is the first of Book 3rd, beginning, Time was, and that was term'd the time of gold, When world and time were young, that now are old. I preferred, however, the insertion of others as examples of his poetry, as they are more descriptive of English manners than the fanciful praises of the golden age which that satire contains. It is flowing and fanciful, but conveys only the insipid moral of men decaying by the progress of civilisation; a doctrine not unlike that which Gulliver found in the book of the old woman of Brobdignag, whose author lamented the tiny size of the modern Brobdignagdians compared with that of their ancestors. |