But not a dog doth bark to welcome thee, * * * Through which it breatheth to the open air, * Lo, there th' unthankful swallow takes her rest During his youth and education he had to struggle with poverty; and in his old age he was one of those sufferers in the cause of episcopacy whose virtues shed a lustre on its fall. He was born in the parish of Ashby de la Zouche, in Liecestershire, studied and took orders at Cambridge, and was for some time master of the school of Tiverton, in Devonshire. An accidental opportunity which he had of preaching before Prince Henry seems to have given the first impulse to his preferment, till by gradual promotion he rose to be bishop of Exeter, having previously His satires are neither cramped by personal accompanied King James, as one of his chaplains, hostility, nor spun out to vague declamations on vice, but give us the form and pressure of the times exhibited in the faults of coeval literature, and in the foppery or sordid traits of prevailing manners. The age was undoubtedly fertile in eccentricity. His picture of its literature may at first view appear to be overcharged with severity, accustomed as we are to associate a As to Scotland, and attended the Synod of Dort at bishop of Exeter he was so mild in his conduct a convocation of the protestant divines. towards the puritans, that he, who was one of the last broken pillars of the church, was nearly persecuted for favouring them. Had such conduct been, at this critical period, pursued by the general idea of excellence with the period of high churchmen in general, the history of a Elizabeth; but when Hall wrote there was not a great poet firmly established in the language except Spenser, and on him he has bestowed ample applause. With regard to Shakspeare, the reader will observe a passage in the first satire, where the poet speaks of resigning the honours of heroic and tragic poetry to more inspired geniuses; and it is possible that the great dramatist may be here alluded to, as well as Spenser. But the allusion is indistinct, and not necessarily applicable to the bard of Avon. Shakspeare's Romeo and Juliet, Richard II. and III. have been traced in print to no earlier date than the year 1597, in which Hall's first series of satires appeared; and we have no sufficient proof of his previous fame as a dramatist having been so great as to leave Hall without excuse for omitting to pay him homage. But the sunrise of the drama with Shakspeare was not without abundance of attendant mists in the contemporary fustian of inferior playmakers, who are severely ridiculed by our satirist. In addition to this, our poetry was still haunted by the whining ghosts of the Mirror for Magistrates, while obscenity walked in barbarous nakedness, and the very genius of the language was threatened by revolutionary prosodists. From the literature of the age Hall proceeds to its manners and prejudices, and among the latter derides the prevalent confidence in alchymy and astrology. To us this ridicule appears an ordinary effort of reason; but it was in him a common sense above the level of the times. If any proof were required to illustrate the slow departure of prejudices, it would be found in the fact of an astrologer being patronised, half a century afterwards, by the government of England*. *William Lilly received a pension from the council of state, in 1648. He was, besides, consulted by Charles; bloody age might have been changed into that of peace; but the violence of Laud prevailed over the milder counsels of a Hall, an Usher, and a Corbet. When the dangers of the church grew more instant, Hall became its champion, and was met in the field of controversy by Milton, whose respect for the bishop's learning is ill concealed under the attempt to cover it with derision. By the little power that was still left to the sovereign in 1641, Hall was created bishop of Norwich; but having joined, almost immediately after, in the protest of the twelve prelates against the validity of laws that should be passed in their compelled absence, he was committed to the Tower, and, in the sequel, marked out for sequestration. After suffering extreme hardships, he was allowed to retire, on a small pittance, to Higham, near Norwich, where he continued, in comparative obscurity, but with indefatigable zeal and intrepidity, to exercise the duties of a pastor, till he closed his days at the venerable age of eighty-two. and during the siege of Colchester, was sent for by the Do not our great Reformers use * And has not he point-blank foretold Made all the Royal stars recant, SATIRE I BOOK I. NOR ladies' wanton love, nor wand'ring knight, To paint some Blowesse with a borrowed grace; Nor under every bank and every tree, As might the Graces move my mirth to praise*. SATIRE III†. BOOK I. WITH Some pot fury, ravish'd from their wit, * In this satire, which is not perfectly intelligible at the first glance, the author, after deriding the romantic and pastoral vein of affected or mercenary poetasters, proceeds to declare, that for his own part he resigns the higher walks of genuine poetry to others; that he need not crave the "Muse's midwifery," since not even a baser muse would now haunt the shore of Granta (the Cam), which they have left deserted, and crowned with willows, the types of desertion ever since Spenser celebrated the marriage of the Medway and the Thames.-E. + This satire is levelled at the intemperance and bombastic fury of his contemporary dramatists, with an evident allusion to Marlowe; and in the conclusion he attacks the buffoonery that disgraced the stage.-E. Or some upreared, high-aspiring swain, Now, lest such frightful shows of fortune's fall, SATIRE V. BOOK III. FIE on all courtesy and unruly winds, His bonnet vail'd, ere ever I could think, And straight it to a deeper ditch hath blown : Though he perhaps ne'er pass'd the English shore, Yet fain would counted be a conqueror. His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head, One lock amazon-like dishevelled, As if he meant to wear a native cord, If chance his fates should him that bane afford. Whose thousand double turnings never met: * SATIRE VII*. BCOK III SEEST thou how gaily my young master goes, Vaunting himself upon his rising toes; And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side; And picks his glutted teeth since late noon-tide? "Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he dined to-day? In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humfrày. Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer, Keeps he for every straggling cavalier. And open house, haunted with great resort; Long service mix'd with musical disport. Many fair yonker with a feather'd crest, Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest, To fare so freely with so little cost, Than stake his twelvepence to a meaner host. Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say He touch'd no meat of all this live-long day. For sure methought, yet that was but a guess, His eyes seem'd sunk from very hollowness, But could he have (as I did it mistake) So little in his purse, so much upon his back? So nothing in his maw? yet seemeth by his belt, That his gaunt gut no too much stuffing felt. Seest thou how side it hangs beneath his hip? Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip. Yet for all that, how stiffly struts he by, All trapped in the new-found bravery. The nuns of new-won Calais his bonnet lent, In lieu of their so kind a conquerment. What needed he fetch that from farthest Spain, His grandame could have lent with lesser pain? * In this description of a famished gallant, Hall has rivalled the succeeding humour of Ben Jonson in similar comic portraits. Among the traits of affectation in his finished character, is that of dining with duke Humphry while he pretends to keep open house-The phrase of dining with Duke Humphry arose from St. Paul's being the general resort of the loungers of those days, many of whom, like Hall's gallant, were glad to beguile the thoughts of dinner with a walk in the middle aisle, where there was a tomb, by mistake supposed to be that of Humphry, Duke of Gloucester.-E. SATIRE VIt. BOOK IV. Quid placet ergo ? I wor not how the world's degenerate, The general scope of this satire, as its motto denotes, is directed against the discontent of human beings with their respective conditions. It paints the ambition of the youth to become a man, of the muckworm to be rich, of the rustic to become a soldier, of the rhymer to appear in print, and of the brain-sick reader of foreign wonders to become a traveller.-E. He sleeps but once, and dreams of burglary, Some drunken rhymer thinks his time well spent, Now are they dunghill cocks that have not seen And now he plies the news-full Grasshopper, His land mortgaged, he sea-beat in the way, To know much, and to think for nothing, know WILLIAM WARNER [Died, 1608-9.] WAS a native of Oxfordshire, and was born, as Mr. Ellis conjectures, in 1558. He left the university of Oxford without a degree, and came to London, where he pursued the business of an attorney of the common pleas. Scott, the poet of Amwell, discovered that he had been buried in the church of that parish in 1609, having died suddenly in the night-time.* His "Albion's England" was once exceedingly popular. Its publication was at one time interdicted by the Star-chamber, for no other reason that can now be assigned, but that it contains some love-stories more simply than delicately related. His contemporaries compared him to Virgil, whom he certainly did not make his model. Dr. Percy thinks he rather resembled Ovid, to whom he is, if possible, still more unlike. His poem is, in fact, an enormous ballad on the history, or rather on the fables appendant to the history of England; heterogeneous, indeed, like the Metamorphoses, but written with an almost doggrel simplicity. Headley has rashly preferred his works to our ancient ballads; but with the best of these they will bear no comparison. Argentile and Curan has indeed some beautiful touches, yet that episode requires to be weeded of many lines to be read with unqualified pleasure; and through the rest of his stories we shall search in vain for the familiar magic of such ballads as Chevy Chase or Gill Morrice. A many princes seek her love, but none might A brace of years he lived thus, well pleased so to live, her obtain, And, shepherd-like, to feed a flock himself did wholly give; For gripel Edel to himself her kingdom sought to gain, And for that cause, from sight of such he did his ward restrain. By chance one Curan, son unto a Prince of Danske, did see The maid with whom he fell in love, as much as one might be : Unhappy youth, what should he do? his saint was kept in mew; Nor he nor any nobleman admitted to her view : One while in melancholy fits he pines himself away, Anon he thought by force of arms to win her if he may, And still against the king's restraint did secretly inveigh. At length the high controller, Love, whom none may disobey, Imbased him from lordliness into a kitchen drudge, That so at least of life or death she might become his judge; Access so had, to see and speak, he did his love bewray, And tells his birth-her answer was, she husbandless would stay: So wasting love, by work and want, grew almost to the wane, And then began a second love the worser of the twain ; A country wench, a neat-herd's maid, where Curan kept his sheep, Did feed her drove; and now on her was all the shepherd's keep. He borrow'd on the working days his holie russets oft, And of the bacon's fat to make his startups black and soft, And lest his tar-box should offend, he left it at the fold: Sweet grout or whig his bottle had as much as it might hold; A shave of bread as brown as nut, and cheese as white as snow, And wildings, or the season's fruit, he did in scrip bestow; And whilst his pyebald cur did sleep, and sheephook lay him by, On hollow quills of oaten straw he piped melody But when he spied her his saint * * * * Thus the shepherd woo'd. * * * Meanwhile the king did beat his brain, his booty to achieve, Not caring what became of her, so he by her Thou art too elvish, faith, thou art; too elvish might thrive; and too coy; At last his resolution was some peasant should her Am I, I pray thee, beggarly, that such a flock enjoy? wive: And (which was working to his wish) he did observe with joy, How Curan, whom he thought a drudge, scap'd many an am'rous toy: The king, perceiving such his vein, promotes his vassal still, Lest that the baseness of the man should let perhaps his will; Assured, therefore, of his love, but not suspecting who The lover was, the king himself in his behalf did woo: The lady, resolute from love, unkindly takes that he Should bar the noble and unto so base a match agree; And therefore, shifting out of doors, departed hence by stealth, Preferring poverty before a dangerous life in wealth. When Curan heard of her escape, the anguish of his heart Was more than much, and after her he did from court depart; Forgetful of hmself, his birth, his country, friends, and all, And only minding whom he miss'd, the foundress of his thrall: Nor means he after to frequent the court, or stately towns, But solitarily to live among the country growns. * * * * * * Believe me, lass, a king is but a man, and so am I; Content is worth a monarchy, and mischiefs hit the high, As late it did a king, and his, not dwelling far from hence, Who left a daughter, save thyself, for fair a matchless wench; Here did he pause, as if his tongue had done his heart offence : The neatress, longing for the rest, did egg him on to tell She bore, How fair she was, and who she was. quoth he, the belle; For beauty, though I clownish am, I know what beauty is, Or did I not, yet seeing thee, I senseless were to miss: Suppose her beauty Helen's like, or Helen's something less, And every star consorting to a pure complexion guess; Her stature comely tall, her gait well graced, and her wit To marvel at, not meddle with, as matchless I omit; A globe-like head, a gold-like hair, a forehead smooth and high, An even nose; on either side did shine a greyish eye. |