THIRD PERIOD,

(1558-1625.)

ELIZABETH AND JAMES.

THE most brilliant perfod in the history of English literature is the latter portion of the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the reign of her successor, James. A variety of causes operated in awakening and expanding the national intellect. The invention of printing; the study of classical literature; the freedom with which, since the Reformation, questions of theology and belief were discussed; the general substitution of the philosophy of Plato for that of Aristotle; the number of translations from French and Italian literature; and the dissemination of the Scriptures in the English language, may be considered as aiding powerfully in the universal development. The policy of Elizabeth was an English policy. From the first, she abjured foreign ties and adopted the Protestant interest. Her first act was to order the liturgy to be read in English. A sentiment of chivalry pervaded the land-high thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy,' as defined by Sir Philip Sidney, himself a mirror of courtesy and chivalrous honour; and this feeling was elevated by the splendour of a female court, and the interest attaching to a maiden queen. There was also the spirit of mercantile enterprise and adventurous" curiosity, which had been excited by the discovery, in the previous century, of America and the West Indies. Our seamen had ceased to feel alarm for what the poet calls the stormy spirit of the Cape;' the passage by the Cape of Good Hope had become a highway; the East India Company was chartered and enfranchised; Drake and Cavendish had circumnavigated the globe; Hawkins had sailed to Brazil and Guinea: the tall ships of London and Bristol were seen in all seas. Voyages of discovery were resorted to as one of the most fashionable and honourable occupations of the active young nobles and gentry of the day. A passion for travelling to foreign countries, and witnessing the marvellous sights believed to abound in those faroff islands of the sun, ran even to extravagance. The period altogether, was one of action; of earnest, resolute, fearless men. If danger were to be encountered, there were willing hearts and hands; if a new land was to be explored, there were men ready to encounter

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the trials and fatigue; if gold was to be had, no enterprise was so hazardous as to deter men from the search; if even a tournament or masque were to be performed, it was got up on a scale of splendour and magnificence. The drama became a great intellectual arena, in which literary genius put forth its highest powers. In that age there might be avarice, cupidity, cruelty in war, and plotting in peace; but there was no weakness in its public men. In action and in study, it was an age of giants.

THOMAS SACKVILLE.

In the reign of Elizabeth, some poetical names of importance precede that of Spencer. The first is THOMAS SACKVILLE, LORD BUCKHURST (1527-1608), ultimately Earl of Dorset and Lord High-treasurer of England, and who will again come before us in the character of a dramatic writer. Before he was so actively engaged in public life, Sackville is said to have planned, towards the end of the reign of Queen Mary, the design of the Mirrour for Magistrates,' a work that was to consist of a series of legends derived from English history. All the most illustrious persons in our annals who had experienced reverses of fortune were to pass in review before the reader, each telling his own story, as a warning or mirror to statesmen and rulers. The first edition of the work was published in 1559, the authors being Richard Baldwin and George Ferrers. A second edition appeared in 1563, and to this Sackville contributed his ' Induction and Complaint of the Duke of Buckingham.' The 'Mirrour' was afterwards continued by Phayer, Higgins, Churchyard, and other writers: but wanting the genius of Sackville, it fell into oblivion, and the only part worthy of preservation was the 'Induction and Complaint' of the original noble author of the design. The 'Induction' is a remarkable poem for the age in which it was produced; it not only forms a link, as Mr. Hallam remarks, which unites the school of Chaucer and Lydgate to the Faery Queen,' but its portraits of gloom and sorrow exhibit a strength of description and a power of drawing allegorical characters scarcely inferior to Spenser.

Allegorical Characters from the Mirrour for Magistrates.

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 (1)
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 unsteadfast, rolling here and there,

Whirled on each place, as place that vengeance brought,
So was her mind continually in fear,

Tost and tormented with the tedious thought

Of those detested crimes which she had wrought;

1 Never stopped.

With dreadful cheer, and looks thrown to the sky,
Wishing for death, and yet she could not die.

Next, saw we Dread, all trembling how he shook,
With foot uncertain, proffered here and there;
Benumbed of speech; and, with a ghastly look,
Searched every place, all pale and dead for fear,
His cap borne up with staring of his hair;
'Stoined (1) and amazed at his own shade for dread,
And fearing greater dangers than was need.

And, next, within the entry of this lake,
Sate fell Revenge, gnashing her teeth for ire;
Devising means how she may vengeance take;
Never in rest, till she have her desire;
But frets within so far forth 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 shewed herself, as next in order set,
With trembling limbs we softly parted thence,
Till in our eyes another sight we met
When fro my heart a sigh forthwith I fet,
Ruing, 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 carcass raiment had he none,
Save clouts and patches pieced 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 sometime some crumbs fell to his share,
Which in his wallet long. God wot, kept he,
As on the which full daint'ly 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.

Whose wretched state when we had well beheld,
With tender ruth on him, and on his feres (2)
In thoughtful carcs forth theu our pace we held;
And, by and by, another shape appears.
Of greedy Care, still brushing up the briers;
His knuckles knobed, his flesh deep dinted in,
With tawed hands, and hard ytanned skin:

The morrow gray no sooner hath begun
To spread his light even peeping in our eyes,
But he is up, and to his work yrun;
But let the night's black misty mantles rise,
And with foul dark never so much disguise
The fair bright day, yet ceaseth he no while, ·
But hach his candles to prolong his toil,

By him lay heavy Sleep, the cousin of Death,
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,

1 Astonished.

2 Companions.

A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath;
Small keep took he, whom fortune frowned 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:

The body's rest, the quiet of the heart,
The travel's ease, the still night's feer was he,
And of our life in earth the better part;
Reaver of sight, and yet in whom we see
Things oft that [tyde] and oft that never be;
Without respeci, esteem [ing] equally
King Croesus' pomp and Irus' poverty

And next in order sad, Old Age we found:
His beard all hear, 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 Sisters had untwined
His vital thread, and ended with their knife
The fleeting course of fast declining life:

There heard we him with broken and hollow plaint
Rue with himself his end approaching fast,
And all for nought his wretched mind torment
With sweet remembrance of his pleasures past,
And fresh delights of lusty youth forewaste;
Recounting which, how would he sob and shriek,
And to be young again of Jove beseek!

But, an the cruel fates so fixed be

That time forepast cannot return again,
This one request of Jove yet prayed he-

That, in such withered plight, and wretched pain,
As Eld, accompanied with his loathsome train,
Had brought on him, all were it woe and grief
He might a while yet linger forth his life,

And not so soon descend into the pit;

Where Death, when he the mortal corpse hath slain,
With reckless hand in grave doth cover it:
Thereafter never to enjoy again

The gladsome light, but, in the ground ylain,
In depth of darkness waste and wear to nought,
As he had ne'er into the world been brought:

But who had seen him sobbing how he stood
Unto himself, and how he would bemoan

His youth forepast-as though it wrought him good
To talk of youth, all were his youth foregone-

He would have mused, and marvelled much whereon
This wretched Age should like desires so fain,
And knows full well life doth but length his pain:

Crook-backed he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-eyed;
Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four;
With old lame bones, that rattled by his side;
His scalp all pilled, (1) and he with eld forelore,
His withered fist still knocking at Death's door;
Fumbling, and drivelling, as he draws his breath;
For brief, the shape and messenger of Death.

1 Pilled or peeled, stripped bare.

And fast by him pale Malady was placed:
Sore sick in bed, her colour all foregone;
Bereft of stomach, savour, and of taste,
Ne could she brook no meat but broths alone;
Her breath corrupt; her keepers every one
Abhorring her; her sickness past recure,
Detesting physic, and all physic's cure.

But, oh, the doleful sight that then we see!
We turned our look, and on the other side
A grisly shape of Famine mought we see:
With greedy looks, and gaping mouth, that cried
And roared for meat, as she should there have died;
Her body thin and bare as any bone,

Whereto was left nought but the case alone.

And that, alas! was gnawen every where,
All full of holes; that I ne mought refrain
From tears, to see how she her arms could tear,
And with her teeth gnash on the bones in vain,
When, all for nought, she fain would so sustain
Her starven corpse, that rather seemed a shade
Than any substance of a creature made:

Great was her force, whom stone-wall could not stay:
Her tearing nails snatching at all she saw;
With gaping jaws, that by no means ymay

Be satisfied fr m hunger of her maw,

But eats herself as she that hath no law;
Gnawing, alas! her carcass all in vain,

Where you may count each sinew, bone, and vein.

On her while we thus firmly fixed our eyes,
That bled for ruth of such a dreary sight,
Lo! suddenly she shrieked in so huge wise
As made hell-gates to shiver with the might;
Wherewith, a dart we saw, how it did light
Right on her breast, and, therewithal, pale Death
Enthrilling it, to reave her of her breath:

And, by and by, a dumb dead corpse we saw,
Heavy, and cold, the shape of Death aright,
That daunts all earthly creatures to his law,
Against whose force in vain it is to fight;
Ne peers, ne princes, nor no mortal wight,
No towns, ne realms, cities, ne strongest tower,
But all, perforce, must yield unto his power:

His dart, anon. out of the corpse he took,
And in his hand (a dreadful sight to see)
With great triumph eftsoons the same he shook,
That inost of all my fears affrayed me;
His body dight with nought but bones, pardie;
The naked shape of man there saw I plain,
All save the flesh, the sinew, and the vein.

Lastly, stood War, in glittering arms yclad,
With visage grim, stern look, and blackly hued:
In his right hand a naked sword he had,
That to the hilts was all with blood imbrued;
And in his left (that kings and kingdoms rued)
Famine and fire he held, and therewithal

He razed towns, and threw down towers and all: