The greatest compliment, however, which Sylvester has received, is the imitation of Milton.

The virtues of Sylvester were superior to his talents; he was, in fact, to adopt the language of one of his intimate friends, a poet

34. Turberville, George, a younger son of Nicholas Turberville, of Whitechurch, in Dorsetshire, a gentleman of respectable family, was born about the year 1540. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford, and in 1562 became a member of one of the Inns of Court. Here the reputation which he had acquired for talents and the dispatch of business, obtained for him the appointment of secretary to Thomas Randolph, Esq., ambassador to the Court of Russia, and, whilst in this country, he employed his leisure in writing poems descriptive of its manners and customs, addressed to Spenser, Dancie, and Park, and afterwards published in Hakluyt's Voyages, 1598, vol. i. pp. 384, 385.

On his return from this tour, he added greatly to his celebrity, as a scholar and a gentleman, by the publication of his "Epitaphes, epigrams, songs, and sonets, with a discourse of the friendly affections of Tymetes to Pyndara his ladie," 8vo. 1567. This year, indeed, appears to have been fully occupied by him in preparing his works for the press; for, during its course, independent of the collection just mentioned, he printed "The Heroycall Epistles of the learned Poet Publius Ovidius Naso: with Aulus Sabinus aunsweres to certaine of the same," 8vo., and "The Eclogs of the poet B. Mantuan Carmelitan, turned into English verse, and set forth with the argument to every eglogue." 12mo. These productions, with his "Tragical Tales, translated in time of his troubles, out of Sundrie Italians, with the argument and L'Envoye to ech tale," printed in 1576, and again in 1587, with annexed "Epitaphs and Sonets, and some other broken pamphlettes and Epistles," together with some pieces of poetry in his "Art of Venerie," and in his "Booke of Faulconrie or Hauking," 1575, and a few commendatory stanzas addressed to his friends, form the whole of his poetical works.

Turberville enjoyed, as a writer of songs, sonnets, and minor poems, a high degree of popularity in his day; it was not, however, calculated for durability, and he appears to have been forgotten, as a poet, before the close of the seventeenth century. His muse has experienced a temporary revival, through the medium of Mr. Chalmers's English Poets, and to the antiquary, and lover of old English literature, this reprint will be acceptable; but, for the general reader, he will be found deficient in many essential points. Fancy, it is true, may be discovered in his pieces, although forced and quaint; but of nature, simplicity, and feeling, the portion is unfortunately small. Occasional felicity of diction, a display of classical allusion, and imagery taken from the amusements and customs of the age, are not wanting; but the warmth, the energy, and the enthusiasm of poetry are sought for in vain.

Our author survived the year 1594, though the date of his death is not known.

35. Tusser, Thomas, one of the most popular, and, assuredly, one of the most useful of our elder poets, was born, according to Dr. Mavor, about 1515, and died about 1583.[656:A] The work which ushers him to notice here, and has given him the appellation of the English Varro, was published in 1557, and entitled "A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie," a small quarto of thirteen leaves. It was shortly followed by "One Hundreth Good Poyntes of Huswiffry;" and in 1573, the whole was enlarged with the title of "Five Hundreth Points of Good Husbandry, united to as many of Good Huswifery." The most complete edition, however, and the last in the author's life-time, was printed in 1580. So acceptable did this production prove to the lovers of poetry and agriculture, that it underwent nineteen editions during its first century, and Dr. Mavor's edition, published in 1812, forms the last, and twenty-fourth. The mutilated state of the old copies, indeed, exemplifies, more than any thing else, the practical use to which they were subjected; "some books," remarks Mr. Haslewood, "became heir-looms from value, and Tusser's work, for useful information in every department of agriculture, together with its quaint and amusing observations, perhaps passed the copies from father to son, till they crumbled away in the bare shifting of the pages, and the mouldering relic only lost its value, by the casual mutilation of time."[657:A] That the estimation in which the poems of Tusser were held by his contemporaries, might lead to such a result, it may be allowable to conclude from the assertion of Googe, who, speaking of our author's works, says, that "in his fancie, they may, without any presumption, compare with any of the Varros, Columellas, or Palladios of Rome."[657:B]

The great merit of Tusser's book, independent of the utility of its agricultural precepts, consists in the faithful picture which it delineates of the manners, customs, and domestic life of the English farmer, and in the morality, piety, and benevolent simplicity, which pervade the whole. In a poetical light its pretensions are not great. The part relative to Husbandry is divided into months, and written in quatrains, of eleven syllables in each line, which are frequently constructed with much terseness, and with a happy epigrammatic brevity. The abstracts prefixed to each month, are given in short verses of four and five syllables each; and numerous illustrative pieces, and nearly the whole of the Huswifery, present us with a vast variety of metres, among which, as Ritson has observed, "may be traced the popular stanza which attained so much celebrity in the pastoral ballads of Shenstone."[658:A] Little that can be termed ornamental, either in imagery or episode, is to be found in this poem; but the sketches of character and costume, of rural employment and domestic economy, are so numerous, and given with such fidelity, raciness, and spirit, as to render the work in a very uncommon degree interesting and amusing.

36. Warner, William. Of the biography of this fine old poet, little has descended to posterity. He is supposed to have been born about the year 1558; and that he died at Amwell in Hertfordshire, and was by profession an attorney, are two of the principal facts which, by an appeal to the parish register of Amwell, have been clearly ascertained. In a note to his poem on this village, Mr. Scott first communicated this curious document:—"1608-1609. Master William Warner, a man of good yeares, and of honest reputation: by his profession an atturnye of the Common Pleas: author of Albion's England, diynge suddenly in the night in his bedde, without any former complaynt or sicknesse, on Thursday night, beeinge the 9th day of March: was buried the Saturday following, and lyeth in the church at the corner, under the stone of Gwalter Fader."[658:B]

The lines which gave occasion to this extract form a pleasing tribute to the memory of the bard:

The words in Italics which close this passage, were not at the time they were written correctly true, for Warner had then been a subject of great and judicious praise, both to Mrs. Cooper and Dr. Percy; and, since the era of Scott, he has been imitated, re-edited, and liberally applauded. He is conjectured to have been a native of Warwickshire, to have been educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and to have left the University without a degree, for the purpose of cultivating his poetical genius in the metropolis. His Albion's England, on which his fame is founded, was first printed in 1586, when the poet was probably about eight and twenty. It underwent six subsequent editions during the author's life-time, namely, in 1589, 1592, 1596, 1597, 1602, and 1606.[659:A]

This extensive poetic history, which is deduced from the deluge to the reign of Elizabeth, is distributed into twelve books, and contains seventy-seven chapters; it is dedicated to Henry Cary, Lord Hunsdon, under whose patronage and protection Warner appears to have spent the latter portion of his life. Such was the popularity of "Albion's England," that it threw into the shade what had formerly been the favourite collection, the "Mirror for Magistrates;" Warner was ranked by his contemporaries, says Dr. Percy, on a level with Spenser; they were called the Homer and Virgil of their age[659:B]; and Meres, speaking of the English tongue, declares, that by his (Warner's) pen, it "was much enriched and gorgeously invested in rare ornaments and resplendent habiliments."[659:C] Less hyperbolical, and, therefore, more judicious praise, was allotted him by Drayton, who, after noticing his incorrectnesses, adds with a liberal spirit—

a decision which subsequent criticism has confirmed.

One of his most pleasing episodes, "Argentile and Curan," was inserted by Mrs. Cooper in her "Muses' Library," who justly terms it "a tale full of beautiful incidents, in the romantic taste, extremely affecting, rich in ornament, wonderfully various in stile, and, in short, one of the most beautiful pastorals I ever met with."[660:A] This was again republished by Percy in his "Reliques[660:B]," and finally honoured by Mason in the third volume of his Poems, 1796, where it forms a Legendary Drama in five acts, written on the old English model. Ritson, Headley, and Ellis, have furnished us with additional extracts, and at length Albion's England has found its place in the body of our English Poetry through the taste and exertions of Mr. Chalmers.[660:C]

Ease, simplicity, and pathos, are the leading virtues of Warner's muse. He eminently excelled in depicting rural and pastoral lite, and in developing those simple and touching emotions which pervade the innocent and artless bosom. His vices were those of his age, and may be included under the heads of indelicacy, inequality, and quaintness; these expunged, his finer parts strongly interest our affections, and endear to us the memory of the good old bard.

37. Watson, Thomas, a once popular writer of sonnets, was born in London, and educated at Oxford, whence he returned to the metropolis for the purpose of practising the law. In 1581, his principal poetical work was entered on the Stationers' books, and afterwards published with the following title, though without date:—"The ΕΚΑΤΟΜΠΑΘΙΑ, or Passionate Centurie of Love, divided into two Parts: whereof the first expresseth the Author's Sufferance in Love: the latter, his long Farewell to Love and all his Tyrannie. Composed by Thomas Watson, Gentleman; and published at the Request of certeine Gentlemen his very Friends."

Of this Collection, which occupies a thin 4to., black letter, with a sonnet on each page, an admirable critical analysis has been given by Sir Egerton Brydges, in the twelfth number of the British Bibliographer, accompanied by seventeen specimens of the sonnets, and from this critique, and from the Theatrum Poetarum, edited by the same elegant scholar, we have drawn our account, for the original is so scarce, as to be of hopeless acquisition.

It will strike the reader, in the first place, that the poems which Watson termed Sonnets, have no pretensions, in point of mechanism and form, to the character of the legitimate sonnet. Instead of the beautiful though artificial construction of the Petrarcan model, they consist of eighteen lines, including three quatrains in alternate rhyme, and a couplet appended to each quatrain; a system of verse totally destitute of the union and dignity which distinguish this branch of poetry in the practice of the Italians. It should be remarked, however, that our poet has occasionally given us a sonnet in Latin verse, in which he confines himself to fourteen lines, and, as he observes, in the Introduction to his sixth sonnet, "commeth somwhat neerer unto the Italian phrase than the English doth."[661:A] Watson was, indeed, an elegant Latin poet, and in the matter prefixed to his first and sixth sonnets, informs us that he had written a poem "De Remedio Amoris," and that he was then "busied in translating Petrarch his sonnets into Latin,—which one day may perchance come to light."[661:B] In fact there appears to be more of true poetry in his Latin than in his English verse; for though to the "Centurie of Love" must be attributed great purity, correctness, and perspicuity of diction, and a versification uncommonly polished, harmonious, and well sustained, yet the soul of poetry, tenderness, simplicity, and energy of sentiment, will be found wanting. In their place Watson has bestowed upon us a multitude of metaphysical conceits, an exuberant store of classical mythology, and an abundance of learned allusion; but, to adopt the interesting observations of the critic mentioned in the preceding paragraph, "to meditate upon a subject, till it is broken into a thousand remote allusions and conceits; to accustom the mind to a familiarity with metaphysical subtleties and casual similitudes in contradictory objects, is to cultivate intellectual habits directly opposite to those from whence real poetry springs; and to produce effects directly opposite to those which real poetry is intended to produce.

"The real poet does but pursue, fix, and heighten those day-dreams which every intellectual being more or less at times indulges; though the difference of the degree, as well as of the frequency, in which individuals indulge them, is incalculable; arising from the difference of mental talent and sensibility, as well as of cultivation. But who is there in whose fancy some absent image does not occasionally revive? And who is there so utterly dull and hard, that in him it arises unassociated with the slightest emotion of pain or pleasure? Yet in what abundance and richness of colouring such images are constantly springing up in the mind of the poet? Visions adhere to the boughs of every tree; and painting what he sees and feels with his natural enthusiasm, he carries the reader of sensibility along with him; kindles his fainter ideas into a flame; draws forth the yet weak impression into body and form; and irradiates his whole brain with his own light. The chords of the heart are touched; and while thus played upon produce enchanting music; till, as the spell is silent, the object of this borrowed inspiration is astonished to find, that all this brilliant entertainment sprung from the wand of the poetical magician.

"If this be the secret of true poetry, what is he who seeks to convey images so unnatural, that no one had ever even an imperfect glimpse of them before, and no one can sympathize with them when expressed? Can he whose thoughts find no mirror in the minds of others be a poet? Is not a metaphysical poet a contradiction of terms?

"He who adopts these principles, will think of Watson as I do.—Has he painted the natural emotions of the mind, or the heart? Has he given

to those 'airy nothings' which more or less haunt every fancy? Or has he not sat down rather to exercise the subtlety of his wit, than to discharge the fullness of his bosom?"[663:A]

Yet has Watson, with these vital defects, been pronounced by Mr. Steevens superior as a sonneteer to Shakspeare[663:B]; a preference which we shall have occasion to consider in the chapter appropriated to the minor poems of our great dramatist.

Beside the "Hekatompathia," Watson published, in 1581, a Latin translation of the Antigone of Sophocles; in 1582, "Ad Olandum de Eulogiis serenissimæ nostræ Elizabethæ post Anglorum prœlia cantatis, Decastichon;" in 1586, a Paraphrase in Latin verse of the "Raptus Helenæ," of Coluthus; in 1590, an English Version of Italian Madrigalls, and "Melibœus, a Latin Eclogue on the Death of Sir Francis Walsingham," 4to.; in 1592, he printed "Amintæ Gaudia," in hexameter verses, 4to.; and beside other fugitive pieces, two poems of his are inserted in the "Phœnix Nest," 1593, and in "England's Helicon," 1600.

Watson has been highly praised by Nash[663:C], by Gabriel Harvey[663:D], and by Meres; the latter asserting that "as Italy had Petrarch, so England had Thomas Watson."[663:E] He is supposed to have died about the year 1595, for Nash, in his "Have with you to Saffron Walden," printed in 1596, speaks of him as then deceased, adding, that "for all things he has left few his equals in England."

38. Willobie, Henry. From the Preface of Hadrian Dorrell, to the first edition of Willobie's "Avisa" in 1594, in which he terms the author, "a young man, and a scholar of very good hope," there is foundation for conjecturing that our poet was born about the year 1565. It appears also from this prefatory matter that, "being desirous to see the fashions of other countries for a time, he not long sithence departed voluntarily to her majestie's service," and that Dorrell, in his friend's absence, committed his poem to the press.[664:A] He gave it the following title, "Willobie his Avisa; or the true picture of a modest Maide and of a chast and constant wife. In hexameter[664:B] verse. The like argument whereof was never heretofore published:" 4to. A second edition was published by the same editor in 1596, with an Apology for the work, dated June 30, and concluding with the information, that the author was "of late gone to God." A fourth impression "corrected and augmented," consisting of 72 leaves 4to., made its appearance in 1609[664:C], with the addition of "the victorie of English Chastitie never before published," and subscribed "Thomas Willoby, frater Henrici Willoby nuper defuncti."

Mr. Haslewood conjectures from Dorrell's calling Willobie his chamber-fellow, and then dating his Preface from his chamber in Oxford; and from a passage in the "Avisa" itself, that our author was educated in that university, and that he was a native of Kent.[665:A] We are told likewise by Dorrell, in his "Apologie," that his friend had written a poem entitled "Susanna," which still remained in manuscript.

The "Avisa," which consists of a great number of short cantos, is written to exemplify and recommend the character of a chaste woman, under all the temptations to which the various situations incident to her life, expose her. "In a void paper," says the editor, "rolled up in this book, I found this very name Avisa, written in great letters, a pretty distance asunder, and under every letter a word beginning with the same letter, in this forme:—

"That is, in effect, A loving wife that never violated her faith is alwayes to be beloved. Which makes me conjecture, that he minding for his recreation to set out the idea of a constant wife (rather describing what good wives should do than registring what any hath done,) devised a woman's name that might fitly expresse this woman's nature whom he would aime at: desirous in this (as I conjecture) to imitate a far off, either Plato in his commonwealth, or More in his Utopia."[665:B] Prefixed are two commendatory copies of verses, of which the second, signed Contraria Contrariis, is remarkable for an allusion to Shakspeare's "Rape of Lucrece," and will be noticed hereafter.

Of invention and enthusiasm, the poet's noblest boast, few traits are discoverable in the Avisa, nor can it display any vivid delineation of passion; but it occasionally unfolds a pleasing vein of description, and both the diction and metre are uniformly clear, correct, and flowing. Indeed, the versification may be pronounced, for the age in which it appeared, peculiarly sweet and well modulated, and the whole poem, in language and rhythm, makes a close approximation to modern usage.

39. Wither, George. This very voluminous writer is introduced here, in consequence of his Juvenilia, which constitute the best of his works, having been all printed or circulated before the death of Shakspeare. He was born at Bentworth, near Alton in Hampshire, in 1590, and, after a long life of tumult, vicissitude, and disappointment, died in his seventy-eighth year in 1667. He continued to wield his pen to the last month of his existence, and more than one hundred of his pieces, in prose and verse, have been enumerated by Mr. Park in a very curious and elaborate catalogue of his works.[666:A] We shall confine ourselves, however, for the reason already assigned, to that portion of his poetry which was in circulation previous to 1616.

It appears from Wither's own catalogue of his works[666:B], that four of his earliest poems, entitled "Iter Hibernicum," "Iter Boreale," "Patrick's Purgatory," and "Philarete's Complaint," were lost in manuscript. The first of his published productions was printed in 1611, under the title of "Abuses Stript and Whipt: or Satyricall Essays. Divided into two Bookes;" 8vo., to which were annexed "The Scourge," a satire, and "Certaine Epigrams." This book, he tells us[666:C], was written in 1611, and its unsparing severity involved him in persecution, and condemned him for several months to a prison. It was nevertheless highly popular, and underwent an eighth impression in 1633.

An elegant writer in the British Bibliographer has subjoined the following very just and interesting remarks to his notice of these poignant satires. "The reign of King James," he observes, "was not propitious to the higher orders of poetry. All those bold features, which nourished the romantic energies of the age of his predecessor, had been suppressed by the selfish pusillanimity and pedantic policy of this inglorious monarch. Loving flattery and a base kind of luxurious ease, he was insensible to the ambitions of a gallant spirit, and preferred the cold and barren subtleties of scholastic learning to the breathing eloquence of those who were really inspired by the muse. Poetical composition therefore soon assumed a new character. Its exertions were now overlaid by learning, and the strange conceits of metaphysical wit took place of the creations of a pure and unsophisticated fancy. It was thus that Donne wasted in the production of unprofitable and short-lived fruit the powers of a most acute and brilliant mind. It was thus that Phineas Fletcher threw away upon an unmanageable subject the warblings of a copious and pathetic imagination. The understanding was more exercised in the ingenious distortion of artificial stores, than the faculties which mark the poet in pouring forth the visions of natural fiction.

were now deemed insipid. The Fairy Fables of Gorgeous Chivalry were thought too rude and boisterous, and too unphilosophical for the erudite ear of the book-learned king!

"As writers of verse now brought their compositions nearer to the nature of prose, the epoch was favourable to the satyrical class, for which so much food was furnished by the motley and vicious manners of the nation. Wither, therefore, bursting with indignation at the view of society which presented itself to his young mind, took this opportunity to indulge in a sort of publication, to which the prosaic taste of the times was well adapted; but he disdained, and, perhaps, felt himself unqualified, to use that glitter of false ornament, which was now substituted for the true decorations of the muse. 'I have arrived,' says he[667:A], 'to be as plain as a pack-saddle.'—'Though you understand them not, yet because you see this wants some fine phrases and flourishes, as you find other men's writings stuffed withal, perhaps you will judge me unlearned.'—'Yet I could with ease have amended it; for it cost me, I protest, more labour to observe this plainness, than if I had more poetically trimmed it.'"[668:A]

The plainness of which Wither here professes himself to have been studious, forms one of the noblest characteristics of his best writings. Dismissing with contempt the puerilities and conceits which deformed the pages of so many of his contemporaries, he cultivated, with almost uniform assiduity, a simplicity of style, and an expression of natural sentiment and feeling, which have occasioned the revival of his choicest compositions in the nineteenth century[668:B], and will for ever stamp them with a permanent value.

Returning to his Juvenilia, we find that in 1612 he published in a thin quarto, "Prince Henrie's Obsequies; or mournfull Elegies upon his Death. With a supposed Interlocution betweene the Ghost of Prince Henry and Great Britaine;" which was followed the succeeding year by his "Epithalamia: or Nuptiall Poemes," 4to., on the marriage of Frederick the Fifth, with Elizabeth, only daughter of James the First. These pieces have been re-printed, by Sir Egerton Brydges, in his "Restituta:" the Obsequies contain forty-five elegiac sonnets, succeeded by an Epitaph, the Interlocution, and a Sonnet of Death, in Latin rhymes, with a paraphrastic translation. Among the numerous sonnet-writers of the age of Shakspeare, Wither claims a most respectable place, and many of these little elegies deserve a rescue from oblivion. We would particularly point out Nos. 14 and 17, from which an admirable sonnet might be formed by subjoining six lines of the former to the first two quatorzains of the latter, and this without the alteration of a syllable; the octave will then consist of a soliloquy by the poet himself, and the sestain be addressed to Elizabeth the sister of Prince Henry; a transition which is productive of a striking and happy effect:—

In 1614, our author published "A Satyre written to the King's most excellent Majestie," 8vo.; and "The Shepherds Pipe," 8vo.; the latter, a production of high poetical merit, having being composed in conjunction with Browne, the author of Britannia's Pastorals.

In 1615, appeared "The Shepheards Hunting: Being certaine Eglogues, written during the time of the Author's imprisonment in the Marshalsey," 8vo. This was intended as a continuation of the "Shepheard's Pipe," and is fully equal, if not superior, to the prior portion: Phillips, indeed, speaking of Wither, says, "the most of poetical fancy, which I remember to have found in any of his writings, is in a little piece of pastoral poetry, called The Shepherd's Hunting."[669:B]

The next work with which Wither favoured us, though not published for general circulation before 1619, yet, as the stationer, George Norton, tells us, had been "long since imprinted for the use of the author, to bestow on such as had voluntarily requested it in way of adventure;" words which seem to intimate, that it had been dispersed for the purpose of pecuniary return, and probably with the intent of supporting the bard during his imprisonment in the Marshalsea. It has accordingly a title-page which implies a second impression, and is termed "Fidelia. Newly corrected and augmented." This is a work which ought to have protected the memory of Wither from the sarcasms of Butler, Swift, and Pope; for it displays a vein of poetry at once highly elegant, impassioned, and descriptive. To Fidelia was first annexed the two exquisite songs, reprinted by Dr. Percy, commencing

and

We shall close the list of those works of Wither that fall within the era to which we are limited, by noticing his "Faire Virtue: the Mistresse of Phil'arete," 8vo. This beautiful production, glowing with all the ardours of a poetic fancy, was one of his earliest compositions, and is alluded to in his "Satire to the King," in 1614, before which period there is reason to suppose it was widely circulated in manuscript; for in a prefatory epistle to the copy of 1622, published by John Grismand, but which was originally prefixed to an anonymous edition printed by John Marriot, and not now supposed to be in existence, Wither tells us, that "the poem was composed many years agone, and, unknown to the author, got out of his custody by an acquaintance;" and he adds, "when I first composed it, I well liked thereof, and it well enough became my years." To high praise of this work in its poetical capacity, Mr. Dalrymple has annexed the important remark, that it unfolds a more perfect system of female tuition than is any where else to be discovered.

The great misfortune of Wither was, that the multitude of his subsequent publications, many of which were written during the effervescence of party zeal, and are frequently debased by coarse and vulgar language, overwhelmed the merits of his earlier productions. Yet it must be conceded, that his prose, during the whole period of his authorship, generally exhibits great strength, perspicuity, and freedom from affectation; and on the best of his poetical effusions we may cheerfully assent to the following encomium of an able and impartial judge:—

"If poetry be the power of commanding the imagination, conveyed in measure and expressive epithets, Wither was truly a poet. Perhaps there is no where to be found a greater variety of English measure than in his writings, (Shakspeare excepted,) more energy of thought, or more frequent developement of the delicate filaments of the human heart."[671:A]

40. Wotton, Sir Henry. This elegant scholar and accomplished gentleman was forty-eight years of age when Shakspeare died, being born at Boughton-Hall in Kent, in 1568. His correspondence with Milton on the subject of Comus in 1638, is on record, and it is highly probable that, on his return from the continent in 1598, after a long residence of nine years in Germany and Italy, he would not long remain a stranger either to the reputation or the person of the great Dramatic Luminary of his times.

Having mentioned these great poets as contemporaries of Sir Henry Wotton, it may be a subject of pleasing speculation to conjecture how far they could be personally known to each other. The possibility of some intercourse of this kind, though transient, seems to have forcibly struck the mind of an elegant poet and critic of the present day; speaking of Comus, presented at Ludlow-Castle in 1634, he remarks,—"Much it has appeared to me of the Shaksperean diction and numbers and form of sentiment may be traced in this admirable and delightful Drama: in which the streams of the Avon mix with those of the Arno, of the Mincius, and the Ilissus. Part of Milton's affectionate veneration, beside what arises from congenial mind, may have arisen from personal respect. At the death of Shakspeare, Milton was in his eighth year.

"It is hardly probable that they never met. Shakspeare, if they did see each other, could not but be charmed with the countenance and manners of a boy like Milton: and Milton, whose mind was never childish, and whose countenance at ten has the modest but decisive character of his high destiny, would feel the interview: his young heart would dilate, and every recollection would bring Shakspeare, once seen and heard, to his remembrance and imagination with increasing force."[672:A]

The most powerful circumstance which militates against this interesting supposition, is, that, if such an interview had taken place, we should, in all probability, have found it recorded in the minor poems, Latin or English, of Milton, who has there preserved many of the occurrences of his youthful days, and would scarcely have failed, we think, to put the stamp of immortality on such an event.

The poetry of Wotton, though chiefly written for the amusement of his leisure, and through the excitement of casual circumstances, possesses the invaluable attractions of energy, simplicity, and the most touching morality; it comes warm from the heart, and whether employed on an amatory or didactic subject, makes its appropriate impression with an air of sincerity which never fails to delight. Of this description are the pieces entitled, "A Farewell to the Vanities of the World;" the "Character of a Happy Life," and the Lines on the Queen of Bohemia. One of his earliest pieces, being "written in his youth," was printed in Davison's "Poetical Rapsody," 1602, and his Remains were collected and published by his amiable friend Isaac Walton. Sir Henry died, Provost of Eton, in December 1639, in the seventy-third year of his age.

In drawing up these Critical Notices of the principal poets who, independent of the Drama, flourished during the life-time of Shakspeare, we have been guided chiefly by the consideration of their positive merit, or great incidental popularity; and few, if any, who, on these bases, call for admission, have probably been overlooked. There is one poet, however, whose memory has been preserved by Phillips, and of whom, from the high character given of him by this critic, it may be necessary to say a few words; for if the following eulogium on the compositions of this writer be not the result of a marked partiality, it should stimulate to an ardent enquiry after manuscripts so truly valuable.

"John Lane, a fine old Queen Elizabeth's gentleman, who was living within my remembrance, and whose several Poems, had they not had the ill fate to remain unpublisht, when much better meriting than many, that are in print, might possibly have gained him a name not much inferior, if not equal to Drayton, and others of the next rank to Spencer; but they are all to be produc't in manuscript, namely his 'Poetical Vision,' his 'Alarm to the Poets,' his 'Twelve Months,' his 'Guy of Warwick, a Heroic Poem' (at least as much as many others that are so entitled), and lastly his 'Supplement to Chaucer's Squire's Tale.'"[673:A]

It has happened unfortunately for Lane, that the only specimen of his writings which has met the eye of a modern critic, has proved a source of disappointment. Warton, after recording that a copy of Lane's supplement to Chaucer existed in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, adds, "I conceived great expectations of him on reading Phillips's account. But I was greatly disappointed, for Lane's performance, upon perusal, proved to be not only an inartificial imitation of Chaucer's manner, but a weak effort of invention."[674:A] This discovery, however, should not arrest all future research; for his four preceding poems, of which the latter two must necessarily, from their titles, be of considerable length, may yet warrant the decision of Phillips.[674:B]

To this brief summary of Master-Bards we shall now subjoin, in a tabular and alphabetic form, a catalogue of those numerous minor poets who were content to follow in the train of more splendid talent. In carrying this arrangement into execution it will not be necessary, after the example of Ritson, to dignify with the name of poet every individual who contributed a single copy of verses, as a tribute to contemporary merit—a prostitution of the title which appears truly ridiculous; for though bulk be no proof of excellence, yet were we to assign the name of poet to every penner of a stanza, the majority of those who barely read and write, might be included in the list. To those alone, therefore, who either published themselves, or had their productions thrown into a collective form by others, will the appellation be allotted.

With a view to simplicity and brevity, the Table will consist but of three parts; the first, occupied by the names of the poets; the second, by abbreviated titles of their works, with their dates; and the third, in order to prevent the frequent repetition of similar epithets, will contain arbitrary marks, designative of the general merit of their writings, and forming a kind of graduated scale. Thus mediocrity will be designated by a broad black line (|); excellence will be expressed by eight asterisks before the mark of mediocrity, (* * * * * * * *|), and absolute worthlessness by eight after it (|* * * * * * * *); while the intermediate shades of merit will be sufficiently pointed out by the intervening asterisks. Occasional notes, where peculiarity of any kind may call for them, will be added.

On this plan of tabular construction, the tediousness of a mere catalogue will, in a great measure, be avoided; and, at the same time, an adequately accurate view be given of the multiplicity and diffusion of poetical composition which pervaded this fertile period.

TABLE of Minor Miscellaneous Poets, during the Age of Shakspeare.

SCALE.