Or ghost shall wag, Or cry, 'ware goblins! where I go; Their feats will spy, And send them home with ho, ho, ho! Whene'er such wanderers I meet, As from their night-sports they trudge home, With counterfeiting voice I greet, And call them on with me to roam : Through woods, through lakes; Or else, unseen, with them I go, To play some trick, And frolic it, with ho, ho, ho! Sometimes I meet them like a man, Sometimes an ox, sometimes a hound; To trip and trot about them round. My back they stride, More swift than wind away I go, When lads and lasses merry be, With possets and with junkets fine; I eat their cakes and sip their wine! I puff and snort: And out the candles I do blow: They shriek-Who's this? I answer nought but ho, ho, ho! Yet now and then, the maids to please, Their malt up still; I dress their hemp; I spin their tow; If any wake, And would me take, I wend me, laughing, ho, ho, ho! The Old and Young Courtier. An old song made by an aged old pate, Of an old worshipful gentleman, who had a great estate, That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate, With an old lady, whose anger one word assuages; But kept twenty old fellows with blue coats and badges; Like an old courtier, &c. 14 Time's Alteration. When this old cap was new, But all things plenty were: (Believe me this is true); Were much delighted then, With crests on their sleeves shown, Now pride hath banish'd all, Unto our land's reproach, When he whose means is small, Maintains both horse and coach: Instead of a hundred men, The coach allows but two; This was not thought on then, When this old cap was new. Good hospitality Was cherish'd then of many; Now poor men starve and die, And are not help'd by any: For charity waxeth cold, And love is found in few ; This was not in time of old, When this old cap was new. Where'er you travelled then, You might meet on the way Brave knights and gentlemen, Clad in their country grey; That courteous would appear, And kindly welcome you; No puritans then were, When this old cap was new. Our ladies in those days In civil habit went ; Broad cloth was then worth praise, And gave the best content: 230 French fashions then were scorn'd; At Christmas, in each hall, And meat for great and small: The neighbours were friendly bidden, And all had welcome true; The poor from the gates were not chidden, When this old cap was new. Black jacks to every man Were fill'd with wine and beer; In those days did appear: In cups of silver fine; None under the degree of a knight Now each mechanical man Hath a cupboard of plate for a show; Which was a rare thing then, When this old cap was new. Then bribery was unborn, At that time hardly knew ; No captain then caroused, As they are at this day: When this old cap was new: Of that which is their due: Loyalty Confined. [Supposed to have been written by Sir Roger L'Estrange, while in confinement on account of his adherence to Charles I.] Beat on, proud billows; Boreas, blow; Swell, curl'd waves, high as Jove's roof; Your incivility doth show That innocence is tempest-proof; Though surly Nereus frown, my thoughts are calm; Then strike, affliction, for thy wounds are balm. That which the world miscalls a jail, The salamander should be burned; The pelican her wilderness, I, as my mistress' favours, wear; I have some iron shackles there : Like some high-prized margarite; Am cloister'd up from public sight: And thus, proud sultan, I'm as great as thee. Did only wound him to a cure: Malice, I see, wants wit; for what is meant When once my prince affliction hath, Now not to suffer shows no loyal heart- That renders what I have not, mine: Have you not seen the nightingale But though they do my corpse confine, My soul is free as ambient air, PROSE WRITERS. HE prose writers of this age rank chiefly in the departments of theology, philosophy, and historical and antiquarian information. There was, as yet, hardly any vestige of prose employed with taste in fiction, or even in observations upon manners; though it must be observed, that in Elizabeth's reign appeared the once popular romance of Arcadia, by Sir Philip Sidney; and there lived under the two succeeding monarchs several acute and humorous describers of human character. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY was born, in 1554. at Penshurst, in Kent; and during his studies at Shrewsbury, Ox This production was never finished, and, not having been intended for the press, appeared only after the author's death. His next work was a tract, entitled The Defence of Poesy, where he has repelled the objections brought by the Puritans of his age against the poetic art, the professors of which they contemptuously denominated caterpillars of the commonwealth.' This production, though written with the partiality of a poet, has been deservedly admired for the beauty of its style and general soundness of its reasoning. In 1584, the character of his uncle, the celebrated Earl of Leicester, having been attacked in a publication called Leicester's Commonwealth, Sidney wrote a reply, in which, although the heaviest accusations were passed over in silence, he did not scruple to address his opponent in such terms as the following:- But to thee I say, thou therein liest in thy throat, which I will be ready to justify upon thee in any place of Europe, where thou wilt assign me a free place of coming, as within three months after the publishing hereof I may understand thy mind.' This performance seems to have proved unsatisfactory to Leicester and his friends, as it was not printed till near the middle of the eighteenth century. Desirous of active employment, Sidney next contemplated an expedition, with Sir Francis Drake, against the Spanish settlements in America: but this intention was frustrated by a peremptory mandate from the queen. In 1585, it is said, he was named one of the candidates for the crown of Poland, at that time vacant; on which occasion Elizabeth again threw obstacles in the way, being afraid • 1 'to lose the jewel of her times.' He was not, however, long permitted to remain unemployed; for, in the same year, Elizabeth having determined to send military assistance to the Protestant inhabitants of the Netherlands, then groaning beneath the oppressive measures of the Spaniards, he was appointed governor of Flushing, one of the towns ceded to the English in return for this aid. Soon afterwards, the Earl of Leicester, with an army of six thousand men, went over to the Netherlands, where he was joined by Sir Philip, as general of the horse. The conduct of the earl in this war was highly imprudent, and such as to call forth repeated expressions of dissatisfaction from his nephew Philip. The military exploits of the latter were highly honourable to him; in particular, he succeeded in taking the town of Axel in 1586. His career, however, was destined to be short; for having, in September of the same year, accidentally encountered a detachment of the Spanish army at Zutphen, he received a wound, which in a few weeks proved mortal. As he was carried from the field, a well-known incident occurred, by which the generosity of his nature was strongly displayed. Being overcome with thirst from excessive bleeding and fatigue, he called for water, which was accordingly brought to him. At the moment he was lifting it to his mouth, a poor soldier was carried by, desperately wounded, who fixed his eyes eagerly on the cup. Sidney, observing this, instantly delivered the beverage to him, saying, "Thy necessity is yet greater ford, and Cambridge, displayed remarkable acuteness than mine.' His death, which took place on the of intellect and craving for knowledge. After spending 19th of October 1586, at the early age of thirty-two, three years on the continent, he returned to England was deeply and extensively lamented, both at home in 1575, and became one of the brightest ornaments of and abroad. His bravery and chivalrous magnathe court of Elizabeth, in whose favour he stood very nimity-his grace and polish of manner-the purity high. In the year 1580, his mind having been of his morals-his learning and refinement of taste ruffled in a quarrel with the Earl of Oxford, he retired-had procured for him love and esteem wherever in search of tranquillity to the seat of his brotherin-law, the Earl of Pembroke, at Wilton, and there occasionally employed himself in composing the work above-mentioned, a heroic romance, to which, as it was written chiefly for his sister's amusement, he gave the title of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. pe Sidney. he was known. By the direction of Elizabeth, his remains were conveyed to London, and honoured with a public funeral in the cathedral of St Paul's. Of the poetry of Sir Philip Sidney we have spoken in a former page. It is almost exclusively as a prose writer that he deserves to be prominently men Mr Molyneux-Few words are best. My letters to my father have come to the eyes of some. Neither can I condemn any but you for it. If it be so, you have played the very knave with me; and so I will make you know, if I have good proof of it. But that for so much as is past. For that is to come, I assure you before God, that if ever I know you do so much as read any letter I write to my father, without his commandment, or my consent, I will thrust my dagger into you. And trust to it, for I speak it in earnest. In the mean time, farewell.' Of the following extracts, three are from Sidney's Arcadia,' and the fourth from his 'Defence of Poesy.' [A Tempest.] tioned in a history of English Literature; and in judging of his merits, we ought to bear in mind the early age at which he was cut off. His 'Arcadia,' on which the chief portion of his fame undoubtedly rests, was so universally read and admired in the reigns of Elizabeth and her successor, that, in 1633, it had reached an eighth edition. Subsequently, however, it fell into comparative neglect, in which, during the last century, the contemptuous terms in which it was spoken of by Horace Walpole contributed not a little to keep it. By that writer it is characterised as 'a tedious, lamentable, pedantic, pastoral romance, which the patience of a young virgin in love cannot now wade through.' And the judgment more recently pronounced by Dr Drake,* and Mr Hazlitt, is almost equally unfavourable. On the other hand, Sidney has found a fervent admirer in There arose even with the sun a veil of dark clouds another modern writer, who highly extols the before his face, which shortly, like ink poured into 'Arcadia' in the second volume of the Retrospective water, had blacked over all the face of heaven, preReview. A middle course is steered by Dr Zouch, paring, as it were, a mournful stage for a tragedy who, in his memoirs of Sidney, published in 1808, to be played on. For, forthwith the winds began while he admits that changes in taste, manners, and to speak louder, and, as in a tumultuous kingdom, to opinions, have rendered the Arcadia' unsuitable to think themselves fittest instruments of commandmodern readers, maintains that there are passages in ment; and blowing whole storms of hail and rain this work exquisitely beautiful-useful observations upon them, they were sooner in danger than they on life and manners-a variety and accurate discri- could almost bethink themselves of change. For then mination of characters-fine sentiments, expressed in the traitorous sea began to swell in pride against the strong and adequate terms-animated descriptions, afflicted navy, under which, while the heaven favoured equal to any that occur in the ancient or modern them, it had lain so calmly; making mountains of poets-sage lessons of morality, and judicious reflec-itself, over which the tossed and tottering ship should tions on government and policy. A reader,' he con- climb, to be straight carried down again to a pit of tinues, who takes up the volume, may be compared hellish darkness, with such cruel blows against the to a traveller who has a long and dreary road to sides of the ship, that, which way soever it went, was pass. The objects that successively meet his eye still in his malice, that there was left neither power to may not in general be very pleasing, but occa- stay nor way to escape. And shortly had it so dissionally he is charmed with a more beautiful pro- severed the loving company, which the day before had spect-with the verdure of a rich valley-with a tarried together, that most of them never met again, meadow enamelled with flowers-with a murmur of but were swallowed up in his never-satisfied mouth. a rivulet-the swelling grove-the hanging rockthe splendid villa. These charming objects abundantly compensate for the joyless regions he has traversed. They fill him with delight, exhilarate his drooping spirits and at the decline of day, he reposes with complacency and satisfaction.' This representation we are inclined to regard as doing at least ample justice to the Arcadia, the former high popularity of which is, doubtless, in some degree attributable to the personal fame of its author, and to the scarcity of works of fiction in the days of Elizabeth. But to whatever causes the admiration with which it was received may be ascribed, there can hardly, we think, be a question, that a work so extensively perused must have contributed not a little to fix the English tongue, and to form that vigorous and imaginative style which characterises the literature of the beginning and middle of the seventeenth century. Notwithstanding the occasional over-inflation and pedantry of his style, Sidney may justly be regarded as the best prose writer of his time. He was, in truth, what Cowper felicitously calls him, a warbler of poetic prose.' In his personal character, Sidney, like most men of high sensibility and poetical feeling, showed a disposition to melancholy and solitude.' His chief fault seems to have been impetuosity of temper, an illustration of which has already been quoted from his reply to 'Leicester's Commonwealth.' The same trait appears in the following letter (containing what proved to be a groundless accusation), which he wrote in 1578 to the secretary of his father, then lord deputy of Ireland. * Essays Illustrative of the Tatler, Spectator, &c., il. 9. + Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Eliza beth, p. 263. [Description of Arcadia.] There were hills which garnished their proud heights with stately trees; humble valleys, whose base estate seemed comforted with the refreshing of silver rivers; neadows, enamelled with all sorts of eyepleasing flowers; thickets, which being lined with inost pleasant shade, were witnessed so to, by the cheerful disposition of many well-tuned birds; each pasture stored with sheep, feeding with sober security; while the pretty lambs, with bleating oratory, craved the dam's comfort; here a shepherd's boy piping, as though he should never be old; there a young shepherdess knitting, and withal singing; and it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to work, and her hands kept time to her voice-music. [A Stag Hunt.] Then went they together abroad, the good Kalander entertaining them with pleasant discoursing-how well he loved the sport of hunting when he was a disdained all chamber-delights, that the sun (how young man, how much in the comparison thereof he great a journey soever he had to make) could never prevent him with earliness, nor the moon, with her sober countenance, dissuade him from watching till midnight for the deers feeding. O, said he, you will never live to my age, without you keep yourself in breath with exercise, and in heart with joyfulness; too much thinking doth consume the spirits; and oft it falls out, that, while one thinks too much of his doing, he leaves to do the effect of his thinking. Then spared he not to remember, how much Arcadia was changed since his youth; activity and good fellowship being nothing in the price it was then held in; but, according to the nature of the old-growing world, |