FROM BIRD'S COLLECTION OF SONGS, &c. YOUR shining eyes and golden hair, Your lily rosed lips most fair, Your other beauties that excel, Men cannot choose but like them well; But when for them they say they'll die, Believe them not, they do but lie.

AMBITIOUS love hath forced me to aspire
To beauties rare, which do adorn thy face;
Thy modest life yet bridles my desire,
Whose law severe doth promise me no grace.
But what! may love live under any law?
No, no, his power exceedeth man's conceit,
Of which the gods themselves do stand in awe,
For on his frown a thousand torments wait.
Proceed, then, in this desperate enterprise
With good advice, and follow love, thy guide,
That leads thee to thy wished paradise:
Thy climbing thoughts this comfort take withal,
That if it be thy foul disgrace to slide,
Thy brave attempt shall yet excuse thy fall.

AMID the seas a gallant ship set out,
Wherein nor men nor yet 'munition lacks,
In greatest winds that spareth not a clout,
But cuts the waves in spite of weather's wrack,
Would force a swain that comes of coward kind,
To change himself, and be of noble mind.
Who makes his seat a stately stamping steed,
Whose neighs and plays are princely to behold;
Whose courage stout, whose eyes are fiery red,
Whose joints well knit, whose harness all of gold,
Doth well deserve to be no meaner thing

Than Persian knight, whose horse made him a king.

By that bedside where sits a gallant dame,
Who casteth off her brave and rich attire,
Whose petticoat sets forth as fair a frame
As mortal men or gods can well desire;
Who sits and sees her petticoat unlaced,
I say no more-the rest are all disgraced.

SONGS FROM WEELKES'S MADRIGALS.
EDIT. 1604.

LIKE two proud armies marching in the field,
Joining a thund'ring fight, each scorns to yield,
So in my heart your beauty and my reason,
To th' other says, it's treason, treason, treason:
But your fair beauty shineth as the sun,
And dazzled reason yields as quite undone.

HOLD out my heart, with joy's delights accloy'd;
Hold out my heart and show it,
That all the world may know it,

What sweet content thou lately hast enjoy'd.
She that Come, dear!" would say,
Then laugh, and smile, and run away;

And if I stay'd her would cry nay,
Fy for shame, fy.

Teach thine arms then to embrace,
And sweet rosy lips to kiss,
And mix our souls in mutual bliss:
Eyes were made for beauty's grace;
Viewing, ruing, love's long pain,
Procured by beauty's rude disdain.
Come away, come, sweet love!
The golden morning wastes,
While the sun from his sphere
His fiery arrows casts,
Making all the shadows fly,
Playing, staying, in the grove,

To entertain the stealth of love;

Thither, sweet love, let us hie,

Flying, dying, in desire,

Wing'd with sweet hopes and heavenly fire.

Come, come, sweet love!

Do not in vain adorn

Beauty's grace, that should rise
Like to the naked morn.

Lilies on the river's side,

And fair Cyprian flow'rs newly blown,
Ask no beauties but their own.
Ornament is nurse of pride

Was born in the Weald of Kent. his birth in 1553. Oldys makes it ble that he was born much earlier.* He studied at both the universities, and for many years attended the court of Elizabeth in expectation of being made Master of the Revels. In this object he was disappointed, and was obliged, in his old age, to solicit the Queen for some trifling grant to support him, which it is uncertain whether he ever obtained. Very little indeed is known of him, though Blount, his editor, tells us that "he sate at Apollo's table, and that the god gave him a wreath of his own bays without snatching." Whether Apollo was ever so complaisant or not, it is certain that Lyly's work of " Euphues and his England," preceded by another called “ Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit," &c., promoted a fantastic style of false wit, bombastic metaphor, and pedantic allusion, which it was fashionable to speak at court under the name of Euphuism, and which the ladies

CUPID AND CAMPASPE.

CUPID and my Campaspe play'd
At cards for kisses: Cupid paid.
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows;
His mother's doves and team of sparrows;
Loses them too: then down he throws
The coral of his lip-the rose

Growing on 's cheek, but none knows how,
With these the crystal on his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin;
All these did my Campaspe win:
At last he set her both his eyes;
She won, and Cupid blind did rise;
O Love, hath she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?

SONG.

FROM ALEXANDER AND CAMPASPE.

WHAT bird so sings, yet so does wail?
O'tis the ravish'd nightingale-
Jug, jug, jug, jug-tereu-she cries,
And still her woes at midnight rise.

[* Lyly was born in Kent in 1554, and was matriculated at Oxford in 1571. when it was recorded in the entry that he was seventeen years old.-COLLIER's Annals, vol. iii. p. 174.-C.]

did first reduce

Our tongues from Lylie's writing then in use,
Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies,
Plying with words and idle similies,

As th' English apes and very zanies be Of every thing that they do hear and see. Sydney died in 1586, and Euphues had appeared but six years earlier. We may well suppose Sydney to have been hostile to such absurdity, and his writings probably promoted a better taste; but we hear of Euphuism being in vogue many years after his death; and it seems to have expired, like all other fashions, by growing vulgar. Lyly wrote nine plays, in some of which there is considerable wit and humour, rescued from the jargon of his favourite system.

Brave prick-song! who is't now we hear?
None but the lark so shrill and clear;
Now at Heaven's gate she claps her wings,
The morn not waking till she sings.
Hark! hark! but what a pretty note,
Poor Robin red-breast tunes his throat;
Hark! how the jolly cuckoos sing
Cuckoo-to welcome in the spring.

FROM MOTHER BOMBLS.

O CUPID, monarch over kings,
Wherefore hast thou feet and wings?
Is it to show how swift thou art,
When thou wound'st a tender heart?
Thy wings being clipt and feet held still,
Thy bow so many could not kill.

It is all one in Venus' wanton school,
Who highest sits, the wise man or the fool-
Fools in Love's college
Have far more knowledge
To read a woman over,
Than a neat-prating lover;
Nay, 'tis confest

That fools please women best.

If he was an old man in the reign of Elizabeth, Ol dys's conjecture as to the date of his birth seems to be verified, as we scarcely call a man old at fifty.

Was the second son of Patrick, fifth Baron of Polwarth, from whom the family of Marchmont are descended. He was born probably about the middle, and died about the end, of the sixteenth century. During four years of the earlier part of his life, he resided in France, after which he returned home and studied law, but abandoned the bar to try his fortune at court. There he is said to have been disgusted with the preference shown to a poetical rival, Montgomery, with whom he exchanged flytings, (or invectives,) in verse, and who boasts of having "driven Polwart from the chimney nook." He then went into the church, and was appointed rector or minister of Logie; the names of ecclesiastical offices in Scotland then floating between presbytery and prelacy. In the clerical profession he continued till his death. Hume lived at a period when the spirit of Calvinism in Scotland was at its gloomiest pitch, and when a reformation, fostered by the poetry of Lyndsay, and by the learning of Bu

chanan, had begun to grow hostile to elegant literature. Though the drama, rude as it was, had been no mean engine in the hands of Lyndsay against popery, yet the Scottish reformers of this latter period even anticipated the zeal of the English puritans against dramatic and romantic poetry, which they regarded as emanations from hell. Hume had imbided so far the spirit of his times as to publish an exhortation to the youth of Scotland to forego the admiration of all classical heroes, and to read no other books on the subject of love than the Song of Solomon. But Calvinism itself could not entirely eradicate the beauty of Hume's fancy, and left him still the high fountain of Hebrew poetry to refresh it. In the following specimen of his poetry, describing the successive appearances of nature during a summer's day, there is a train of images that seem peculiarly pleasing and unborrowed-the pictures of a poetical mind, humble but genuine in its

cast.

O PERFECT light which shaida away
The darkness from the light,
And set a ruler o'er the day,
Another o'er the night.

Thy glory, when the day forth flies,

More vively does appear,

Nor at midday unto our eyes
The shining sun is clear.

The shadow of the earth anon
Removes and drawis by.

Syne in the east, when it is gone,
Appears a clearer sky.

Whilk soon perceive the little larks,
The lapwing, and the snipe,

And tune their song like Nature's clerks,
O'er meadow, muir, and stripe.

But every bold nocturnal beast
No longer may abide,

They hie away both maist and least,
Themselves in house to hide.....

The golden globe incontinent
Sets up his shining head,
And o'er the earth and firmament
Displays his beams abread.f

This once gloomy influence of Calvinism on the literary character of the Scottish churchmen, forms a contrast with more recent times, that needs scarcely to be suggested to those acquainted with Scotland. In extending the classical fame, no less than in establishing the moral reputation of their country, the Scottish clergy have exerted a primary influence; and whatever Presby

16

For joy the birds with bouldens throats,
Against his visage sheen,"

Take up their kindly music notes
In woods and gardens green.

Upbraids the careful husbandman,
His corn and vines to see,
And every timeous artisan
In booths works busily.

The pastor quits the slothful sleep,
And passes forth with speed,
His little camow-nosed sheep,
And rowting kye' to feed.

The passenger, from perils sure,
Goes gladly forth the way,
Brief, every living creature
Takes comfort of the day....

The misty reek," the clouds of rain
From tops of mountain skails,"
Clear are the highest hills and plain,
The vapours take the vales.

Bagaired is the sapphire pende
With spraings of scarlet hue;
And preciously from end to end,
Damasked white and blue.

The ample heaven, of fabric sure,
In clearness does surpass
The crystal and the silver, pure
As clearest polish'd glass,

The time so tranquil is and clear,
That no where shall ye find,
Save on a high and barren hill,
The air of passing wind.

All trees and simples, great and small,
That balmy leaf do bear,

Than they were painted on a wall,
No more they move or steir."

The rivers fresh, the callour' streams,
O'er rocks can swiftly rin,'

The water clear like crystal beams,
And makes a pleasant din. . . ..
Calm is the deep and purple sea,
Yea, smoother than the sand;

The waves, that woltering" wont to be,
Are stable like the land.

So silent is the cessile air,
That every cry and call,

The hills and dales, and forest fair,
Again repeats them all.

The clogged busy humming bees,
That never think to drown,"
On flowers and flourishes of trees,
Collect their liquor brown.

The sun most like a speedy post
With ardent course ascends;
The beauty of our heavenly host
Up to our zenith tends . . . .

The breathless flocks draw to the shade
And freshurew of their fauld;

The startling nolt, as they were mad,
Run to the rivers cald.

The herds beneath some leafy trees,
Amidst the flow'rs they lie;
The stable ships upon the seas
Tend up their sails to dry.

The hart, the hind, the fallow deer,

Are tapish'dy at their rest;

The fowls and birds that made thee beare,*

Prepare their pretty nest.

The rayons dure descending down,
All kindle in a gleid;

In city, nor in burrough town,

May name set forth their head.

Back from the blue pavemented whun,

And from ilk plaster wall,

The hot reflexing of the sun
Inflames the air and all.

The labourers that timely rose,
All weary, faint, and weak,

For heat down to their houses goes,d
Noon-meite and sleep to take.

r Stir. Cool.- Run.-u Tumbling. To drone, or to be idle.-w Freshness. Oxen.-y Carpeted.- Beare, I suppose, means music.-To beare in old Scotch, is to recite. Wynton, in his Chronicle, says, "As I have heard men beare on hand."-a Hard or keen rays.- Fire. Whinstone. In old Scottish poetry little attention is paid to giving plural nouns a plural verb.

The callour wine in cave is sought,
Men's brothing breasts to cool;
The water cold and clear is brought,
And sallads steeped in ule.5
With gilded eyes and open wings,
The cock his courage shows;
With claps of joy his breast he dings,
And twenty times he crows.

The dove with whistling wings so blue,
The winds can fast collect,

Her purple pens turn many a hue
Against the sun direct.

Now noon is gone-gone is midday,
The heat does slake at last,

The sun descends down west away,
For three o'clock is past.

....

The rayons of the sun we see
Diminish in their strength,

The shade of every tower and tree
Extended is in length.

Great is the calm, for everywhere
The wind is setting down,

The reek' throws up right in the air,
From every tower and town. . . . .
The mavis and the philomeen,j

The sterling whistles loud,

The cushats on the branches green,
Full quietly they crood.'

The glomin comes, the day is spent,
The sun goes out of sight,
And painted is the occident
With purple sanguine bright.
The scarlet nor the golden thread,
Who would their beauty try,

Are nothing like the colour red
And beauty of the sky.....

What pleasure then to walk and see,
Endlang" a river clear,

The perfect form of every tree
Within the deep appear.

The salmon out of cruives and creels,"

Uphailed into scouts:

The bells and circles on the weills,"
Through leaping of the trouts.

O sure it were a seemly thing,
While all is still and calm,
The praise of God to play and sing
With trumpet and with shalm.
Through all the land great is the gild
Of rustic folks that cry;

Of bleating sheep, fra they be fill'd,

Of calves and rowting kye.

All labourers draw hame at even,

And can to others say,

Thanks to the gracious God of Heaven,
Quhilk' sent this summer day.

• Cool.-f Burning.- Oil.- Beats.- Smoke.-Thrush and nightingale. Wood-pigeons. A very expressive word for the note of the cushat, or wood-pigeon.m Evening.-n Along.-o Places for confining fish, ge nerally placed in the dam of a river.-p Baskets. Small boats or yawls. Wells. Throng.: Who.

b

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. D'Israéli† 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 proba

ble effects of the junction of Jupiter and Saturn. Drayton, in his Epistle of Poets and Poesy, says of him

Sharply satyric was he, and that way

He went, since that his being to this day,
Few have attempted, and I surely think,
These words shall hardly be set down with ink,
Shall blast and scorch so as his could.

From the allusion which he makes in the following quotation to Sir P. Sydney's compassion, before the introduction of the following lines, it may be conjectured that he had experienced the bounty of that noble character.

WHY is't damnation to despair and die,
When life is my true happiness' disease?
My soul, my soul, thy safety makes me fly
The faulty means that might my pain appease:
Divines and dying men may talk of hell,
But in my heart her several torments dwell.
Ah, worthless wit! to train me to this woe:
Deceitful arts! that nourish discontent:
Ill thrive the folly that bewitch'd me so!
Vain thoughts, adieu! for now I will repent,
And yet my wants persuade me to proceed,
For none take pity of a scholar's need.

• Anecdotes of Scarce Books. † Calamities of Authors.

Forgive me, God, although I curse my birth,
And ban the air wherein I breathe a wretch,
Since misery hath daunted all my mirth,
And I am quite undone through promise breach;
Ah friends!-no friends that then ungentle

frown,

When changing fortune casts us headlong down.
Without redress complains my careless verse,
And Midas' ears relent not at my moan;
In some far land will I my griefs rehearse,
'Mongst them that will be moved when I shall

groan.

England, adieu! the soil that brought me forth, Adieu! unkind, where skill is nothing worth.

THIS nobleman sat as Great Chamberlain of England upon the trial of Mary Queen of Scots. In the year of the Armada, he distinguished his public spirit by fitting out some ships at his pri

vate 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 discreditable traits of his character are to be found in the history of his life.S

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, gave him the epithet of a puppy. Sir Philip retorted the lie on his lordship, and left the place, expecting to be followed by the peer. But Lord Oxford neither followed him nor noticed his quarrel, till her majesty's council had time to command the peace. The queen interfered, reminding Sir Philip of the difference between "earls and gentlemen."

Tell me who was thy nurse? Fresh Youth, in sugar'd joy.

What was thy meat and daily food? Sad sighs with great annoy.

and of the respect which inferiors owed their superiors. Sydney, boldly but respectfully, stated to her majesty, that rank among freemen could claim no other homage than precedency, and did not obey her commands to make submission to Oxford. For a fuller statement of this anecdote, vide the quotation from Collins, in the British Bibliographer, vol. i. p. 83.

By Mr. Park, in the Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors.