account is given by Wood, in Athenæ, i. 502; and whose antiquarian work, entitled "a Restitution of Decayed Intelligence," is still deservedly esteemed. A prefatory address, before his Odes to "the vertuous ladies and gentlewomen readers," thus concludes:

"The vaine conceits of love's delight

I leave to Ovid's arte,

Of warres and bloody broyles to wryte
Is fit for Virgil's parte.

Of tragedies in doleful tales

Let Sophocles entreat:
And how unstable fortune failes
Al poets do repeat.

But unto our eternal king

My verse and voyce I frame;

And of his saintes I meane to sing,

In them to praise his name.

Yours in his best endevours, R. V."

That the writer was a zealous romanist, the contents of his volume will set forth.

"Odes, &c. (as above.)

Extracts of the Sibyllacs prophesies of Christe.

The fifteen mysteries of the rosarie of our blessed Lady.

Epithetes of our blessed Lady.

Our blessed Ladie's Lullaby.

A reprehension of the reprehending of our Ladie's

praise.

The triumphe of feminyne Saintes.

A resemblance of Martyrs.

Te Deum Laudamus, or the song of S. Ambrose and S. Augustyne.

How God in all ages, hath bin served with Sacrifise. Saint Peeter's Comfort.

Sacrum Convivium.

A complaint of S. Marie Magdalen.

Of the invention, or fynding of the crosse of Christ. Complaint of Church Controversy. An Epigram. An Exposition of the Ave bel.

A secondary Exposition.

Of the state of solitary lyfe dedicated to the service of God.

The substance of humaine flesh.

Visions of the worlde's instabillitie. (The general Idea taken from Petrarch and Bellay.)

Verses of the worlde's vanitie: supposed to be made by S. Bernard, and translated into English, to bee sung to the tune they beare in Latin." The piety of Verstegan is so much more praiseworthy than his poetry, that the shortest specimen of the latter will probably be the most acceptable.

AN EPIGRAM.

A puritaine did 'plaine himself of late,
Of late-growne controversies into great debate,
And prayed him to whome hee did complaine,
That hee his censure would affoord him plaine.
"Well then," quoth hee, "yf neither I shal flatter,
But speake my conscience freely of the matter:
You are in fault, to make so much contending,
How can so new a faith so soone lack mending."

T. P.

ART. XCIX. E. W. his Thameseidos. Decided into three bookes, or cantos.

"Nunquam stigias ibit ad umbras inchita virtus."

At London: Printed by W. W. for Simon Waterson. 1600. 4to. Signat. F.4. :

THE author of this scarce poem is undecyphered by any dedicatory prefix of his own, or by any commendatory tribute from others; though he seems not to have been undeserving of a patron, nor his work of contemporary praise. Its chief defect appears to be, that the fables it contains too nearly resemble Ovidian Metamorphoses; and its obvious merit is, that it afforded a model for Drayton to enlarge upon in his Polyolbion. The following personification of Thames, as a female, occurs in the first page.

And now, from, new-spows'd wife, the fierie Sunne Was risen, and from ocean-seas begunne

To drive his golden chariot, that he might
To all the world declare his glorious light;
When Thamesis, the fairest queene on earth,
To solemnise her annuall day of birth,
Appareled in a robe of purest white,

All thicke of golden shimiring* spangles dight,
Which gainst the Sunne reflecting beames did cast,
As do the starres that in the heavens are plast;
Her haire bound up in knots, like golden wier,
And crown'd with garlands of sweete smelling brier:
Unto a meddow by, his flowing streames

Did goe, where she, from beat of Phoebus' beames,

* Glistering.

Under the coole shade of the spreading trees
Did meane to sport, and sing sweete virolees,*
With her faire Nymphes, each having in her hand,
To fill with precious flowers, a little maund."+

It probably occurred to the author that such a title as "fairest queen on earth," though figuratively given to a river, might excite a thrill of displeasure in the breast of his jealous Sovereign, and he therefore made an amende honorable in the second canto, by a courtly apostrophe to Elizabeth herself.

"Thou most bright Sunne of this our northern clime,

Live thou for ever! or live Nestor's time,

To maintaine artes, as hitherto th' ast done,

For wayle the Muses must, when thou art gone:
And if it fortune, that at any time

(Luckely) this ragged and unpolisht rithme

Into those faire bands fall, that holds the bridle
With which thou justly rulest many people:
Behold it with a favourable eie,

And thinke that none can praise thee worthelie."

T. P.

ART. C. Album, seu nigrum amicorum, in obitum Horat. Palavicini. London: Printed by T. Creed for Andrew Wise. 4to. 1600.

THIS is a mere collection of funereal verses. The first of them, however, is one of the scattered pieces of Bishop Hall.

*Virelays seem to have been a species of roundelays, or roundels, with which they are twice enumerated by Chaucer.

+ Basket.

"In obitum viri amplissimi, Domini Horatti Pallavicini Equitis, Epitaphium.

"Utra mihi patria est, utra est peregrina viator?
Itala terra tulit, terra Brytanna tegit.
Natus ibi, hic vixi, moriorque ineunte senecta;
Illa mihi cunas contulit, hæc tumulum.
Deserui Latium vivus, meque illa reliquit,
Quodque ortu meruit, perdidit exilio.
Hospitio excepit, fovitque Brytannia longo;
Jure sit illa suo patria sola mihi!

Non tamen illa mihi patria est, non ulla sub astris
Sed medio Ætherei regna suprema poli.

I. HALL. IMMAN."

H. E.

ART. CI. The Letting of Humour's blood in the head-vaine: with a new Morisco, daunced by seaven Satyres upon the bottome of Diogenes' tubbe. At London printed by W. White for W. F. 1600. Sm. 8vo.*

THIS was reprinted in 1611 with the same title,and about the same time with the following.

Humor's Ordinarie. Where a man may be verie merrie, and exceeding well used for his sixe-pence. At London, printed for William Firebrand; and are to be sold at his shop in Pope's-head Pallace, right over against the Taverne doore. 4to.

To the later edition of these epigrams and satires, some verses to the reader are signed SAMUELL RowLANDS; of whom this seems to be the only remaining memorial, that he was "one of the minor poets who

* It has been reprinted in 1814. Editor.