Lecture the Eighth.

ROBERT SOUTHWELL-SAMUEL DANIEL-MICHAEL DRAYTON-EDWARD FAIRFAX -JOHN HARRINGTON-HENRY WOTTON-JOHN DAVIES-JOHN DONNE-ROBERT CORBET.

TH

HE bitter and acrimonious spirit of religious intolerance and oppression which pervaded the entire administration of the House of Tudor, unfortunately did not cease, even after Protestantism had gained a fixed and permanent ascendency under Elizabeth. The mild and amiable Southwell suffered as unjustly for conscience' sake, in her reign, as either Latimer or Tyndale had in that of her rigorous father, Henry the Eighth.

ROBERT SOUTHWELL was of Roman Catholic parentage, and was born at St. Farths, in 1560. His parents being anxious to have him carefully educated, sent him, when very young, to the English College at Douay, in Flanders, where he advanced in his studies with unusual rapidity, and at the early age of sixteen he left Douay for Rome, and immediately entered the society of Jesuits. In 1584, having completed his studies, and taken priest's orders, he returned to England as a missionary of the society to which he belonged, and during eight successive years administered, unostentatiously, but zealously, to the scattered adherents of his creed, without, as far as has ever been ascertained, doing any thing to disturb the peace of society, or the faith of the established church. In 1592, he was apprehended in a gentleman's house at Uxenden in Middlesex, and committed to a dungeon in the Tower, so filthy, that when he was brought out for examination, his clothes, even, were noisomely offensive. When his father, who was a man of good family, beheld his situation, he presented a petition to the queen, requesting that, 'if his son had committed any thing for which, by the laws, he deserved death, he might suffer death; if not, as he was a gentleman, he hoped her majesty would be pleased to order him to be treated as a gentleman.' Southwell was afterward somewhat better lodged, but an imprisonment of three years, with ten inflictions of the rack, at length wore out his patience, and he entreated to be brought to trial. Being found guilty of heresy, on his own confession that he was a Romish priest, he was

condemned to death, and executed at Tyburn accordingly, in 1595, in the thirty-sixth year of his age. Throughout all the scenes of suffering to which he was exposed, Southwell conducted himself with a mildness and fortitude which nothing but a well-regulated mind and a satisfied conscience could have induced.

The life of Southwell, though short, was full of sorrow; and the prevailing tone of his poetry is, therefore, that of religious resignation under grief. His two principal poems, St. Peter's Complaint, and Mary Magdalene's Farewell Tears, were, like many other works of which the world has had reason to be proud, written in prison; and it is remarkable that, though composed while suffering under the most unfeeling persecution, no trace of anger against any human being or any human institution, occurs throughout either work. The general tone and quality of the author's writings may be gathered from the following pieces :

SCORN NOT THE LEAST.

Where words are weak, and foes encount'ring strong,
Where mightier to assault than to defend,

The feebler part puts up enforced wrong,

And silent sees, that speech could not amend;
Yet higher powers must think, though they repine,
When sun is set, the little stars will shine.

While pike doth range, the silly tench doth fly
And crouch in privy creeks with smaller fish ;
Yet pikes are caught when little fish go by,

These fleet afloat, while those do fill the dish;
There is a time even for the worms to creep,
And suck the dew while all their foes do sleep.

The merlin can not ever soar on high,

Nor greedy greyhound still pursue the chase;
The tender lark will find a time to fly,
And fearful hare to run a quiet race.
He that high growth on cedars did bestow,
Gave also lowly mushrooms leave to grow.

In Haman's pomp poor Mardocheus wept,
Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe.
The Lazar pin'd, while Dives' feast was kept,
Yet he to heaven-to Hell did Dives go.
We trample grass, and prize the flowers of May;
Yet grass is green, when flowers do fade away.

, the writer next to be noticed among the miscellaneous poets of England, divided his attention so equally between different departments of literature, that it is difficult to determine with which to assign him his place. As his minor poems, however, more particularly marked the peculiar character of his genius than any other of his performances, we have concluded to notice him in the present connection.

Samuel Daniel was the son of a music-master, and was born near Taunton, in Somersetshire, in 1562. In 1579, he was admitted a commoner in Magdalene College, Oxford, where he continued three years, and being aided in his studies, during the whole of that period, by an excellent tutor, he made very considerable progress in academical learning; but his genius

and taste inclining him more to poetry and history than to severer studies, he left the university without his degree, and immediately repaired to London, to mingle with the wits of the metropolis. His first literary performance after he arrived in London, was the translation of a tract of Paul Jovius, containing A Discourse of rare Inventions, both Military and Civil, the reception of which was very flattering. On the death of Spenser, he succeeded to the vacant laureate, but was soon after displaced by Ben Jonson.

On the accession of James the First to the crown of England, Daniel became one of the grooms of the privy chamber, and was patronized by the king's consort, Queen Anne, who took much pleasure in his conversation The royal favor thus extended to him, together with his own personal qual ifications, readily introduced him to the acquaintance and friendship of many of his ingenious and learned contemporaries; and occupying a house in the suburbs of London, he was accustomed there to receive and entertain his literary associates with much taste and elegance. After spending some years in this manner, Daniel became tutor to Lady Anne Clifford, and having closed the duties which this interesting and important relation imposed upon him, he retired into the country, where he passed the remainde of his days in devotion to poetry and to religious contemplation, and where he died in the month of October, 1619, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. He was buried in the church at Beckington, and a splendid monument was erected over his grave by Lady Anne Clifford, afterward Countess of Pembroke, in testimony of her gratitude to his memory, for the assiduous care and attention which he had bestowed upon her education.

The works of Daniel are numerous, and consist of dramas, histories, and miscellaneous poems. Of his dramas, Hymen's Triumphs, The Vision, The Tragedy of Cleopatra, and The Tragedy of Philotus, are the chief. His principal historical work treated of that period of English history which extended from the Conquest, in 1066, to the close of the reign of Edward the Third, in 1377. Of this historical performance, the following remark is made in the preface to Kennet's Complete History of England. The author had a place at court, in the reign of King James the First, and seems to have taken all the refinement a court could give him. It is said, he had a good vein in poetry; and it is certain, he has shown great judgment in keeping it, as he did, from infecting his prose, and destroying that simplicity which is the principal beauty in the style of an historian. His narrative is smooth and clear, and carries everywhere an air of good sense and just eloquence, and his English is much more modern than Milton's, though he lived before him.'

It is, however, chiefly through his minor pieces and sonnets that Daniel preserves his literary reputation; and from these therefore we shall take our extracts. His Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland, from which the following passage is selected, is a fine effusion of meditative thought :--