Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

Yet not so satisfied, but on he goes,

And where one Berrie's meane house stands, he shewes."

Shakspeare's poem of Venus and Adonis is probably here stigmatized, with Davies's own amatory sonnets entitled Wittes Pilgrimage.

"Another (ah, harde happe) mee vilifies
With art of love, and how to subtilize,
Making lewd Venus with eternal lines
To tie Adonis to her love's designes.
Fine wit is shewn therein; but finer 'twere,
If not attired in such bawdy geare.

And thou, O poet! that dost pen my plaint,
Thou art not scot-free from my just complaint:
For thou hast plaid thy part with thy rude pen,
To make us both ridiculous to men."

Stubbes, Jonson, and Decker, claim the following gibe.

"Some burden me, sith I oppresse the stage,

With all the grosse abuses of this age,

And

presse me after, that the world may see (As in a soiled glasse) her selfe in me: Where each man in and out of's humour pries Upon myselfe, and laughs untill he cries: Untrussing humorous poets, and such stuffe As might put plainest patience in a ruffe,"

[ocr errors]

In the "Inquisition," or imitative continuation of Paper's Complaint, by A. H. the following censure may have been applied to Clapham's Briefe of the Bible's History, or Wastell's Microbiblion, and the commendation, to Sylvester, and other translators of Du Bartas

"Others dare venture a diviner straine,

Aud rime the BIBLE, whose foule feete profane
That holy ground, that wise men may decide,
The Bible ne're was more apochryphide
Than by their bold excursions. Bartas, thee
And thy translatours I absolve thee free
From this my imputation; who in lines,
Deserving to be studied by divines,

Didst maske thy sacred furie, whose rare wit
Did make the same another Holy Writ:
Who, be it spoken to thy lasting praise,

Gav'st Sunday-rayment to the Working-dayes."

Other satiric shafts are directed against some of the poetasters of that time, and against the folly which gave encouragement to fraudulence, whence the author declares,

[ocr errors]

England is all turn'd Yorkshire, and the age
Extremely sottish, or too nicely sage."

T. P.

ART. CXXV. A Select Second Husband for Sir
Thomas Overburie's Wife; now a matchlesse
Widow. London: Printed by T. Creede and B.
Allsopp for John Marriott, &c. 1616. Small 8vo.

A SONNET-DEDICATION to William Earl of Pembroke is signed John Davies. This was not Sir John, the philosophical poet and the judge: but his namesake of Hereford, the verbose rhymer and writingmaster.* In a prose address to the reader, he affirms that "they make harsh musicke, who to please

* Vide Athen. Oxon. I. 445.

[ocr errors]

the judgment with the ditty, offend the ear with the accent; and he who sings much out of tune, though he sings well out of cry, may haply sing to please himself and few: but shall be sure to displease many. In well-doing, it is well to follow; but in ill, the imitation is worse than the example." Davies has here followed Overbury with no illaudable endeavour; but, like most servile imitators, appears to copy without discrimination the blemishes of his original.

At the end of his Choice Husband are announced "Divers Elegies touching the death of the never toomuch-praised and pitied Sir Tho. Overhury:" but one elegy and one epitaph are all that appear in print. To these succeed "Mirum in Modum," a poem first published in 1602; and "Speculum Proditor," which has a conclusion to Sir T. O. that reaches the very acme of metrical bombast and word-catching absurdity. For the credit of the author, and in consonance with the present plan of concentrating these homogeneous productions in one point of view, a short extract is here in preference supplied from his principal poem.

"Marriage, that is most noble, should have nought
But what is noble in it; noble-moods

To scorne that frailty, and despise that thought
That is not truly noble: marriage goods

Are ills, if good they be not made by these,
Else, to have much is much but to displease.

In paradise it was ordain'd; and so

For place its noble and if innocence

:

May make that noble which from thence doth flow, Nobilitie therein hath residence.

The Lord of Love who hatred most doth hate,
Is matcht to those that love in married state.

Then time, place, person, that did it effect,
Being so noble; noble it must be
Above all friendships which we should affect,
Sith it is so transcendent in degree.

Woman was made for man, and for his aide

Made of that holpe; that holpe, then, must be staid.”

T. P.

ART. CXXVI. The Unmasking of a feminine Machiavell. By Thomas Andrewe, Gent. Est nobis voluisse satis. Seene and allowed by authority. London: Printed by Simon Stafford, and are to be sold by George Loftis, at the Golden Ball in Pope's Head Alley. 1604. 4to. 22 leaves.

DEDICATED "to his worthy and reverend uncle M. D. Langworth, Archdeacon of Wells."

"To the vertuous Mistris Judith Hawkins." A Sonnet "to the Reader." A short prose address, wherein the author says, "some may imagin I have written of malice to some particular person, by reason of my title's strangenes, wherein whosoever is opi`nionate, is far wide: yet if any guilty conscience (that perhaps I know not) will wrest my writings, and interpret my meaning in other than the right sence, I am not to bee blamed, if that creature's corruption accuse it selfe."

"To detraction," 22 lines, by the author.

"In laudem authoris, &c." 10 lines Latin, sig. "Rob. Hunt, Heath-fieldensis."

VOL. II.

"To his worthy friend, &c." 6 lines, sig. “E. B. Gent."

"To his respected and kind affected friend, Mr. Thomas Andrewe, Gent." two six-line stanzas, signed "Samuel Rowlands.”

Then follows the poem. The story appears founded on the acts of a false female friend, while the author was gone abroad with (it may be supposed) the Scottish part of the army, in which he was at the battle at Newport, in Flanders, 22 June, 1600; and a description of that event forms a considerable portion of the work.

The relation is made in the manner of a vision, and recounting the misfortunes of another.

"The Argument of this Booke.
"Possest with sleepe, in silent night,
Me thought I found a wofull wight,
Whose heart was heavy, looke was sad,
In sorrowe's colours being clad,
In a vast desart all alone,
For his desaster making mone,
Filling with plaints the tender ayre,
Who, when to him I did repayre,
His various fortunes and estate,
To me did mournfully relate:
And did desire I would unfold,
What unto me by him was told.

Haplesse Andrea was he call'd,

Whose heart with sorrowes deepe was gal'd.
What e're I saw in that strange dreame,

My Muse hath chosen for her theame."

From about 900 lines, of which the poem consists, the selection of a specimen is difficult; there is not much interest in a long description, where

« FöregåendeFortsätt »