deaux,' 'Sir Guy of Warwick,' 'Martin Marprelate,' 'Robin Hood,' 'Garagantua,' 'Gerilion,' and a thousand such exquisite monuments as these, no doubt but they breathe in my breath up and down."

'The Merry Devil of Edmonton,' which has been sometimes attributed to Shakspeare, is assuredly not unworthy of him. It is more likely, however, both from the style and subject matter, to have been Heywood's than any other person's. It is perhaps the first example of sentimental comedy we have-romantic, sweet, tender, it expresses the feelings of honour, love, and friendship in their utmost delicacy, enthusiasm, and purity. The names alone, Raymond Mounchersey, Frank Jerningham, Clare, Millisent, "sound silver sweet, like lovers' tongues by night." It sets out with a sort of story of Doctor Faustus, but this is dropt as jarring on the tender chords of the rest of the piece. The wit of The Merry Devil of Edmonton' is as genuine as the poetry. Mine Host of the George is as good a fellow as Boniface, and the deer-stealing scenes in the forest between him, Sir John the curate, Smug the smith, and Banks the miller, are "very honest knaveries," as Sir Hugh Evans has it. The air is delicate, and the deer, shot by their cross-bows, fall without a groan! Frank Jerningham says to Clare,

"The way lies right: hark, the clock strikes at Enfield: what's the hour? Young Clare. Ten, the bell says.

Jern. It was but eight when we set out from Cheston: Sir John and his sexton are at their ale to-night, the clock runs at random.

Y. Clare. Nay, as sure as thou livest, the villanous vicar is abroad in the chase. The priest steals more venison than half the country.

Jern. Millisent, how dost thou ?

Mil. Sir, very well.

I would to God we were at Brian's lodge."

A volume might be written to prove this last answer Shakspeare's, in which the tongue says one thing in one line, and the heart contradicts it in the next; but there were other writers living in the time of Shakspeare, who knew these subtle windings of the passions besides him,—though none so well as he!

The Pinner of Wakefield, or George a Green,' is a pleasant interlude, of an early date, and the author unknown, in which kings and cobblers, outlaws and Maid Marians, are "hail-fellow

well met," and in which the features of the antique world are made smiling and amiable enough. Jenkin, George a Green's servant, is a notorious wag. Here is one of his pretended

pranks :

"Jenkin. This fellow comes to me,
And takes me by the bosom: you slave,
Said he, hold my horse, and look
He takes no cold in his feet.
No, marry shall he, sir, quoth I.
I'll lay my cloak underneath him.
I took my cloak, spread it all along,
And his horse on the midst of it.

George. Thou clown, did'st thou set his horse upon thy cloak?

Jenk. Aye, but mark how I served him.

Madge and he was no sooner gone down into the ditch

But I plucked out my knife, cut four holes in my cloak, and made his horse stand on the bare ground."

The first part of Jeronymo' is an indifferent piece of work, and the second, or The Spanish Tragedy,' by Kyd, is like unto it, except the interpolations idly said to have been added by Ben Jonson, relating to Jeronymo's phrensy, "which have all the melancholy madness of poetry, if not the inspiration."

10

LECTURE VI.

On Miscellaneous Poems; F. Beaumont, P. Fletcher, Drayton, Daniel, etc.; Sir P. Sidney's 'Arcadia,' and other works.

I SHALL, in the present Lecture, attempt to give some idea of the lighter productions of the Muse in the period before us, in order to show that grace and elegance are not confined entirely to later times, and shall conclude with some remarks on Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia.'

I have already made mention of the lyrical pieces of Beaumont and Fletcher. It appears from his poems, that many of these were composed by Francis Beaumont, particularly the very beautiful ones in the tragedy of 'The False One,' the 'Praise of Love' in that of Valentinian,' and another in The Nice Valour, or Passionate Madman,' an "Address to Melancholy," which is the perfection of this kind of writing.

"Hence, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly

There's nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see't,
But only melancholy,

Oh, sweetest melancholy,

Welcome folded arms and fixed eyes,

A sight that piercing mortifies;
A look that's fasten'd to the ground,
A tongue chain'd up without a sound;
Fountain heads, and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves:
Moon-light walks, where all the fowls
Are warmly hous'd, save bats and owls;

A midnight bell, a passing groan,

These are the sounds we feed upon:

Then stretch our bones in a still, gloomy valley;

Nothing so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy."

It has been supposed (and not without every appearance of good reason) that this pensive strain, "most musical, most melancholy," gave the first suggestion of the spirited introduction to Milton's 'Il Penseroso.'

The same writer thus moralises on the life of man, in a set of similes, as apposite as they are light and elegant :

"Like to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
E'en such is man, whose borrow'd light
Is straight call'd in and paid to-night:-
The wind blows out, the bubble dies:
The spring entomb'd in autumn lies;
The dew's dried up, the star is shot,

The flight is past, and man forgot.”

"The silver foam which the wind severs from the parted wave" is not more light or sparkling than this: the dove's downy pinion is not softer and smoother than the verse. We are too ready to conceive of the poetry of that day, as altogether oldfashioned, meagre, squalid, deformed, withered and wild in its attire, or as a sort of uncouth monster, like "grim-visaged, comfortless despair," mounted on a lumbering, unmanageable Pegasus, dragon-winged and leaden-hoofed; but it as often wore a sylph-like form with Attic vest, with fairy feet, and the butterfly's gaudy wings. The bees were said to have come, and built their hive in the mouth of Plato when a child; and the fable might be transferred to the sweeter accents of Beaumont and Fletcher! Beaumont died at the age of five-and-twenty. One of these writers makes Bellario the Page say to Philaster, who threatens to take his life

""Tis not a life;

'Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away."

But here was youth, genius, aspiring hope, growing reputation, cut off like a flower in its summer-pride, or like "the lily on its stalk green," which makes us repine at fortune and almost at nature, that seems to set so little store by their greatest favourites. The life of poets is, or ought to be (judging of it from the light it lends to ours,) a golden dream, full of brightness and sweetness, "lapt in Elysium;" and it gives one a reluctant pang to see the splendid vision, by which they are attended in their path of glory, fade like a vapour, and their sacred heads laid low in ashes, before the sand of common mortals has run out. Fletcher too was prematurely cut off by the plague. Raphael died at four-and-thirty, and Correggio at forty. Who can help wishing that they had lived to the age of Michael Angelo and Titian? Shakspeare might have lived another half century, enjoying fame and repose, "now that his task was smoothly done," listening to the music of his name, and better still, of his own thoughts, without minding Rymer's abuse of "the tragedies of the last age." His native stream of Avon would then have flowed with softer murmurs to the ear, and his pleasant birthplace, Stratford, would in that case have worn even a more gladsome smile than it does, to the eye of fancy!-Poets, however, have a sort of privileged after-life, which does not fall to the common lot; the rich and mighty are nothing but while they are living; their power ceases with them: but "the sons of memory, the great heirs of fame," leave the best part of what was theirs, their thoughts, their verse, what they most delighted and prided themselves in, behind them-imperishable, incorruptible, immortal! Sir John Beaumont (the brother of our dramatist), whose loyal and religious effusions are not worth much, very feelingly laments his brother's untimely death in an epitaph upon him:

"Thou shouldst have followed me, but Death (to blame)
Miscounted years, and measured age by fame;

So dearly hast thou bought thy precious lines,
Their praise grew swiftly; so thy life declines,