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pliment to James the first (stanza 55. canto 12) on that account perhaps the most unpalatable passage in the book. From Fletcher's dedication of this his poem, with the. Piscatory Eclogues and Miscellanies to his friend Edmund Benlowes, it seems that they were written : very early, as he calls them ‘raw essays of my very unripe, years, and almost childhood.' It is to his honour that Milton read and imitated him, as every attentive reader of both poets must soon discover. He is eminently entitled to a very high rank among our old English classics.—Quarles in his verses prefixed to the Purple Island hints that he had a poem on a similar subject in agitation, but was prevented from pursuing it by finding it had got into other hands. In a map to one of his Emblems are these names of places, London, Finchfield, Roxwell and Hilgay: edit. 1669."

That Mr. Headley is not blind to the defects of his favourite will farther appear from his remarks on Orpheus and Euridice in the Purple Island.

“ These lines of Fletcher are a paraphrase, or rather translation from Boethius. The whole description is forcible: some of the circumstances perhaps are heightened too much: but it is the fault of this writer to indulge himself in every aggravation that poetry allows, and to stretch his prerogative of 'quidlibet audendi' to the utmost.”

In the supplement to his second volume, Mr. Headley has demonstrated at con#siderable length how much Fletcher owed to Spenser, and Milton to Fletcher. For this he has offered the apology due to the high characters of those poets, and although we have been accustomed to see such researches carried too far, yet it must be owned that there is a certain degree to which they must be carried before the praise of invention can be justly bestowed. How far poets may borrow from one another without injury to their fame, is a question yet undetermined.

After, however, every deduction of this kind that can be made, the Fletchers will still remain in possession of a degree of invention, imagination, spirit and sublimity, which we seldom meet with among the poets of the seventeenth century before we arrive at Milton

TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL AND REVEREND

MR. DOCTOR NEVILE,

DEAN OP CANTERBURY, AND THE MASTER OF TUINITY COLLEGE IN CAMBRIDGE.

RIGHT WORTHY AND REVEREND SIR,

As I have always thought the place wherein I live, after Heaven, principally to be desired; both because I most want, and it most abounds with wisdom, which is filed by some with as much delight, as it is obtained by others, and ought to be followed by all : so I cannot but next unto God, for ever acknowledge myself most bound unto the hand of God, (I mean yourself,) that reached down, as it were, out of Heaven, unto me, a benefit of that nature and price, than which I could wish none (only Heaven itself excepted) either more fruitful and contenting for the time that is now present, or more comfortable and encouraging for the time that is already past, or more hopeful and promising for the time that is yet to come.

For as in all men's judgments (that have any judgment) Europe is worthily deemed the queen of the world, that garland both of learning and pure religion being now become her crown, and blossoming upon her head, that hath long since lain withered in Greece and Palestine: so my opinion of this island hath always been, that it is the very face and beauty of all Europe; in which both true religion is faithfully professed without super stition, and (if on Earth) true learning sweetly flourishes without ostentation. And what are the two eyes of this land, but the two universities? which cannot but prosper in the time of such a prince, that is, a prince of learning, as well as of people. And truly I should forget myself, if I should not call Cambridge the right eye: and I think (king Henry VIII. being the uniter, Edward III. the founder, and yourself the repairer of this college wherein I live) none will blame me, if I esteem the same, since your polishing of it, the fairest sight in Cambridge; .in which being placed by your only favour, most freely, without either any means from other, or any desert in myself; being not able to do more, I could do no less than acknowledge that debt which I shall never be able to pay, and with old Silenus in the poet (upon whom the boys—injiciunt ipsis ex vincula sertis, making his garland his fetters) finding myself bound unto you by so many benefits, that were given by yourself for ornaments, but are to me as so many golden chains to hold me fast in a kind of desired bondage, seek (as he doth) my freedom with a song: the matter whereof is as worthy the sweetest singer as myself, the miserable singer, unworthy so divine a subject; but the same favour that before rewarded no desert, knows now as well how to pardon all faults; thạn which indulgence, when I regard myself, I can wish no more; when I remember you, I can hope no less.

So commending these few broken lines unto yours, and yourself into the hands of the best physician, Jesus Christ; with whom the most ill-affected man, in the midst of his sickness, is in good health ; and without whom the most lusty body, in his greatest jollity, is but a languishing carcase: I humbly take my leave, ending with the same wish that your devoted observer and my approved friend doth in his verses presently sequent, that your passage to Heaven may be slow to us that shall want you here, but to yourself that cannot want us there, most secure and certain.

Your worship’s

in all duty and service,

G. FLETCHER.

THOMAS NEVYLE MOST HEAVENLY.

As when the Captain of the heavenly host,
Or else that glorious army doth appear;
In waters drown'd, with surging billows toss'd,
We know they are not, where we see they are;
We see them in the deep, we see them move,
We know they fixed are in Heaven above:
So did the Son of righteousness come down
Clouded in flesh, and seemed in the deep:
So do the many waters seem to drown

The stars his saints, and they on Earth to keep,
And yet this Sun from Heaven never fell,
And yet these earthly stars in Heaven dwell.
What if their souls be into prison cast
In earthly bodies? yet they long for Heaven.

What if this worldly sea they have not past!
Yet fain they would be brought into their haven,
They are not here, and yet we here them sec,
For every man is there, where he would be.
Long may you wish, and yet long wish in vain;
Hence to depart, and yet that wish obtain.
Long may you here in Heaven on Earth remain,
And yet a Heaven in Heaven hereafter gain.

Go you to Heaven, but yet, O make no haste!
Go slowly, slowly, but yet go at last.
But when the nightingale so near doth sit,
Silence the titmouse better may befit.

F. NETHERSOLE.

TO THE READER.

THERE are but few of many that can rightly judge of poetry, and yet there are many of those few that carry so left-handed an opinion of it, as some of them think it half sacrilege for profane poetry to deal with divine and heavenly matters; as though David were to be sentenced by them, for uttering his grave matter upon the harp; others, something more violent in their censure, but sure less reasonable (as though poetry corrupted all good wits, when indeed bad wits corrupt poetry), banish it, with Plato, out of all well-ordered commonwealths. Both these I will strive rather to satisfy, then refute.

And of the first I would gladly know, whether they suppose it fitter, that the sacred songs in the scripture of those heroical saints, Moses, Deborah, Jeremiah, Mary, Simeon, David, Solomon, (the wisest schoolman, and wittiest poet) should be ejected from the canon for want of gravity, or rather this errour erased out of their minds, for want of truth. But, it may be, they will give the Spirit of God leave to breathe through what pipe it please, and will confess, because they must needs, that all the songs dittied by him, must needs be, as their fountain is, most holy; but their common clamour is, "Who may compare with God?" True; and yet as none may compare without presumption, so all may imitate, and not without commendation; which made Nazianzen, one of the stars of the Greek church, that now shines as bright in Heaven, as he did then on Earth, write so many: divine poems of the Genealogy, Miracles, Passion of Christ, called by him his Xgisòs ráxwv. — Which, when Basil, the prince of the fathers, and his chamberfellow, had seen, his opinion of them was, that he could have devised nothing either more fruitful to others, because it kindly wooed them to religion; or more honourable to himself, Οὐδὲν γὰρ μακαριώτερόν ἰσι τοῦ τὴν ἀγγέλων χορείαν ἐν Tŷ yž μsprîtar because, by imitating the singing angels in Heaven, himself became, though before his time, an earthly angel. What should I speak of Juvencus, Prosper, and the wise Prudentius? the last of which living in Hierome's time, twelve hundred years ago, brought forth in his declining age, so many, and so religious poems, straitly charging his soul, not to let pass so much as one either night or day without some divine song: Hymnis continuet dies, nec nox ulla vacet, quin Dominum canatı And as sedulous Prudentius, so prudent Sedulius was famous in this poetical divinity, the coetan of Bernard, who sung the history of Christ with as much devotion in himself, as admiration to others; all which were followed by the choicest wits of Christendom: Nonnius translating all St. John's gospel into Greek verse, Sanazar, the late living image, and happy imitator of Virgil, bestowing ten years upon a song, only to celebrate that one day when Christ was born unto us on Earth, and we (a happy change) unto God in Heaven: thrice honoured Bartas, and our (I know no other name more glorious than his own) Mr. Edmund Spencer (two blessed souls) not thinking ten years enough, laying out their whole lives upon this one study. Nay, 1 may justly say that the princely father of our country (though in my conscience God hath made him of all the learned princes that ever were, the most religious, and of all the religious princes, the most learned; that so, by the one he might oppose him against the pope, the pest of all religion; and by the other, against Bellarmine, the abuser of all good learning) is yet so far enamoured with this celestial muse, that it shall never repent me-calamo trivisse lubellum, whensoever I shall remember Hæc eade ut sciret quid non faciebat Amyntas? To name no more in such plenty, where I may und how to begin, sooner then to end, St. Paul by the example of Christ, that went singing to mount Olivet, with his disciples, after his last supper, exciteth the Christians, to solace themselves with hymns, and psalms, and spiritual songs; and therefore, by their leaves, be it an errour for poets to be divines, I had

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