Sat and thought upon his youth,
With eyes' tears, and hearts' ruth,
Being all with cares y-blent,

When he thought on years mispent ;
When his follies came to mind,

How fond love had made him blind
And wrapp'd him in a field of woes,
Shadowed with pleasure's shows;
Then he sigh'd and said, 'alas,
Man is sin and flesh is grass.

I thought my mistress' hairs were gold,
And in their lockes my heart I fold;
Her amber tresses were the sight
That wrapped me in vain delight:
Her ivory front, her pretty chin,
Were stales that drew me on to sin.

The next is in a deeper and more sedate spirit of moral feeling.

"With sweating brows I long have plough'd the sands;
My seed was youth, my crop was endless care,
Repentance hath sent home with empty hands,
At last, to tell how rife our follies are:
And time hath left experience to approve,
The gain is grief to those that traffick love.

The silent thoughts of my repentant years

That fill my head, have call'd me home at last :
Now love unmask'd a wanton wretch appears,
Begot by guileful thought with over haste:
In prime of youth a rose, in age a weed,
That for a minute's joy, pays endless meed.

Dead to delights, a foe to fond conceit,
Allied to wit, by want and sorrow brought :

Farewell, fond youth, long foster'd in deceit,
Forgive me Time disguis'd in idle thought!
And Love, adieu, lo, hasting to my end,

I find no time too late for to amend !"

Reserving Marlowe for future consideration, we shall proceed to the discussion of the merits of John Lilly or Lyly, who was contemporary with the poets, whose works we have been contemplating. He was born in the Weald of Kent, studied at Oxford, and took his degree of Master of Arts in 1575. He afterwards removed to Cambridge, and thence to court, where he gained considerable reputation as a wit and a poet. John Lilly, however, was poor, and had not wit and poetry sufficient to keep him from penury. He had, it seems, or thought he had, reason to expect that the office of Master of the Revels would be bestowed upon him; and there are still extant in manuscript, two petitionary letters to Queen Elizabeth on this subject, in the last of which he describes his great poverty and disappointment of this preferment, for which he had been waiting thirteen years. Blunt, however, who collected six of his plays, says that Queen Elizabeth heard, graced, and rewarded him. The first publications of Lilly were two works in prose, called Euphues; or, the Anatomy of Wit, and Euphues and his England; which appeared in 1581 and 1582. These productions were intended to improve and purify the English language, and obtained high celebrity in the court of Elizabeth; but there were not wanting, both at that time and since, those who loaded them with the contemptuous epithets of jargon, affectation, and obscurity. How far Lilly really improved the English language or deserved the reproaches which are generally attached to him, we may probably examine more at length, in a future article on these once famous works. What we shall have to say on his plays will, however, in a great measure, apply to his other publications.

Lilly presents a remarkable contrast to the poets whom we have been considering-he is, in all respects, different, and at the same time every whit as extravagant. The subjects of his dramas are almost all of classical origin, and were, it is presumed, selected to suit the taste of the court of Elizabeth, before whom most of them were acted. The six plays collected and published by Edward Blunt, in 1632, are all in prose, with the exception of the songs with which they are interspersed. Lilly was, undoubtedly, a man of genius and of wit, but the former was circumscribed by his peculiar manner of composition, and the latter, under the same system, was as wild and extravagant. His plays are exhibitions of subtle reasoning and scholastic sophistry. He analyzes and classifies the qualities

of love like those of a mineral, and describes the emotions of the heart as a botanist would the component parts of a herb or flower.

Ought his characters to be passionate, they immediately turn casuists:

Talking of stones, stars, plants, fishes, flies,
Playing with words and idle similies."

His scenes are, in truth, illustrations of natural history, mineralogy, or botany:-animals and their various dispositions-gems and minerals, and their several virtues-flowers, plants, and trees, and their different qualities, unceasingly rise up before us with all that truth has discovered, or superstition or tradition delivered, concerning them. But he never brings himself down to the level of vulgar men, nor speaks in the ordinary way of common life. He will not be familiar, lest it should take away respect; and he cannot be natural, for the very essence of his style is contrast and antithesis. To such a degree does he carry his love of opposition, that there is hardly a sentence to be found in his comedies that is not framed on an exact balance of sentiment or diction-that is not rounded, polished, and weighed with the greatest care, so that there may not be found a scruple more in one scale than the other. He is like a tight-rope dancer, who, whenever he leans to one side, counteracts his position by a corresponding declination on the other, and, by this means, keeps himself in a most self-satisfied equipoise. He would not, for the world, say a single word without having something, by way of make-weight, to fill up the sentence. The goddess of justice, herself, never enounced a sentence with more undeviating scrupulosity than he does. He laughs, and is merry on system, and never makes love, or is melancholy, but according to the strict rules of logic. He hunts after a brilliant point, like a boy after a butterfly, merely to put it to the torture, by a minute examination of the fineness of its texture or the variety of its colours. As for his wit, he is a jocose logician and recondite punster-he feeds on a quibble and is in extacy over a jest, which he invests with the solemnity of a moral axiom. His passion for pun-hunting is as invincible as that of his Midas for gold, or Endymion for lunary. In short, he is the most loving of pedants and the most pedantic of lovers, an encomiast of princes and the very prince of coxcombs. Such is the only rare poet of that time, the witty, comical, facetiously-quick, and unparalleled John Lilly.

Lilly wrote, on the whole, nine plays. Alexander and Campaspe, the subject of which is taken from Pliny, one of the earliest and best of them, was published in 1584. In order to

give an accurate idea of Lilly's dramatic talents, it will be necessary to select from his plays a few scenes, or rather speeches, for some of the latter occupy nearly as much space as a mode

rate scene.

Hephestion reasons with Alexander against his passion for the fair captive Campaspe.

Hephest. I cannot tell Alexander, whether the report be more shamefull to be heard, or the cause sorrowful to be believed? What! is the son of Philip, king of Macedon, become the subject of Campaspe, the captive of Thebes? Is that minde, whose greatnes the world could not containe, drawn within the compasse of an idle alluring eye? Will you handle the spindle with Hercules, when you should shake the speare with Achilles? Is the warlike sound of drum and trump turned to the soft noise of lyre and lute, the neighing of barbed steeds, whose lowdnes filled the aire with terrour, and whose breathes dimmed the sun with smoake, converted to delicate tunes and amorous glances? O Alexander! that soft and yielding minde should not bee in him, whose hard and unconquer'd heart hath made so many yield. But you love, ah griefe! but whom? Campaspe, ah shame, a maid forsooth unknowne, unnoble, and who can tell whether immodest? whose eyes are framed by art to enamour, and whose heart was made by nature to enchant. Ay, but shee is beautifull, yea, but not therefore chaste: Ay, but she is comely in all parts of the bodie: but shee may bee crooked in some part of the minde: Ay, but shee is wise, yea, but she is a woman: beautie is like the black-berry, which seemeth red, when it is not ripe, resembling precious stones that are polished with honie, which the smoother they looke, the sooner they breake. It is thought wonderfull among the seamen, that Mugill, of all fishes the swiftest, is found in the belly of the Bret, of all the slowest and shall it not seeme monstrous to wise men, that the heart of the greatest conquerour of the world, should be found in the hands of the weakest creature of nature? of a woman? of a captive? Hermyns have faire skins, but foul livers; sepulchres fresh colours, but rotten bones; women faire faces, but false hearts. Remember, Alexander, thou hast a campe to governe, not a chamber, fall not from the armour of Mars to the armes of Venus, from the fierie assaults of warre, to the maidenly skirmishes of love, from displaying the Eagle in thine ensigne, to set downe the sparrow. I sigh, Alexander, that where fortune could not conquer, folly should overcome. But behold all the perfection that may bee in Campaspe, a haire curling by nature, not art: sweete alluring eyes; a faire face made in despite of Venus, and a stately port in disdaine of Juno; a wit apt to conceive, and quicke to answere; a skinne as soft as silke, and as smooth as jet; a long white hand, a fine little foot, to conclude, all parts answerable to the best part: what of this though she have heavenly gifts, virtue and beautie, is shee not of earthly metall, flesh and bloud? You, Alexander, that would be a god, shew your selfe in this worse than a man, so soone to be both Overseene and over-taken in a woman, whose false teares know their true times, whose smooth words wound deeper than sharpe swords.

:

There is no surfet so dangerous, as that of honie, nor any poyson so deadly, as that of love; in the one physicke cannot prevaile, nor in the other counsell."

There is a good deal of point in the dialogue of Alexander and Diogenes.

"Diog. Who calleth?

Alex. Alexander: how happened it that you would not come out of your tub to my palace?

Diog. Because it was as farre from my tub to your palace, as from your palace to my tub.

Alex. Why then, doest thou owe no reverence to kings?
Diog. No.

Alex. Why so?

Diog. Because they be no gods.

Alex. They be gods of the earth.

Diog. Yea, gods of earth.

Alex. Plato is not of thy minde.
Diog. I am glad of it.

Alex. Why?

Diog. Because I would have none of Diogenes' minde, but Diogenes.

Alex. If Alexander have any thing that may pleasure Diogenes, let me know, and take it.

Diog. Then take not from mee that you cannot give mee, the light of the world.

Alex.

What doest thou want.

Diog. Nothing that you have.

Alex. I have the world at command.

Diog. And I in contempt.

Alex. Thou shalt live no longer than I will.
Diog. But I shall die whether you will or no.

Alex. How should one learne to bee content?
Diog. Unlearne to covet.

Alex. Hephestion, were I not Alexander, I would wish to bee Diogenes.

Hephest. He is dogged, but discreet; I cannot tell how sharpe, with a kinde of sweetnes, full of wit, yet too too wayward.

Alex. Diogenes, when I come this way againe, I will both see thee, and confer with thee.

Diog. Doe."

It is somewhat extraordinary, that notwithstanding the elaborate and recondite style of Lilly in his dialogues, there is great freedom, grace, and animation, in his lyrical pieces. Take, for example, the song of Apelles.