living of Albury, in Surrey, to which he was presented about 1600. He was rector of this parish for more than half a century, and was uniformly esteemed and beloved for his exemplary discharge of his pastoral duties. It certainly appears, according to Aubrey, that some of the neighbouring clergy at first criticised his sermons rather severely; yet even these admitted that in his old age, when he attended a little more to the study of divinity and a little less to that of mathematics, "he preached admirably well."

He resided at his living, and his house was frequented by scientific men of all nations, who came to consult him and do him honour; and it also was continually filled with pupils, who sought the benefit of his teaching. Among others, the Earl of Arundel engaged his services to instruct his sons. Aubrey says, "that this nobleman was Oughtred's great patron, and loved him entirely. One time they were like to have been killed together by the fall of a grott at Albury, which fell downe but just as they were come out. My Lord had many grotts about his [Oughtred's] house, cutt in the sandy sides of hills, wherein he delighted to sitt and discourse."

Fuller says that Oughtred was "unanimously acknowledged the prince of mathematicians;" and there is a strong proof of how high Oughtred's fame must have stood abroad, in the fact, which Aubrey records, that when the troubles of the civil wars broke out in England, the Duke of Florence invited Oughtred over to Italy, and offered him 5007. a-year; but Oughtred declined it on account of his religion.

Oughtred did indeed pass through the troubles of these times without actual molestation, though not without some hazard. In 1646 he was in danger of a sequestration; but by the influence of Lilly, the astrologer, he escaped.

Oughtred retained his faculties both of body and mind in rare perfection to the great age of eighty-seven. His death is said to have been accelerated by excess of joy at hearing of the restoration of King Charles the Second. Fuller, in his Book of Worthies, says of him, "This aged Simeon had a strong persuasion that before his death he should behold Christ's anointed restored to the throne, which he did accordingly, to his incredible joy, and then had his dimittis out of this mortal life, Jan. 30th, 1660." (Biog. Brit.)

THOMAS TUSSER, the author of "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry," and the favourite poet of English agriculturists, was an Etonian, and was at Eton during this century. Southey says of him:

"This good, honest, homely, useful old rhymer was born about

the year 1520, at Rivenhall, near Witham, in Essex. He died about the year 1580, in London, and was buried in St. Mildred's Church, in the Poultry. The course of his industrious but unprosperous life, is related by himself among the multifarious contents of his homespun Georgics; a work once in such repute that Lord Molesworth, writing in 1723, and proposing that a school for husbandry should be erected in every county, advised that 'Tusser's old Book of Husbandry should be taught to the boys, to read, to copy, and to get by heart;' and that it should be reprinted and distributed for that purpose."

Udall was Headmaster of Eton while Tusser was there, and the poet thus records the severity of his "Plagosus Orbilius:"

"From Paul's I went to Eton sent,

To learn straightways the Latin phrase;
Where fifty three stripes given to me
At once I had,

For fault but small, or none at all,

It came to pass thus beat I was.
See, Udall, see the mercy of thee
To me poor lad."

I must plead guilty to an inability to wade through Tusser. We know that

"Molle atque facetum

Virgilio annuerunt gaudentes rure Camœnæ,"

but the author of our English Georgics is utterly destitute of these qualities. Tusser's versification, however, is curiously elaborate for the time when he wrote. Warton has pointed this out. His rhythm also is always good, and his language free from inversions; two merits that have probably gone far in insuring his permanent popularity among the class for which he wrote.

I turn with pleasure to two other Eton poets of a little later period, to PHINEAS and GILES FLETCHER.

Southey says, "No single family has ever in one generation produced three such poets as Giles and Phineas Fletcher, and their cousin the dramatist." Eton has the honour of having educated the two first of the poetical triumvirate. They were the sons of Dr. Giles Fletcher, who will be soon mentioned in these pages. Phineas Fletcher was elected from Eton to King's in 1600. He became a Fellow of the College in due course, and continued to be one till 1621, when he was presented to the living of Hilgay, in Norfolk, by Sir Henry Willoughby. He held this living till his

death in 1650. The poem of "The Purple Island," by which he is known to posterity, was chiefly written by him in youth, as is proved by allusions in it to the latter part of Queen Elizabeth's reign. "The Purple Island" is a long allegorical poem, wherein a shepherd gives to his companions, under the guise of describing an island, its inhabitants, and enemies, first an anatomical description of the human body, and then a metaphysical account of the passions, vices, and virtues of the human mind. No genius could render such a subject attractive; but it is greatly to the credit of the author's purity and taste, that in his hands no part of it is coarse or repulsive. He is an obvious admirer and follower of Spenser; and those who find the "Faery Queen" tedious, will certainly find "The Purple Island" unreadable. On the other hand, a true lover of Spenser will read Fletcher with pleasure. His versification is graceful, his language clear and well-chosen, and there are some passages in his poem which would command the praise of all who became acquainted with them. I select for quotation the description of Despair and the Two Deaths, among the foes whom the Old Dragon sends against the Soul:

"The second in this rank was black Despair,
Bred in the dark womb of eternal Night:

His looks fast nail'd to Sin; long sooty hair

Fill'd up his lank cheeks with wide staring fright:

His leaden eyes, retir'd into his head

Light, Heav'n, and Earth, himself, and all things fled :
A breathing corpse he seem'd, wrapt up in living lead.

*

"Instead of feathers on his dangling crest

A luckless raven spread her blackest wings;
And to her croaking throat gave never rest,
But deathful verses and sad dirges sings;

His hellish arms were all with fiends embost,
Who damned souls with endless torments roast,
And thousand ways devise to vex the tortur'd ghost.

"Two weapons, sharp as death he ever bore,
Strict Judgment, which from far he deadly darts;
Sin at his side, a two-edged sword he wore,
With which he soon appals the stoutest hearts;
Upon his shield Alecto with a wreath
Of snaky whips the damn'd souls tortureth :
And round about was wrote, 'Reward of sin is death."

"The last two brethren were far different,

Only in common name of Death agreeing;

The first arm'd with a scythe still mowing went ;

Yet whom, and when he murder'd, never seeing;

Born deaf, and blind; nothing might stop his way :
No pray'rs, no vows his keenest scythe could stay,
Nor beauty's self, his spite, nor virtue's self allay.
"No state, no age, no sex may hope to move him ;
Down falls the young, and old, the boy and maid;
Nor beggar can entreat, nor king reprove him ;
All are his slaves in's cloth of flesh array'd:

The bride he snatches from the bridegroom's arms,
And horrour brings in midst of love's alarms :
Too well we know his pow'r by long experienc'd harms.
"A dead man's skull supplied his helmet's place,
A bone his club, his armour sheets of lead:
Some more, some less, fear his all frighting face;
But most, who sleep in downy pleasure's bed;
But who in life have daily learn'd to die,
And dead to this, live to a life more high;
Sweetly in death they sleep, and slumb'ring quiet lie.

"The second far more foul in every part,

Burnt with blue fire, and bubbling sulphur streams;
Which creeping round about him fill'd with smart
His cursed limbs, that direly he blasphemes;

Most strange it seems, that burning thus for ever,
No rest, no time, no place these flames may sever;
Yet death in thousand deaths without death dieth never."

The other brother, GILES FLETCHER, after leaving Eton, went to Trinity College, Cambridge. He, like his brother, took holy orders, and held the living of Alderton in Suffolk. Nothing more is recorded of him; save that he died at Alderton while yet in the prime of life. He chose a far superior subject for his poem, to that which his brother had selected. Giles's poem is on Christ's Victory and Triumph. Hallam correctly decides that "he has more vigour than his elder brother, but more affectation in his style." I cannot concur with Hallam in adding that "he has less sweetness and less smoothness." I will quote a portion of the song of the sorceress in the scene of the Temptation. Many of these lines seem to me to be eminently smooth and sweet :—

"Love is the blossom where there blows

Every thing that lives or grows:
Love doth make the Heav'ns to move,

And the Sun doth burn in love :

Love the strong and weak doth yoke,

And makes the ivy climb the oak;

Under whose shadows lions wild,

Soften'd by love, grow tame and mild :

Love did make the bloody spear
Once a leafy coat to wear,

While in his leaves there shrouded lay
Sweet birds, for love that sing and play :
And of all love's joyful flame,

I the bud and blossom am.

Only bend thy knee to me,

Thy wooing shall thy winning be.

"See, see the flowers that below
Now as fresh as morning blow,

And of all, the virgin rose,
That as bright Aurora shows :
How they all unleaved die,

Losing their virginity;

Like unto a summer-shade,

But now born, and now they fade.

Every thing doth pass away,

There is danger in delay :

Come, come, gather then the rose,
Gather it, or it you lose.

All the sand of Tagus' shore
Into my bosom casts his ore:
All the valleys' swimming corn
To my house is yearly borne:
Every grape of every vine

Is gladly bruis'd to make me wine;
While ten thousand kings, as proud,
To carry up my train have bow'd,
And a world of ladies send me
In my chambers to attend me.
All the stars in Heav'n that shine,
And ten thousand more, are mine :
Only bend thy knee to me,

Thy wooing shall thy winning be."

Giles Fletcher, like his brother, is of the Spenserian school; and, like his brother, sometimes ventures to compete with their common master. It is singular that each should have given an elaborate allegorical description of Despair, as if to try how closely they could follow their master in one of his most celebrated performances. The passage in Christ's Triumph on Earth, in which the description of Despair is given, is also remarkable, as having afforded a hint to Milton for his description of the first meeting between the Tempter and our Saviour in the "Paradise Regained:”— "Twice had Diana bent her golden bow,

And shot from Heav'n her silver shafts, to rouse

The sluggish salvages, that den below,

And all the day in lazy covert drouse,

Since him the silent wilderness did house :

The Heav'n his roof, and arbour harbour was,

The ground his bed, and his moist pillow grass :
But fruit there none did grow, nor rivers none did pass.