Nile marvels, Serap's priests entranced rave,
And in Mygdonian stone her shape engrave;
In lasting cedars they do mark the time

In which Apollo's bird came to their clime.

Let mother earth now deck'd with flowers be seen, And sweet-breath'd zephyrs curl the meadows green: Let heaven weep rubies in a crimson shower,

Such as on India's shores they use to pour :

Or with that golden storm the fields adorn

May never hours the web of day outweave;

May never night rise from her sable cave!

Swell proud my billows, faint not to declare Your joys as ample as their causes are:

Now delicately flat, now sweetly sharp ;

For murmurs hoarse sound like Arion's harp,

And you, my nymphs, rise from your moist repair,
Strew all your springs and grots with lilies fair.
Some swiftest footed, get them hence, and pray
Our floods and lakes may keep this holiday;
Whate'er beneath Albania's hills do run,
Which see the rising or the setting sun,
Which drink stern Grampus' mists, or Ochil's snows:
Stone-rolling Tay, Tyne, tortoise-like, that flows;
The pearly Don, the Dees, the fertile Spey,
Wild Severn, which doth see our longest day;
Ness, smoking sulphur, Leve, with mountains crown'd,
Strange Lomond for his floating isles renown'd;
The Irish Rian, Ken, the silver Ayr,

The snaky Doon, the Orr with rushy hair,

The crystal-streaming Nith, loud-bellowing Clyde,
Tweed which no more our kingdoms shall divide;
Rank-swelling Annan, Lid with curl'd streams,
The Esks, the Solway, where they lose their names;
To every one proclaim our joys and feasts,
Our triumphs; bid all come and be our guests;
And as they meet in Neptune's azure hall,
Bid them bid sea-gods keep this festival;
This day shall by our currents be renown'd;
Our hills about shall still this day resound:
Nay, that our love more to this day appear,
Let us with it henceforth begin our year.

To virgins flowers, to sun-burnt earth the rain,
To mariners fair winds amidst the main;
Cool shades to pilgrims, which hot glances burn,
Are not so pleasing as thy blest return,
That day, dear Prince.

[Epitaph on Prince Henry.]

Stay, passenger, see where enclosed lies
The paragon of Princes, fairest frame
Time, nature, place, could show to mortal eyes,
In worth, wit, virtue, miracle of fame :
At least that part the earth of him could claim
This marble holds (hard like the Destinies):
For as to his brave spirit, and glorious name,
The one the world, the other fills the skies.
Th' immortal amaranthus, princely rose;
Sad violet, and that sweet flower that bears
In sanguine spots the tenor of our woes,*
Spread on this stone, and wash it with your tears ;
Then go and tell from Gades unto Ind
You saw where Earth's perfections were confin'd.

To his Lute.

My lute, be as thou wert when thou didst grow With thy green mother in some shady grove, When immelodious winds but made thee move,

Like widow'd turtle still her loss complain.

Sweet bird! that sing'st away the early hours
Of winters past, or coming, void of care.
Well pleased with delights which present are,
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers:
To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers,
Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare,
And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare,
A stain to human sense in sin that low'rs.
What soul can be so sick which by thy songs
(Attir'd in sweetness) sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,
And lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven ?
Sweet artless songster! thou my mind dost raise
To airs of spheres-yes, and to angels' lays

[Sonnets.]

In Mind's pure glass when I myself behold,
And lively see how my best days are spent,
What clouds of care above my head are roll'd,
What coming ill, which I cannot prevent:
My course begun, I, wearied, do repent,
And would embrace what reason oft hath told;
But scarce thus think I, when love hath controll'd
All the best reasons reason could invent.
Though sure I know my labour's end is grief,
The more I strive that I the more shall pine,
That only death shall be my last relief:
Yet when I think upon that face divine,
Like one with arrow shot, in laughter's place,
Maugre my heart, I joy in my disgrace.

I know that all beneath the moon decays,
And what by mortals in this world is brought
In Time's great periods, shall return to nought;
The fairest states have fatal nights and days.
I know that all the Muse's heavenly lays
With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought,
That there is nothing lighter than vain praise.

I know frail beauty like the purple flower,

To which one morn oft birth and death affords,

That love a jarring is of mind's accords,
Where sense and will bring under Reason's power:
Know what I list, all this cannot me move,
But that, alas! I both must write and love.

SIR ROBERT AYTON,

are

SIR ROBERT AYTON, a Scottish courtier and poet (1570-1638), enjoyed, like Drummond, the advantages of foreign travel and acquaintance with English poets. The few pieces of his composition in pure English, and evince a smoothness and delicacy of fancy that have rarely been surpassed. The poet was a native of Fifeshire, son of Ayton of Kinaldie. James L. appoint appointed him one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber, and private secretary to his queen, besides conferring upon him the honour of knighthood. Ben Jonson seemed proud of his friendship, for he told Drummond that Sir Robert loved him (Jonson) dearly.

1

[On Woman's Inconstancy.]

I lov'd thee once, I'll love no more,
Thine be the grief as is the blame;
Thou art not what thou wast before,
What reason I should be the same?

He that can love unlov'd again,
Hath better store of love than brain:

God send me love my debts to pay,
While unthrifts fool their love away.
Nothing could have my love o'erthrown,
If thou hadst still continued mine;
Yea, if thou hadst remain'd thy own,
I might perchance have yet been thine.
But thou thy freedom did recall,
That if thou might elsewhere inthral;

And then how could I but disdain
A captive's captive to remain ?
When new desires had conquer'd thee,
And chang'd the object of thy will,
It had been lethargy in me,
Not constancy to love thee still.

Yea, it had been a sin to go
And prostitute affection so,
Since we are taught no prayers to say
To such as must to others pray.
Yet do thou glory in thy choice,
Thy choice of his good fortune boast;
I'll neither grieve nor yet rejoice,
To see him gain what I have lost;

The height of my disdain shall be,
To laugh at him, to blush for thee;

To love thee still, but go no more
A begging to a beggar's door.

[I do Confess Thou'rt Smooth and Fair.]

I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair,
And I might have gone near to love thee;
Had I not found the slightest prayer

That lips could speak had power to move thee:
But I can let thee now alone,
As worthy to be loved by none.

I do confess thou'rt sweet, yet find
Thee such an unthrift of thy sweets,
Thy favours are but like the wind,
That kisses every thing it meets.
And since thou can with more than one,
Thou'rt worthy to be kiss'd by none.

The morning rose, that untouch'd stands,
Arm'd with her briers, how sweetly smells !
But pluck'd and strain'd through ruder hands,
Her sweets no longer with her dwells;

But scent and beauty both are gone,
And leaves fall from her, one by one.
Such fate, ere long, will thee betide,
When thou hast handled been awhile,
Like sere flowers to be thrown aside;
And I will sigh, while some will smile,
To see thy love for more than one
Hath brought thee to be loved by none.*

mer is noticed among our prose authors. His great work is his paraphrase of the Psalms, part of which was composed in a monastery in Portugal, to which he had been confined by the Inquisition about the year 1550. He afterwards pursued the sacred strain in France; and his task was finished in Scotland when Mary had assumed the duties of sovereignty. Buch

* It is doubtful whether this beautiful song (which Burns destroyed by rendering into Scotch) was actually the composition of Ayton. It is printed anonymously in Lawes's Ayres and Dialogues, 1659. It is a suspicious circumstance, that in Watson's Collection of Scottish Poems (1706-11), where several poems by Sir Robert are printed, with his name, in a cluster, this is inserted at a different part of the work, without his name. But the internal evidence is strongly in favour of Sir Robert Ayton being the author, as, in purity of language, elegance, and tenderness, it resembles his undoubted lyrics. Aubrey, in praising Ayton, says, 'Mr John Dryden has seen verses of his, some of the best of that age, printed with some other verses."

11

anan superintended the studies of that unfortunate princess, and dedicated to her one of the most finished and beautiful of his productions, the Epithalamium, composed on her first nuptials. The character and works of Buchanan, who was equally distinguished as a jurist, a poet, and a historian, exhibit a rare union of philosophical dignity and research with the finer sensibilities and imagination of the poet. Arthur Johnston was born at Caskieben, near Aberdeen, in 1587. He studied medicine at Padua, and resided for about twenty years in France. On his return to Britain, he obtained the patronage of Archbishop Laud, and was appointed physician to Charles 1. He died at Oxford in 1641. Johnston wrote a number of Latin elegies and epigrams, a paraphrase of the Song of Solomon, a collection of short poems (published in 1637), entitled, Musa Aulicæ, and (his greatest work, as it was that of Buchanan) a complete version of the Psalms. He also edited and contributed largely to the Deliciæ Poetarum Scotorum, a collection of congratulatory poems by various authors, which reflected great honour on the taste and scholarship of the Scottish nation. Critics have been divided as to the relative merits of Buchanan and Johnston. We subjoin the opinions of a Scottish and an English scholar :-' If we look into Buchanan,' says Dr Beattie, what can we say, but that the learned author, with great command of Latin expression, has no true relish for the emphatic conciseness and unadorned simplicity of the inspired poets? Arthur Johnston is not so verbose, and has, of course, more vigour; but his choice of a couplet, which keeps the reader always in mind of the puerile epistles of Ovid, was singularly injudicious. As psalms may, in prose as easily as in verse, be adapted to music, why should we seek to force those divine strains into the measures of Roman or of modern song? He who transformed Livy into iambics, and Virgil into monkish rhyme, did not, in my opinion, act more absurdly. In fact, sentiments of devotion are rather depressed than elevated by the arts of the European versifier.' * The following is the testimony of Mr Hallam: 'The Scots certainly wrote Latin with a good ear and considerable elegance of phrase. A sort of critical controversy was carried on in the last century as to the versions of the Psalms by Buchanan and Johnston. Though the national honour may seem equally secure by the superiority of either, it has, I believe, been usual in Scotland to maintain the older poet against all the world. I am, nevertheless, inclined to think that Johnston's Psalms, all of which are in elegiac metre, do not fall short of those of Buchanan, either in elegance of style or correctness of Latinity. In the 137th, with which Buchanan has taken much pains, he may be allowed the preference, but not at a great interval, and he has attained this superiority by too much diffuseness.'

[The 137th Psalm, by Buchanan.]

Dum procul à patria mesti Babylonis in oris,
Fluminis ad liquidas fortè sedemus aquas;
Illa animum subiit species miseranda Sionis,
Et nunquam patrii tecta videnda soli.
Flevimus, et gemitus luctantia verba repressit;
Inque sinus liquidæ decidit imber aquæ.
Muta super virides pendebant nablia ramos,
Et salices tacitas sustinuere lyras.
Ecce ferox dominus, Solymæ populator opimæ,
Exigit in mediis carmina læta malis:
Qui patriam exilio nobis mutavit acerbo,
Nos jubet ad patrios verba referre modos,

Quale canebamus, steterat dum celsa Sionis
Regia, finitimis invidiosa locis.
Siccine divinos Babylon irrideat hymnos?
Audiat et sanctos terra profana modos?
O Solymæ, ò adyta, & sacri penetralia templi,
Ullane vos animo deleat hora meo?

Comprecor, antè meæ capiant me oblivia dextræ,
Nec memor argutæ sit mea dextra lyræ:
Os mihi destituat vox, arescente palato,
Hæreat ad fauces aspera lingua meas:
Prima mihi vestræ nisi sint præconia laudis;

Hinc nisi lætitiæ surgat origo meæ.
At tu (quæ nostræ insultavit læta rapine)
Gentis Idumææ tu memor esto, pater.
Diripite, ex imis evertite fundamentis,
Æquaque (clamabant) reddite tecta solo.
Tu quoque crudeles Babylon dabis impia pœnas:
Et rerum instabiles experiere vices.
Felix qui nostris accedet cladibus ultor,
Reddet ad exemplum qui tibi damna tuum.
Felix qui tenero consperget saxa cerebro,
Eripiens gremio pignora cara tuo.

The First of May.

[Translated, as is the subsequent piece, from the Latin Buchanan, by the late Mr Robert Hogg.]

All hail to thee, thou First of May,
Sacred to wonted sport and play,
To wine, and jest, and dance, and song,
And mirth that lasts the whole day long!

Hail! of the seasons honour bright,

Annual return of sweet delight;
Flower of reviving summer's reign,
That hastes to time's old age again!
When Spring's mild air at Nature's birth
First breath'd upon the new-form'd earth;
Or when the fabled age of gold,
Without fix'd law, spontaneous roll'd;
Such zephyrs, in continual gales,
Pass'd temperate along the vales,
And soften'd and refresh'd the soil,
Not broken yet by human toil;
Such fruitful warmths perpetual rest
On the fair islands of the blest-
Those plains where fell disease's moan
And frail old age are both unknown.
Such winds with gentle whispers spread
Among the dwellings of the dead,
And shake the cypresses that grow
Where Lethe murmurs soft and slow.
Perhaps when God at last in ire
Shall purify the world with fire,
And to mankind restore again
Times happy, void of sin and pain,
The beings of this earth beneath,
Such pure ethereal air shall breathe.

Hail! glory of the fleeting year!
Hail! day the fairest, happiest here!
Memorial of the time gone by,
And emblem of futurity!

On Neæra.

My wreck of mind, and all my woes,
And all my ills, that day arose,
When on the fair Neæra's eyes,
Like stars that shine,

At first, with hapless fond surprise,
I gazed with mine.

When my glance met her searching glance,
A shivering o'er my body burst,
As light leaves in the green woods dance
When western breezes stir them first;

My heart forth from my breast to go,
And mix with her's already wanting,
Now beat, now trembled to and fro,
With eager fondness leaping, panting.
Just as a boy, whose nourice woos him,
Folding his young limbs in her bosom,
Heeds not caresses from another,
But turns his eyes still to his mother,
When she may once regard him watches,
And forth his little fond arms stretches.
Just as a bird within the nest

That cannot fly, yet constant trying,
Its weak wings on its tender breast

Beats with the vain desire of flying.

Thou, wary mind, thyself preparing
To live at peace, from all ensnaring,
That thou might'st never mischief catch,
Plac'd'st you, unhappy eyes, to watch
With vigilance that knew no rest,
Beside the gateways of the breast.

But you, induc'd by dalliance deep,
Or guile, or overcome by sleep;
Or else have of your own accord
Consented to betray your lord;
Both heart and soul then fled and left
Me spiritless, of mind bereft.

Then cease to weep; use is there none
To think by weeping to atone;
Since heart and spirit from me fled,
You move not by the tears you shed;
But go to her, intreat, obtain;
If you do not intreat, and gain,
Then will I ever make you gaze
Upon her, till in dark amaze
You sightless in your sockets roll,
Extinguish'd by her eyes' bright blaze,

As I have been depriv'd of heart and soul.

DRAMATISTS.

Notwithstanding the greatness of the name of Spenser, it is not in general versification that the poetical strength of the age is found to be chiefly manifested. Towards the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, the dramatic form of composition and representation, coinciding with that love of splendour, chivalrous feeling, and romantic adventures, which animated the court, rose with sudden and wonderful brilliancy, and attracted nearly all the poetical genius of England.

It would appear that, at the dawn of modern civilisation, most countries of Christian Europe possessed a rude kind of theatrical entertainment, consisting, not in those exhibitions of natural character and incident which constituted the plays of ancient Greece and Rome, but in representations of the principal supernatural events of the Old and New Testaments, and of the history of the saints, whence they were denominated Miracles, or Miracle Plays. Originally, they appear to have been acted by, and under the immediate management of, the clergy, who are understood to have deemed them favourable to the diffusion of religious feeling; though, from the traces I of them which remain, they seem to have been profane and indecorous in the highest degree. A miracle play, upon the story of St Katherine, and in the French language, was acted at Dunstable in 1119, and how long such entertainments may have previously existed in England is not known. From | the year 1268 to 1577, they were performed almost every year in Chester; and there were few large cities which were not then regaled in a similar manner; even in Scotland they were not unknown. The

most sacred persons, not excluding the Deity, were introduced into them.

About the reign of Henry VI., persons representing sentiments and abstract ideas, such as Mercy, Justice, Truth, began to be introduced into the miracle plays, and led to the composition of an improved kind of drama, entirely or chiefly composed of such characters, and termed Moral Plays. These were certainly a great advance upon the miracles, in as far as they endeavoured to convey sound moral lessons, and at the same time gave occasion to some poetical and dramatic ingenuity, in imaging forth the characters, and assigning appropriate speeches to each. The only scriptural character retained in them was the devil, who, being represented in grotesque habiliments, and perpetually beaten by an attendant character, called the Vice, served to enliven what must have been at the best a sober, though well-meant entertainment. The Cradle of Security, Hit the Nail on the Head, Impatient Poverty, and the Marriage of Wisdom and Wit, are the names of moral plays which enjoyed popularity in the reign of Henry VIII. It was about that time that acting first became a distinct profession; both miracles and moral plays had previously been represented by clergymen, schoolboys, or the members of trading incorporations, and were only brought forward occasionally, as part of some public or private festivity.

As the introduction of allegorical characters had been an improvement upon those plays which consisted of scriptural persons only, so was the introduction of historical and actual characters an improvement upon those which employed only a set of impersonated ideas. It was soon found that a real human being, with a human name, was better calculated to awaken the sympathies, and keep alive the attention of an audience, and not less so to impress them with moral truths, than a being who only represented a notion of the mind. The substitution of these for the symbolical characters, gradually took place during the earlier part of the sixteenth century; and thus, with some aid from Greek dramatic literature, which now began to be studied, and from the improved theatres of Italy and Spain, the genuine English drama took its rise.

As specimens of something between the moral plays and the modern drama, the Interludes of JOHN HEYWood may be mentioned. Heywood was supported at the court of Henry VIII. partly as a musician, partly as a professed wit, and partly as a writer of plays. His dramatic compositions, part of which were produced before 1521, generally represented some ludicrous familiar incident, in a style of the broadest and coarsest farce, but yet with no small skill and talent. One, called the Four P.'s, turns upon a dispute between a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Poticary, and a Pedlar (who are the only characters), as to which shall tell the grossest falsehood: an accidental assertion of the Palmer, that he never saw a woman out of patience in his life, takes the rest off their guard, all of whom declare it to be the greatest lie they ever heard, and the settlement of the question is thus brought about amidst much drollery. One of Heywood's chief objects seems to have been to satirise the manners of the clergy, and aid in the cause of the Reformers. There were some less distinguished writers of interludes, and Sir David Lyndsay's Satire of the Three Estates, acted in Scotland in 1539, was a play of this kind.

The regular drama, from its very commencement, was divided into comedy and tragedy, the elements of both being found quite distinct in the rude entertainments above described, not to speak of the pre