I extract the following few lines on Prayer from The Shippe of Safegarde,—an allegorical poem on the Life of Man by G. B., letters which are supposed by Hazlewood to stand, with initials reversed, for Barnaby Googe. Its date is 1569 :—

A thousand happy hands may here be seen,
Held up with heart unfeigned unto the skies,
Washed in the waters of repentance clean,
And purged pure with tears of weeping eyes;
A thousand tongues, from minds that well do mean,
Yield up to God their fervent suits and cries
At morning, noon, and night, continually.1

He

The following is from A Gorgious Gallery of Gallant Inventions, edited by Thomas Proctor in 1578. himself largely contributed to that collection :Wherefore I wish that each degree

With lotted chance contented be.
Let not thy treasure make thee proud
Nor poverty be disallowed.

Remember who doth give and take :
One God both rich and poor doth make.
We nothing had, or ought shall have
To bear with us unto our grave,
But virtuous life, which here we lead
On our behalf for grace to plead.
Therefore, I say, thy lust refrain,
And seek not after brittle gain;

But seek that wealth, the which will last
When that this mortal life is past.

In heaven is joy and pleasure still;

The world is vain and full of ill.
Use not so ill thy worldly pelf,
So that thou dost forget thyself.
Live in this world as dead to sin
And die in Christ, true life to win.2

Nicholas Breton, a somewhat prolific writer of verse, was an Oriel College man, a Roman Catholic in creed. He travelled much, and served as a captain under the

1 Sir Egerton Brydges' British Bibliography, ii. 630: 'A thousand happie hands.'

From A Gallery, etc., Heliconia, ed. T. Park: 'Wherfore I wishe that eche degree.'

Earl of Leicester in the Low Countries. From a hymn in his Small Handfull of Fragant Flowers (1575), comes this aspiration of a Christian soldier :

Arm us with faith to bear the shield
And sword of heavenly purity:
Crown us with helmet in the field
Of Thy surpassing verity.1

In his Pilgrimage to Paradise (1592), occur the lines:

And on they walk, until anon they come

Unto a church not built of lime or stone,

But that true church of that immortal fame

That is world's wonder, and heaven's love alone,-
Whose head is Christ, whose martyrs are His pillars;
All of whose members are His word's well-willers.2

In the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign religious verses were printed broadside, as sacred ballads, to be sung to bright tunes. This is from one headed Songe of the Lambe's Feast, printed 1576:

Thomas Becon (1511-70) was among the most popular of the Reformers. He was chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer. During the reign of Mary he took refuge in the Continent. After her death he returned and was rector of Bucklands, in Herefordshire, and prebend of

1 A Small Handfull, etc.; Heliconia, i. 20.
2 Corser's Collectanea Anglo Poetica, iii. 2.

3 Id. ii. 130:

I hearde one say
Come now away.
K

Canterbury.

I quote a few verses from A Newe

Dialoge betwene the Angel of God and ye Shepherds of

ye Felde:

This Child alone,

Sent from God's throne

All kind of moan

Shall put away.
Whoso embrace
His loving face

Shall want no grace,

Nor yet decay.

He is the King,
To whose bidding
Every thing

Obeyeth humbly.
He is the Lord,
By whose concord
All things restored
Shall be plainly.

He is the Peace,
Which shall release
All our disease

And grievous pain.

He is the Stay,

He is the Way,
By whom we may
Glory attain.

He is the Light,
That is so bright
In all men's sight
To show the way.
He is the Rock.
If that we knock
He will unlock,
And help us aye.1

George Gascoigne, son of Sir G. Gascoigne, served with distinction under the command of the Prince of Orange in 1572. The year after, he accompanied Queen Elizabeth on one of her state progresses, and wrote one of the masques celebrated in her honour.

1 Corser's Collectanea Anglo-Poetica, ii. 239: This chylde alone.'

He died in 1577. Among his religions poems his Good-Morrow and Good-Night are both pretty. In the former there is a fresh brightness like the air of a summer morning. I quote a few verses :—

You that have spent the silent night

In sleep and quiet rest,

And joy to see the cheerful light

That riseth in the east :

Now clear your voice; now cheer your heart;

Come, help me now to sing :

Each willing wight come bear a part

To praise the heavenly King.

Then, after, comparing the night to the night of death :

And of such hope and heavenly joys

As then we hope to hold,

All earthly sights and worldly toys
Be tokens to behold.

The day is like the day of doom,

The sun, the Son of man,

The sky's the heavens, the earth the tomb
Wherein we rest till then.

The rainbow bending in the sky,
Bedecked with sundry hues,
Is like the seal of God on high
And seems to tell these news :
That as thereby He promised
To drown the world no more,
So by the blood which Christ hath shed
He will our health restore.

The misty clouds that fall sometime
And overcast the skies,

Are like to troubles of our time

Which do but dim our eyes.

The little birds which sing so sweet

Are like the angels' voice

Which render God His praises meet,
And teach us to rejoice.

His Good-Night begins thus:

:

When thou hast spent the lingering day in pleasure and delight
Or after tost and weary way, dost seek to rest at night;
Unto thy pains and pleasures past add this one labour yet-
Ere sleep close up thine eyes to rest, do not thy God forget,
But search within thy secret thoughts what deeds did thee befall
And if thou find amiss in aught, to God for mercy call.

Sir Philip Sydney (1554-86) contributed to the sacred verse of the Elizabethan age. In an age when religious and poetical feeling were alike full of movement, his ardent, sensitive genius, ever eager to take an active part, intellectual, emotional, and physical, in the stir of life around him, could scarcely fail to give vent in song to the spiritual impulses of his nature. If he had not died so young, it is very likely that he might in later years have taken a more leading place among Christian poets. The following is the concluding sonnet of the passionate struggle between love and duty which finds expression in his Astrophel and Stella:

CX.-ASPIRE TO HIGHER THINGS.

Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust;
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things;
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust;
Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings.
Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might
To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be;
Which breaks the clouds and opens forth the light
That doth both shine and give us sight to see.
O take fast hold; let that light be thy guide

In this small course which birth draws out to death,
And think how ill becometh him to slide,

Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath.