Some pleasing verses, In Praise of a Good Minde, quite in the spirit of the best Elizabethan writers, were written about 1590, by Rychard Denys. I quote some lines from the beginning of the poem :

What thing of greater price

On earth may any find,

What gold or riches may compare

With virtue of the mind?

The mind doth still possess

In man a kingly place,

And guides the steps of mortal wights,
And rules in every case.

Who that can rule his mind

And thinks all pleasures vain,
How great a Lord is he in thought,
How princely doth he reign!

No worldly wealth can move
His mind sin to obey,

Nor force compel him once to yield
Unto his own decay.1

Barnaby Barnes, son of a Bishop of Durham, was a soldier of Queen Elizabeth. In 1591 he held command in France under the Earl of Essex. His Divine Centurie of Spirituale Sonnets was published in 1595, with a preface which breathes a very fervid spirit of devotion. The verses themselves are by no means wanting in power of expression and in exaltation of feeling. The following are two of the sonnets:—

SONNET XXXVII.

O my dear God! how shall my voice prevail?

How shall my tongue give utterance to my mind?
Where shall my thankful heart free passage find?
My slender voice, tongue feeble, and heart frail,
Before they can give condign praise, will fail.
I cannot celebrate in their due kind
Thy glories numberless, which angels find
E'en to surmount all angels' best travail.

1 Pieces of Ancient Poetry from Unpublished Manuscripts and Scarce Books, by N. G., Bristol (1814), p. 45.

O my dear God! my comfort and soláce:
My swift soul flies, with my divine thoughts' wings,
E'en to Thy bosom. Oh! let it embrace
And triumph in my sweet salvation's springs :
For I believe Thou wilt not me forsake,
Who, for me, didst Thy Son a martyr make.

SONNET XXXVIII.

Gracious, Divine, and most Omnipotent!
Receive Thy servant's talent in good part,
Who hid it not, but willing did convert
It to best use he could, when it was lent :
The sum, though slender, yet not all mispent,
Receive, dear God of grace! from cheerful heart
Of him, that knows how merciful Thou art,
And with what grace to contrite sinners lent.
I know my fault, I did not as I should;
My sinful flesh against my soul rebell'd;
But since I did endeavour what I could,
Let not my little nothing be withheld

From Thy rich treasuries of endless grace,
But, for Thy sake, let it procure a place.1

Henry Constable, of St. John's College, Cambridge, was a Roman Catholic, who wrote in the latter part of the sixteenth century. The following are a few lines from one of the Spirituall Sonnettes to the Honour of God and His Sayntes, by H. C. The initials are almost certainly his :

No marvel though Thy birth made angels sing,
And angels' ditties shepherds' pipes awake,

And kings, like shepherds, humbled for Thy sake,
Kneel at Thy feet, and gifts of homage bring:
For heaven and earth, the high and low estate,
As partners of Thy birth make equal claim.2

William Hunnis, 'one of the gentlemen of her Majestie's honourable Chappel, and Maister to the Children of the same,' published in 1597 Seven Sobs of a Sorrowful Soule for Sinne, being David's Peenitentiall Psalms

1 Poems of Barnabe Barnes: A Divine Centurie, etc. (Grosart), 1875, p. 179: 'O my deare God! how shall my voice prevaile?'

2 Spiritual Sonnettes, p. 4; Heliconia, ii. :

No mervayle, though thy byrth mayd angells synge,
And angell's dyttyes shepheyrds pypes awake.

framed into familiar Praiers. They are paraphrased very freely. Thus, part of the 38th Psalm is made a text for the following:

Sin may well be compared

Unto a serpent vile,

Which with his body, head, and tail,

Doth many one beguile.

For where the serpent's head

To enter doth begin,

Thereat the body with the tail
Apace comes sliding in.
The motions first of sin

Unto the head apply;

And when the heart consents thereto,
Then is the body nigh;

The fact once being done,

Then is the serpent's tail

With head and body entered in,
Where he must needs prevail.1

The following is from his Handful of HonisucklesShort and Pithie Prayers Gathered by him :

O Jesu dear, do Thou with me
Even as Thy will shall please;
Sweet Jesu, put me where Thou wilt
To suffer pain or ease.

Jesus, behold, I am but Thine

Be I or good or ill;

Yet by Thy grace I ready am
Thy pleasure to fulfil.

Jesu, I am Thy workmanship!

Most blessed mayst Thou be;
Sweet Jesu, for Thy mercy's sake
Have mercy now on me.2

In England's Helicon, a delightful collection of pastoral verse, published in 1600, is a Christmas Carol by Edward Bolton, a Roman Catholic, a scholar and antiquary of repute, attached to the household of the Duke of Buckingham. It is very melodious, and its

1 Seven Penitential Sobs, by W. Hunnis, etc., 1597: 'Sinne may wel be comparde.'

A Handful of Honisuckles, by William Hunnis, 1597.

Arcadian tone and delicate conceits of language were quite in accordance with the taste of that age:

Sweet music, sweeter far

Than any song is sweet :
Sweet music, heavenly rare,

Mine ears (O peers) doth greet.

Yon gentle flocks, whose fleeces, pearl'd with dew,
Resemble heaven, whom golden drops make bright,—
Listen, O listen, now ;-O not to you

Our pipes make sport to shorten weary night :-
But voices most divine

Make blissful harmony;
Voices that seem to shine,

For what else clears the sky?

Tunes can we hear, but not the singers see;
The tunes divine and so the singers be.

Lo how the firmament

Within an azure fold

The flock of stars hath pent,

That we them might behold!

Yet from their beams proceedeth not this light,
Nor can their crystals such reflection give.
What then doth make the element so bright?
The heavens are come down upon earth to live.
But hearken to the song :

Glory to glory's King,
And peace all men among,
These choristers do sing-

Angels they are, as also, shepherds, He,
Whom, in our fear, we do admire to see.

'Let not amazement blind

Your souls,' said he, 'annoy :

To you and all mankind

My message bringeth joy.'

For, lo! the world's great Shepherd now is born,
A blessed Babe, an infant full of power;
After long night uprisen is the morn
Renowning Bethlehem in the Saviour.
Sprung is the perfect day,
To prophets seen afar;
Sprung is the mirthful May
Which winter cannot mar.

In David's city doth this Sun appear,

Clouded in flesh;-yet, shepherds, sit we here!1

1 England's Helicon: The Shepheard's Song, a Caroll or Himne for Christmas, p. 147: 'Sweet musicke, sweeter farre.'

Samuel Rowlands published, in 1598, a series of poems on the Passion of our Lord. They are not in any way remarkable; but, for the sake of the thought expressed in them, I quote a stanza on the name 'friend,' as addressed to the traitor Judas :

To call thee friend, it doth thus much betoken,
No cause in me hath cancelled love's desire,
But thy revolting hath our friendship broken;
Unaltered I remain the same entire :

If thou, with David, 'I have sinned,' couldst say,
His answer thine—‘Thy sin is done away.'

1

The following verses from his Highway to Mount Calvarie stand on a higher level of merit than most of his poems :

Follow their steps in tears,

And with those women mourn,
But not for Christ; weep for thyself,
And Christ will grace return.

Join thou unto the Cross;
Bear it of love's desire!
Do not as Cyrenæus did,
That took it up for hire.
It is a grateful deed,

If willing underta'en ;
But if temptation set awork,

The labour's done in vain.

The voluntary death

That Christ did die for thee,
Gives life to none but such as joy
Cross-bearing friends to be.

Up to Mount Calvary,

If thou desire to go;

Then take thy cross and follow Christ,
Thou canst not miss it so.

When thou art there arrived,

His glorious wounds to see, Say, but as faithful as the thief, 'O Lord, remember me.' 2

S. Rowlands' Betraying of Christ, etc., 1598; Reprinted for the Hunterian Society, No. xxix.

2 From Mrs. E. Charles' Voice of Christian Life and Song, 1873, p. 312.