1 Description and Praise of his Love Geraldine. From Tuscan' came my lady's worthy race; Hunsdon did first present her to mine een: How no age is content with his own estate, and how the age of children is the happiest, if they had skill to nderstand it. Laid in my quiet bed, In study as I were, I saw within my troubled head, A heap of thoughts appear. And every thought did show So lively in mine eyes, That now I sighed, and then I smiled, As cause of thoughts did rise. I saw the little boy, In thought how oft that he The young man eke that feels The rich old man that sees Whereat full oft I smiled, To see how all these three, From boy to man, from man to boy, Would chop and change degree: And musing thus, I think, The case is very strange, That man from wealth, to live in woe, Doth ever seek to change. Thus thoughtful as I lay, I saw my withered skin, How it doth show my dented thws, The flesh was worn so thin; And eke my toothless chaps, The gates of my right way, That opes and shuts as I do speak, The white and hoarish hairs, The messengers of age, That show, like lines of true belief, Bids thee lay hand, and feel Hang up, therefore, the bit Whereat I sighed, and said, Truss up thy pack, and trudge from me, To every little boy; And tell them thus from me, The Means to attain Happy Life. The fruitful ground, the quiet mind, The equal frend; no grudge, no strife; No charge of rule, nor governance; Without disease, the healthful life; The household of continuance: The mean diet, no delicate fare; True wisedom joined with simpleness; The night discharged of all care; Where wine the wit may not oppress. The faithful wife, without debate; Such sleeps as may beguile the night; Contented with thine own estate, Ne wish for death, ne fear his might. SIR THOMAS WYATT. In amorous poetry, which may be said to have taken its rise in this age, Surrey had a fellow-labourer in SIR THOMAS WYATT (1503-1541), another distinguished figure in the court of Henry VIIL. Wyatt was a man highly educated for his age, a great traveller, and generally accomplished. He died of a fever caught by riding too fast on a hot day from Falmouth, while engaged on a mission to conduct the ambassador of the emperor, Charles V., to court. The songs and sonnets of this author, in praise of his mistress, and expressive of the various feelings he experienced while under the influence of the tender passion, though conceited, are not without refinement, and some share of poetical feeling. The lover's lute cannot be blamed, though it sing Blame not my Lute! for he must sound To give such tunes as pleaseth me; My Lute, alas! doth not offend, Though that per force he must agree To sing to them that heareth me; My Lute and strings may not deny, 1 Blame but thyself that hast misdone, And weil deserved to have blame; Change thou thy way, so evil begone, The Courtier's Life. In court to serve decked with fresh array. And then my Lute shall sound that same ; But if till then my fingers play, By thy desert their wonted way, Blame not my Lute! Farewell! unknown; for though thou break Strings for to string my Lute again: Blame not my Lute. The re-cured Lover exulteth in his Freedom, and voweth to remain free until Death. I am as I am, and so will I be; But how that I am none knoweth truly. I lead my life indifferently; I do not rejoice, nor yet complain, Divers do judge as they do trow, But since judgers do thus decay, Who judgeth well, well God them send; Yet some there be that take delight, Praying you all that this do read, But how that is I leave to you; And from this mind I will not flee, That Pleasure is mixed with every Pain. Venomous thorns that are so sharp and keen Bear flowers, we see, full fresh and fair of hue, Poison is also put in medicine, And unto man his health doth oft renew. The fire that all things eke consumeth clean, May hurt and heal: then if that this be true, I trust some time my harm may be my health, Since every woe is joined with some wealth. Of sugared meats feeling the swect repast, The life in banquets and sundry kinds of play; Amid the press the worldly looks to waste; Hath with it joined oft times such bitter taste, That whoso joys such kind of life to hold, In prison joys, fettered with chains of gold. Of the Mean and Sure Estate. Stand whoso lists upon the slipper' wheel, For grips of death do he too hardly pass THOMAS TUSSER. Amongst the poets dating towards the conclusion of the present period, may be ranked THOMAS TUSSER, author of the first didactic poem in the language. He was born about 1523, of an ancient family; had a good education; and commenced life at court, under the patronage of Lord Paget. Afterwards he practised farming successively at Ratwood in Sussex, Ipswich, Fairsted in Essex, Norwich, and other places; but not succeeding in that walk, he betook himself to other occupations, amongst which were those of a chorister, and, it is said, a fiddler. As might be expected of one so inconstant, he did not prosper in the world, but died poor in London, in 1580. Tusser's poem, entitled a Hondreth Good Points of Husbandrie, which was first published in 1557, is a series of practical directions for farming, expressed in simple and inelegant, but not always dull verse. It was afterwards expanded by other writers, and published under the title of Five Hundreth Points of Good Husbandrie: the last of a considerable number of editions appeared in 1710. [Directions for Cultivating a Hop-Garden.] Whom fancy persuadeth, among other crops, Ground gravelly, sandy, and mixed with clay, [Housewifely Physic.] Good huswife provides, ere a sickness do come, fell far short of those effected in the literature of their southern neighbours. The most eminent of these writers was SIR DAVID LYNDSAY, born about 1490, who, after serving King James V., when that monarch was a boy, as sewer, carver, cup-bearer, purse-master, chief cubicular; in short, everything -bearing him as an infant upon his back, and dancing antics for his amusement as a boy-was appointed to the important office of Lord Lyon King All such with good pot-herbs, should follow the at Arms, and died about the year 1555. He chiefly plough. | Get water of fumitory, liver to cool, And others the like, or else lie like a fool. the shone as a satirical and humorous writer, and his great fault is an entire absence of that spirit of refinement which graced the contemporary literature of England. The principal objects of Lyndsay's vituperations were the clergy, whose habits at this period (just before the Reformation) were such as to afford unusually ample scope for the pen of the satirist. Our poet, also, although a state officer, and long a servant to the king, uses little delicacy in exposing the abuses of the court. His chief poems are placed in the following succession by his editor, Mr George Chalmers: The Dreme, written about 1528; The Complaynt, 1529; The Complaynt of the King's Papingo (Peacock), 1530; The Play (or Satire) of Three Estate 1535; Kitteis Confession, 1541; The History of Squire Meldrum, 1550; The Monarchie, 1553. The three first of these poems are moralisings upon the state and government of the kingdom, during two of its dismal minorities. The Play is an extraordinary performance, a satire upon the whole of the three political orders-monarch, barons, and clergy-full of humour and grossness, and curiously illustrative of the taste of the times. Notwithstanding its satiric pungency, and, what is apt to be now more surprising, notwithstanding the introduction of indecencies not fit to be described, the Satire of the Three Estates was acted in presence of the court, both at Cupar and Edinburgh, the stage being in the open air. Kitteis Confession is a satire on one of the practices of Roman Catholics. By his various burlesques of that party, he is said to have largely contributed to the progress of the Reformation in Scotland. The History of Squire Meldrum is perhaps the most pleasing of all this author's works. It is considered the last poem that in any degree partakes of the character of the metrical romance. Of the dexterity with which Lyndsay could point a satirical remark on an error of state policy, we may judge from the following very brief passage of his Complaynt, which relates to the too early committal of the government to James V. It is given in the original spelling. Imprudently, like witles fules, Thay tuke the young prince from the scules, * Quhilk first devisit that counsell; [A Carman's Account of a Law-suit.] Marry, I lent my gossip my mare, to fetch hame coals, Notwithstanding, I will conclude, And he her drounit into the quarry holes; And I ran to the consistory, for to pleinyie, Of tails I will no more indite, That of side tails can come nae gude, And there I happenit amang ane greedie meinyie.1 And syne I gat-how call ye it ad replicandum; Supplication in Contemption of Side Tails? Sovereign, I mean3 of thir side tails, Richt so ane queen or ane emprice * Ane other fault, Sir, may be seen, Quoth Lindsay, in contempt of the side tails, [The Building of the Tower of Babel, and Confusion of Tongues.] (From the Monarchie.) Should have her tail so side trailand; Their great fortress then did they found, ** For when the weather been maist fair, That till the heaven it should ascend: The translator of Orosius Intil his chronicle writes thus; * And the prideful presumption, * .. 1 Company. those days. Draggle-tails The over-long skirts of the ladies' dresses 8 Complain. • Born. May feel annoyed. ▲ Sent. 2 Scolding. 3 Jest A Praise of his (the Poet's) Lady. The virtue of her lively looks In each of her two crystal eyes It would you all in heart suffice To see that lamp of joy. I think Nature hath lost the mould, Where she her shape did take; Or else I doubt if Nature could So fair a creature make. She may be well compared Unto the phenix kind, Whose like was never seen nor heard, That any man can find. In life she is Diana chaste, In troth Penelope, In word and eke in deed steadfast: What will you more we say? * * Her roseal colour comes and goes More ruddier too than doth the rose, At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet, Ne at no wanton play; Nor gazing in an open street, Nor gadding as a stray. The modest mirth that she doth use Is mix'd with shamefac'dness; O Lord, it is a world to see Whom Nature made so fair! Truly she doth as far exceed The falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love.' Then took I paper, pen, and ink, this proverb for to write, In register for to remain of such a worthy vight. she sat; [Characteristic of an Englishman.] [By Andrew Bourd, physician to Henry VIII. The lines form an inscription under the picture of an Englishman, naked, with a roll of cloth in one hand, and a pair of scissors in the other.] I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here, All new fashions be pleasant to me, |