ENGLISH LITERATURE.

bows,

With an old buttery hatch worn quite off the hooks, With a new fashion, when Christmas is drawing on, And an old kitchen, that maintain'd half a dozen old On a new journey to London straight we all must be cooks;

gone, Like an old courtier, &c.

And leave none to keep house, but our new porter

John, With an old hall, hung about with pikes, guns, and Who relieves the poor with a thump on the back with

a stone; With old swords and bucklers, that had borne many

Like a young courtier, &c. shrewd blows, And an old frieze coat, to cover his worship’s trunk With a new gentleman usher, whose carriage is comhose,

plete, And a cup of old sherry, to comfort his copper nose; With a new coachinan, footinen, and pages to carry Like an old courtier, &c.

up the meat,

With a waiting gentlewoman, whose dressing is very With a good old fashion, when Christmas was come,

neat, To call in all his old neighbours with bagpipe and

| Who, when her lady has dined, lets the servants not drum,

eat ; With good cheer enough to furnish every old room,

Like a young courtier, &c. And old liquor able to make a cat speak, and man dumb;

With new titles of honour, bought with his father's Like an old courtier, &c.

old gold,

For which sundry of his ancestors' old manors are sold; With an old falconer, huntsmen, and a kennel of And this is the course most of our new gallants hold, hounds,

Which makes that good housekeeping is now grown so That never bawk'd, nor hunted, but in his own

cold grounds ;

Among the young courtiers of the king, Who, like a wise man, kept himself within his own

Or the king's young courtiers. bounds, And when he died, gave every child a thousand good

Time's Alteration. pounds; Like an old courtier, &c.

When this old cap was new, But to his eldest son his house and lands he assign'd,

'Tis since two hundred year;

No malice then we knew, Charging him in his will to keep the old bountiful

But all things plenty were : mind, To be good to his old tenants, and to his neighbours

All friendship now decays

(Believe me this is true); be kind :

Which was not in those days,
But in the ensuing ditty you shall hear how he was
inclined;

When this old cap was new.
Like a young courtier of the king's,

The nobles of our land,
And the king's young courtier.

Were much delighted then,
Like a flourishing young gallant, newly come to his

To have at their command land,

A crew of lusty men, Who keeps a brace of painted madams at his com

Which by their coats were known, mand,

Of tawny, red, or blue,

With crests on their sleeves shown, And takes up a thousand pounds upon his father's land,

When this old cap was new. And gets drunk in a tavern till he can neither go nor Now pride hath banish'd all, stand :

Unto our land's reproach,
Like a young courtier, &c.

When he whose means is small,

Maintains both horse and coach: With a newfangled lady, that is dainty, nice, and

Instead of a hundred men, spare,

The coach allows but two; Who never knew what belong’d to good housekeeping

This was not thought on then, or care,

When this old cap was new. Who buys gaudy-colourd fans to play with wanton air,

Good hospitality
And seven or eight different dressings of other women's Was cherish'd then of inany;
hair :

Now poor men starve and die,
Like a young courtier, &c.

And are not help'd by any :

For charity waxeth cold, With a new-fashion'd hall, built where the old one

And love is found in few; stood,

This was not in time of old, Hung round with new pictures that do the poor no When this old cap was new. With a fine marble chimney, wherein burns neither

Where'er you travelled then, coal nor wood,

You might meet on the way And a new smooth shovel board, whereon no victuals

Brave knights and gentlemen, ne'er stood :

Clad in their country grey ;
Like a young courtier, &c.

That courteous would appear,

And kindly welcome you ;
With a new study, stuff?d full of pamphlets and plays, No puritans then were,
And a new chaplain, that swears faster than he prays, When this old cap was new.
With a new buttery hatch, that opens once in four or
five days,

Our ladies in those days
And a new French cook, to devise fine kicksbaws and

In civil habit went ; toys :

Broad cloth was then worth praise,
Like a young courtier, &c.

And gave the best content :

good,

French fashions then were scorn'd;

That which the world miscalls a jail, Fond fangles then none knew;

A private closet is to me : Then modesty women adorn'd,

Whilst a good conscience is my bail, When this old cap was new.

And innocence my liberty:

Locks, bars, and solitude, together met,
A man might then behold,

Make me no prisoner, but an anchoret.
At Christmas, in each hall,
Good fires to curb the cold,

I, whilst I wish'd to be retired,
And meat for great and small :

Into this private room was turned ;

As if their wisdoms had conspir'd
The neighbours were friendly bidden,
And all had welcome true;

The salamander should be burned ;
The poor from the gates were not chidden,

Or like those sophists, that would drown á fish, When this old cap was new.

I am constrain'd to suffer what I wish. Black jacks to every man

The cynic loves his poverty, Were fill’d with wine and beer ;

The pelican her wilderness,

And 'tis the Indian's pride to be
No pewter pot nor can
In those days did appear :

Naked on frozen Caucasus :
Good cheer in a nobleman's house

Contentment cannot smart, stoics we see Was counted a seemly show;

Make torments easy to their apathy. We wanted no brawn nor souse,

These manacles upon my arm When this old cap was new.

I, as my mistress' favours, wear;

And for to keep my ankles warm, We took not such delight

I have some iron shackles there : In cups of silver fine ;

These walls are but my garrison ; this cell, None under the degree of a knight

Which men call jail, doth prove my citadel. In plate drank beer or wine :

I'm in the cabinet lock’d. up
Now each mechanical man
Hath a cupboard of plate for a show;

Like some high-prized margarite ;
Which was a rare thing then,

Or like the great Mogul or Pope, When this old cap was new.

Am cloister'd up from public sight:

Retiredness is a piece of majesty, Then bribery was unborn,

And thus, proud sultan, I'm as great as thee. No simony men did use;

Here sin for want of food must starve, Christians did usury scorn,

Where tempting objects are not seen ; Devis'd among the Jews.

And these strong walls do only serve The lawyers to be fee'd

To keep vice out, and keep me in : At that time hardly knew;

Malice of late 's grown charitable sure ; For man with man agreed,

I'm not committed, but am kept secure. When this old cap was new.

So he that struck at Jason's life, No captain then caroused,

Thinking thave made his purpose gure, Nor spent poor soldier's pay ;

By a malicious friendly knife They were not so abused

Did only wound him to a cure : As they are at this day :

Malice, I gee, wants wit; for what is meant Of seven days they make eight,

Mischief, ofttiines proves favour by th' event. To keep from them their due ; Poor soldiers had their right,

When once my prince affliction hath, When this old cap was new :

Prosperity doth treason seem ;

And to make smooth so rough a path, Which made them forward still

I can learn patience from him : To go, although not prest;

Now not to suffer shows no loyal heartAnd going with good will,

When kings want ease, subjects must bear a part. Their fortunes were the best.

What though I cannot see my king, Our English then in fight

Neither in person, or in coin; Did foreign foes subdue,

Yet contemplation is a thing And forced them all to flight,

That renders what I have not, mine: When this old cap was new.

My king from me what adamant can part,
God save our gracious king,

Whom I do wear engraven on my heart.
And send him long to live:

Have you not seen the nightingale
Lord, mischief on them bring

A prisoner like, coop'd in a cage,
That will not their alms give,

How doth she chant her wonted tale,
But seek to rob the poor

In that her narrow hermitage ! Of that which is their due :

Even then her charming melody doth prove This was not in time of yore,

That all her bars are trees, her cage a grove. When this old cap was new.

I am that bird whom they coinbine

Thus to deprive of liberty;
Loyalty Confined.

But though they do my corpse confine,

Yet, maugre hate, my soul is free : [Supposed to have been written by Sir Roger L'Estrange, And, though immur'd, yet can I chirp and sing while in confinement on account of his adherence to Charles I.) | Disgrace to rebels, glory to my king. Beat on, proud billows ; Boreas, blow;

My soul is free as ambient air,
Swell, curl'd waves, high as Jove's roof;

Although my baser part's immew'd; Your incivility doth show

Whilst loyal thoughts do still repair
That innocence is tempest-proof;

T'accompany my solitude ;
Though surly Nereus frown, my thoughts are calm ; | Although rebellion do my body bind,
Then strike, affliction, for thy wounds are balm. | My king alone can captivate my mind.

This production was never finished, and, not having PROSE WRITERS.

been intended for the press, appeared only after the

author's death. His next work was a tract, entitled HE prose writers of this | The Defence of Poesy, where he has repelled the ubage rank chiefly in the Ljections brought by the Puritans of his age against departments of theology, the poetic art, the professors of which they contemppbilosophy, and historical tuously denominated caterpillars of the commonand antiquarian informa- wealth.' This production, though written with the tion. There was, as yet, partiality of a poet, has been deservedly admired for hardly any vestige of the beauty of its style and general soundness of its prose employed with taste reasoning. In 1584, the character of his uncle, the in fiction, or even in ob-celebrated Earl of Leicester, having been attacked servations upon manners; in a publication called Leicester's Commonwealth, though it must be ob- Sidney wrote a reply, in which, although the heaviest served, that in Elizabeth's accusations were passed over in silence, he did not reign appeared the once scruple to address his opponent in such terms as the popular romance of Ar- following:- But to thee I say, thou therein liest in cadia, by Sir Philip Sid- thy throat, which I will be ready to justify upon

ney; and there lived un- | thee in any place of Europe, where thou wilt assign der the two succeeding monarchs several acute and me a free place of coming, as within three months humorous describers of human character.

after the publishing hereof I may understand thy mind.' This performance seems to have proved un

satisfactory to Leicester and his friends, as it was not SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

printed till near the middle of the eighteenth cen. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY was born, in 1554, at Penshurst, tury. Desirous of active employment, Sidney next in Kent; and during his studies at Shrewsbury, Ox contemplated an expedition, with Sir Francis Drake,

against the Spanish settlements in America; but this intention was frustrated by a peremptory mandate from the queen. In 1585, it is said, he was named one of the candidates for the crown of Poland, at that time vacant; on which occasion Elizabeth again threw obstacles in the way, being afraid to lose the jewel of her times.' He was not, however, long permitted to remain unemployed; for, in the same year, Elizabeth having determined to send military assistance to the Protestant inhabitants of the Netherlands, then groaning beneath the oppressive measures of the Spaniards, he was appointed governor of Flushing, one of the towns ceded to the English in return for this aid. Soon afterwards, the Earl of Leicester, with an army of six thousand men, went over to the Netherlands, where he was joined by Sir Philip, as general of the horse. The conduct of the earl in this war was highly imprudent, and such as to call forth repeated expressions of dissatisfaction from his nephew Philip. The military exploits of the latter were highly honourable to him; in particular, he succeeded in taking the town of Axel in 1586. His career, however, was destined to be short; for having, in September of the same year, accidentally encountered a detachment of the Spanish army at Zutphen, he received a wound, which in a few weeks proved mortal. As he was carried from the field, a well-known incident occurred, by which the generosity of his nature was strongly displayed. Being overcome with thirst from excessive bleeding and fatigue, he called for water, which was accord

ingly brought to him. At the moment he was lifting Lihhe

rily

it to his mouth, a poor soldier was carried by, des. perately wounded, who fixed his eyes eagerly on the cup. Sidney, observing this, instantly delivered the

beverage to him, saying, “Thy necessity is yet greater ford, and Cambridge, displayed remarkable acuteness than mine.' His death, which took place on the of intellect and craving for knowledge. After spending 19th of October 1586, at the early age of thirty-two, three years on the continent, he returned to Èngland was deeply and extensively lamented, both at home in 1575, and became one of the brightest ornaments of and abroad. His bravery and chivalrous magnathe court of Elizabeth, in whose favour he stood very nimity_his grace and polish of manner-the purity high. In the year 1580, his mind having been of his morals—his learning and refinement of taste ruffled in a quarrel with the Earl of Oxford, he retired —had procured for him love and esteem wherever in search of tranquillity to the seat of his brother he was known. By the direction of Elizabeth, his in-law, the Earl of Pembroke, at Wilton, and there remains were conveyed to London, and honoured occasionally employed himself in composing the work with a public funeral in the cathedral of St Paul's. above-mentioned, a heroic romance, to which, as it Of the poetry of Sir Philip Sidney we have spoken was written chiefly for his sister's amusement, he in a former page. It is almost exclusively as a gave the title of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. I prose writer that he deserves to be prominently mene

tioned in a history of English Literature, and in 'Mr Molyneux-Few words are best. My letters judging of his merits, we ought to bear in mind the to my father have come to the eyes of some. Neither early age at which he was cut off. His ‘Arcadia,' on can I condemn any but you for it. If it be so, you which the chief portion of his fame undoubtedly have played the very knave with me ; and so I will rests, was so universally read and admired in the make you know, if I have good proof of it. But that reigns of Elizabeth and her successor, that, in 1633, for so much as is past. For that is to come, I assure it had reached an eighth edition. Subsequently, you before God, that if ever I know you do so much however, it fell into comparative neglect, in which, as read any letter I write to my father, without his during the last century, the contemptuous terms in commandment, or my consent, I will thrust my dag. which it was spoken of by Horace Walpole contri- ger into you. And trust to it, for I speak it in earnest. buted not a little to keep it. By that writer it is cha- In the mean time, farewell.' racterised as 'a tedious, lamentable, pedantic, pastoral Of the following extracts, three are from Sidney's romance, which the patience of a young virgin in Arcadia.' and the fourth from his • Defence of Poesy.' love cannot now wade through.' And the judgment more recently pronounced by Dr Drake,* and Mr Hazlitt,f is almost equally unfavourable. On the

[A Tempest.) other hand, Sidney has found a fervent admirer in There arose even with the sun a veil of dark clouds another modern writer, who highly extols the before his face, which shortly, like ink poured into *Arcadia' in the second volume of the Retrospective water, had blacked over all the face of heaven, preReview. A middle course is steered by Dr Zouch, paring, as it were, a mournful stage for a tragedy who, in his memoirs of Sidney, published in 1808, to be played on. For, forthwith the winds began while he admits that changes in taste, manners, and to speak louder, and, as in a tumultuous kingdom, to opinions, have rendered the · Arcadia' unsuitable to think themselves fittest instruments of commandmodern readers, maintains that there are passages in ment; and blowing whole storms of hail and rain this work exquisitely beautiful-useful observations upon them, they were sooner in danger than they on life and manners-a variety and accurate discri- could almost bethink themselves of change. For then mination of characters-fine sentiments, expressed in the traitorous sea began to swell in pride against the strong and adequate terms-animated descriptions, afflicted navy, under which, while the heaven favoured equal to any that occur in the ancient or modern them, it had lain so calmly; making mountains of poets-sage lessons of morality, and judicious reflec- | itself, over which the tossed and tottering ship should tions on government and policy. A reader,' he con- climb, to be straight carried down again to a pit of tinues, who takes up the volume, may be compared hellish darkness, with such cruel blows against the to a traveller who has a long and dreary road to sides of the ship, that, which way soever it went, was pass. The objects that successively meet his eye still in his malice, that there was left neither power to may not in general be very pleasing, but occa- stay nor way to escape. And shortly had it so dissionally he is charmed with a more beautiful pro- severed the loving company, which the day before had spect--with the verdure of a rich valley--with a tarried together, that most of them never met again, meadow enamelled with flowers--with a murmur of but were swallowed up in his never-satisfied mouth. a rivulet—the swelling grove-the hanging rockthe splendid villa. These charming objects abun

[Description of Arcadia.] dantly compensate for the joyless regions he has traversed. They fill him with delight, exhilarate his

There were hills which garnished their proud drooping spirits--and at the decline of day, he reposes

heights with stately trees; humble valleys, whose base with complacency and satisfaction. This represen

estate seemed comforted with the refreshing of silver tation we are inclined to regard as doing at least

rivers ; meadows, enamelled with all sorts of eyeample justice to the Arcadia,' the former high popu

pleasing flowers ; thickets, which being lined with larity of which is, doubtless, in some degree attri

most pleasant shade, were witnessed so to, by the butable to the personal fame of its author, and to the

cheerful disposition of many well-tuned birds ; each scarcity of works of fiction in the days of Elizabeth. pasture stored with sheep, feeding with sober security; But to whatever causes the admiration with which

while the pretty lambs, with bleating oratory, craved it was received may be ascribed, there can hardly,

the dam's comfort; here & shepherd's boy piping, as We think, be a question, that a work so extensively

though he should never be old ; there a young shep

herdess knitting, and withal singing; and it seemned perused must have contributed not a little to fix the English tongue, and to form that vigorous and ima

that her voice comforted her hands to work, and her ginative style which characterises the literature of

7 hands kept time to her voice-music. the beginning and middle of the seventeenth century. Notwithstanding the occasional over-inflation and

[A Stag Hunt.] pedantry of his style, Sidney may justly be regarded

Then went they together abroad, the good Kalander is the best prose writer of his time. He was, in truth, what Cowper felicitously calls him, a warbler

entertaining them with pleasant discoursing-how of poetic prose.

well he loved the sport of hunting when he was a In his personal character, Sidney, like most men

young man, how much in the comparison thereof he of high sensibility and poetical feeling, showed a

disdained all chamber-delights, that the sun (how disposition to melancholy and solitude. His chief

great a journey soever he had to make) could never

prevent him with earliness, nor the moon, with her fault seems to have been impetuosity of temper, an illustration of which has already been quoted from his

sober countenance, dissuade him from watching till

midnight for the deers feeding. O, said he, you will reply to Leicester's Commonwealth.' The same trait

never live to my age, without you keep yourself in appears in the following letter (containing what

breath with exercise, and in heart with joyfulness; proved to be a groundless accusation), which he wrote in 1578 to the secretary of his father, then

too much thinking doth consume the spirits; and oft

it falls out, that, while one thinks too much of his lord deputy of Ireland.

doing, he leaves to do the effect of his thinking. Then

spared he not to remember, how much Arcadia was * Exsays Illustrative of the Tatler, Spectator, &c., il. 9.

changed since his youth ; activity and good fellowlectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Eliza- ship being nothing in the price it was then held in; beth, p. 202

| but, according to the nature of the old-growing world,