*

will hardly be found one rough, or inharmonious line whereas the numbers of foufon, Donne, and most of their contemporaries, frequently offend the ear, like the filing of a faw. Perhaps this is in fome measure to be accounted for from the growing pedantry of that age, and from the writers affecting to run their lines into one another, after the manner of the Latin and Greek poets.

The following poem (which the elegant writer above. quoted bath recommended to notice, as poffeffed of a delicacy rarely to be feen in that early flate of our poetry) properly confifts of alexandrines of 12 and 14 fyllables, and is printed from two quarto black-letter collections of Gafgoigne's pieces; the first intitled, "A hundreth fundrie flowres,

bounde up in one fmall pofie, &c. Londen, imprinted for "Richarde Smith" without date, but from a letter of H. W. (p. 202.) compared with the Printer's epift. to the Reader, it appears to have been published in 1572, or 3. The other is intitled, "The Pofies of George Gafcoigne, Efq; "corrected, perfected, and augmented by the author; 1575. "-Printed at Lond. for Richard Smith, c." No year, but the epift. dedicat, is dated 1576.

In the title page of this laft (by way of printer's t, or bookfeller's device) is an ornamental wooden cut, tolerably well executed, wherein Time is reprefented drawing the figure of Truth out of a pit or cavern, with this legend, ŎcCULTA VERITAS TEMPORE PATET [R. S.] This is mentioned because it is not improbable but the accidental fight of this or fome other title page containing the fame device, fuggefted to Rubens that well-known defign of a fimilar kind, which he has introduced into the Luxemburg gallery, and which has been jo justly cenfured for the unnatural manner of its execution. The device abovementioned being not ill adapted to the fubject of this volume, is with fome Small variations copied in a plate, which, to gratify the curiofity of the Reader, is prefixed to Book III.

*The fame is true of most of the poems in the Mirrour of Magistrates, 1563, 4to, and alfo of Surrey's Poems, 1557. LE TEMS DECOUVRE LA VERITE

Henrie Binneman,

IN

No frowning cheere dare once prefume

In hir fweet face to bee.

Although fome lavishe lippes,
Which like fome other beft,

Will fay, the blemislie on hir browe
Difgraceth all the rest.

Thereto I thus replie;

God wotte, they little knowe The hidden caufe of that nifhap, Nor how the harm did growe :

For when dame Nature firft
Had framde hir heavenly face,
And thoroughly bedecked it

With goodly gleames of grace;

10

15

20

5

Gan kindle in his brest,

And herd dame Nature boast by hir

In cradel of hir kind.

The coward Cupide brake hir browe
To wreke his wounded mynd.

The skar still there remains;

*

No force, there let it bee:

There is no cloude that can eclipse

So bright a funne, as fhe.

65

* *The Lady bere celebrated was Catharine, daughter of Edmond fecond Lord Chandos, wife of William Lord Sands. See Collins's Peerage, vol. II. p. 133, ed. 1779.

Ver. 62. In cradel of hir kind: i. e. in the cradle of her family. See Warton's Obfervations, vol. II. p. 137.

VII. FAIR

Moft of the circumftances in this popular ftory of king Henry II. and the beautiful Rofamond have been taken for fact by our English Hiftorians; who, unable to account for the unnatural conduct of queen Eleanor in ftimulating her fons to rebellion, have attributed it to jealoufy and suppo Jed that Henry's amour with Rofamond was the object of that paffion.

Our old English annalists feem, most of them, to have followed Higden the monk of Chester, whofe account, with fome enlargements, is thus given by Stow. "Rofamond the fayre "daughter of Walter lord Clifford, concubine to Henry II. "(poifoned by queen Elianor, as fome thought) dyed at "Woodstocke [A. D. 1177.] where king Henry had made for her a house of wonderfull working; fo that no man or woman might come to her, but he that was instructed "by the king, or fuch as were right fecret with him touching the matter. This house after fome was named Laby"rinthus, or Dedalus worke, which was wrought like un"to a knot in a garden, called a Maze * ; but it was com"monly faid, that laftly the queene came to her by a clue of "thridde, or filke, and fo dealt with her, that he lived "not long after: but when he was dead, he was buried "at Godflow in an houfe of nunnes, befide Oxford, with "these verses upon her tombe:

66

"Hic jacet in tumba, Rofa mundi, non Rofa munda:

"Non redolet, fed olet, quæ redolere folet.

*Confifting of vaults under ground, arched and walled with brick and fione, according to Drayton. See note on bis Epifle of Rofamend.