THE VILLAGE PASTOR. NEAR Yonder copse where once the garden smiled, Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place; By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won. And quite forgot their vices in their woe; Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all: And, as a bird each fond endearment tries, Even children followed, with endearing wile, And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile. Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm; GOLDSMITH. THE PARISH SCHOOLMASTER. BESIDE yon straggling fence that skirts the way, There, in his noisy mansion skilled to rule, And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, GOLDSMITH. PART III.-POETS OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. THE revival of literature and the fine arts has been remarked in every age and country to accompany the development of free institutions, or the struggle for social and political liberty, and at no period has this been more strikingly verified than at that of the English Reformation. Until Spenser arose to enrich the English language with his immortal verse, the genius of poetry had seemed to slumber from the days of Chaucer, and the names that occur among the versifiers in our language during that long and important interval scarcely include one whose productions could establish a claim for their authors to rank among the great poets of England. It was, indeed, a period little calculated to foster literary genius. War does not, indeed, necessarily cramp the national intellect. On the contrary, the period of the highest development in ancient Greece, was that in which the nation was struggling against barbarian invaders; and the era which stands out prominent above all others in the intellectual history of England, is that when she was internally freeing herself from the trammels of Popery, and guarding her coasts against the invasion of Spanish Armadas, and the like furious crusades. These were struggles which brought into play all the noblest and most elevated sympathies of the nation. Patriotism, religion, and the love of liberty, combined to give dignity to every effort for the common weal, and to call into exercise the highest motives to action. This, therefore, was an era when the national intellect might be expected to shine the brightest, and we accordingly find belonging to the period extending from the death of Henry VIII. to the restoration of Charles II, a series of violent struggles for religious and political freedom, accompanied by a display of intellectual vigour and power unmatched in the world's history, save by the one grand era when Grecian art and literature sprung into being to give laws and examples to all time. The accession of Henry VIII. to the throne of England, was the final termination of internal struggles consequent on a disputed succession. His title to the crown was so effectually secured by the union of the two contending lines in his person, that he was left without apprehension of a rival; and thus he became the security to his subjects against any further recurrence of the sanguinary civil wars which had so long desolated the kingdom. That other strife, however, which involved a war of opinions, and a struggle for liberty of conscience, was to find in this very state of things the elements which gave it free scope; and the names of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and the Scottish James, are accordingly the representatives and historical impersonations of the two parties which alternately prevailed, while the liberties of England still hung doubtful in the balance. It was during this eventful era that the poets appeared whose works form the subject of this department of English poetry; and it is of this period that Sir James Mackintosh has remarked: "There never was anywhere |