Chapter XVI (3)

"Of his royal mind,
Thought to do a thing
That pertaineth to a king--
To make up one of nought,
And made to him be brought
A wretched poor man,
With his living wan,
With planting leeks,
By the days and by the weeks;
And of this poor vassal
He made a king royal!"

We cannot afford space for the wild riot of Skelton's description of old Eleanor Rumming--

Droupy and drowsy,
Scurvy and lousy,
Her face all bowsy;
Comely crinkled,
Wonderfully wrinkled,
Like roast pig's ear,
Bristled with hair.

But Skelton has shown that he could praise in strains not unworthy the fair and noble, and buoyant with music of their own. Such is his canzonet to

MISTRESS MARGARET HUSSEY.

Merry Margaret
As midsummer flower,
Gentle as falcon,
Or hawk of the tower.
With solace and gladness,
Mirth and no madness,
All good and no badness:
So joyously,
So maidenly,
So womanly,
Her demeanour
In everything
Far, far passing
That I can indite,
Or suffice to write
Of Merry Margaret,
As midsummer flower,
Gentle as falcon,
Or hawk of the tower, etc.

A far more grave and not less vengeful satirist of Wolsey and the clergy was William Roy, the coadjutor of Tyndale in the translation of the Bible. He was originally a friar, but joining the Reformers, he wrote a poem against Wolsey, who had ordered the burning of Tyndale's New Testament. It is called--

"Rede me, and be not wrothe,
For I saye no thynge but trothe."

In this work he placed on the title a coat of arms for Wolsey in black and crimson, with a description in verse at the back of the title, of which the following stanza, alluding to the deaths of the Duke of Buckingham (the swan) and the Duke of Norfolk (the white lion), may serve as a specimen:--

"Of the proude Cardinall this is the shelde,
Borne up betweene two angels of Sathan.
The sixe bloody axes in a bare felde
Sheweth the cruelty of the red man,
Which hath devoured the beautiful swan,
Mortal enemy of the white lion,
Carter of York, the vile butcher's sonne."

The burning of Tyndale's New Testament is denounced by Roy in many verses of the bitterest feeling, every stanza repeating his indignation at the unhallowed deed:--

"O miserable monster, most malicious
Father of perversitie, patron of hell!
O terrible tyrant, to God and man odious,
Advocate of antichrist, to Christ rebell;
To thee I speak, O caytife cardinall so cruell,
Causeles chargynge by thy coursed commandment
To burne Godde's worde, the wholly Testament."

Besides these satirists there was John Heywood, in the time of Henry VIII., Edward, and Mary, who wrote "Six Centuries of Epigrams," of a pious nature, a considerable number of plays, and an allegory called "The Spider and the Fly." Of course, he was a favourite with Henry and Mary, and is said to have been more amusing in his conversation than in his books. Heywood has the honour commonly assigned him of being the first author of interludes; the stepping-stones from the old mysteries and moralities to the regular drama. With the Church passed away these grotesque performances called religious; and the drama quickly expanded in all its fair proportions before the eyes of the public. Shakespeare arose, and the dates of the appearance of his plays show us that they were many of them produced before 1603, the close of the reign of Elizabeth. In fact, Shakespeare seems to have retired from the stage in the very year of Elizabeth's death. Before him, however, a number of dramatic writers had appeared; but the greater part of them overlived the termination of Elizabeth's reign, or their works began after that period to take their due rank. Of these dramatic writers some may be noted in passing. Heywood had been preceded by Skelton in the line of interlude, whose strange "Nigromansia" was printed by Wynkyn de Worde as early as 1505. Heywood wrote various interludes, but his chief one was the "4 P's," namely, a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Poticary, and a Pedlar. On the heels of this appeared the first regular comedy, "Gammer Gurton's Needle," written by John Hill, and printed in 1551. Ten years after was acted the first English tragedy, "Gorboduc," written by Thomas Norton and the celebrated poet Thomas Sackville, afterwards Lord Buckhurst and Earl of Dorset. Passing over the "Damon and Pythias" of Richard Edwards, the "Promos and Cassandra" of George Whetstone, which, borrowed from an Italian novel, contains the rude outline of Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure," we come to Robert Greene, who with Kyd, Lyly, Peele, Nash author of "Queen Dido," and Marlowe, constituted a remarkable constellation of genius. Greene's chief plays are "Friar Bacon and the Friar of Bungay," and "A Looking Glasse for London," written in conjunction with his friend Thomas Lodge. He also wrote much poetry. The principal dramas of George Peele are "David and Bethsabe, with the Tragedy of Absolon," written in 1579, which is a real mystery play, and "The Famous Chronicle of Edward I.," "The Old Wives' Tales, a Comedy," &c. Lyly, the Euphuist, wrote nine plays, amongst them "Alexander and Campaspe," "Sappho and Phaon," "Midos," "Gallathea," etc. Lyly was fond of Greek subjects, but he could also enjoy English comedy, as in "Mother Bombie," and others, which are regular comedies, divided into acts and scenes, and interspersed with agreeable songs.

Contemporary with the preceding, as well as with Shakespeare, Marlowe (_b._ 1564, _d._ 1593) is the greatest name which precedes that of the supreme dramatist. We can do no more here than name some of his chief tragedies, for Marlowe was essentially a tragedian. These were "Tamburlaine the Great," in two parts, "The Massacre of Paris," "Edward II.," including the fall of Mortimer and Gaveston, "Doctor Faustus," "The Rich Jew of Malta," and "Lust's Dominion; or, the Lascivious Queen." Marlowe was, moreover, a beautiful lyrical poet, as is evident by his charming madrigal "Come live with me and be my love," given in Walton's "Angler." Greene, Peele, Marlowe, Nash, and that whole company were dissipated in their lives, and lived and died in deep poverty. To these we must add, as dramatic poets of this era whom it is essential to a continuous view of the progress of the drama to mention with the rest, Decker; Kyd, author of "Jeronimo" and the "Spanish Tragedy;" Lodge, author of "The Wounds of Civil War," &c.; Gascoine; Chapman, also the celebrated author of the translation of Homer; Jasper Heywood, son of John Heywood; Weston, Marston, &c. So much was the drama now advanced in estimation, that even Elizabeth's Lord Chancellor, Hatton, was in part author of the tragedy of "Tancred and Sigismunda," founded on the story of Boccaccio.

Amongst the lyrical poets, the reign of Henry VIII. presents us with a remarkable trio, who were associated as well by their genius as their position and fate. These were Sir Thomas Wyatt, the early lover of Anne Boleyn, her brother, George Boleyn, afterwards the unfortunate Earl of Rochford, and the equally unfortunate Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the last victim of the sanguinary Henry VIII. Surrey was the cousin-german of the Boleyns, Wyatt was their early neighbour and playfellow; together they all figured amongst the most accomplished courtiers: two of them lost their heads, the third only narrowly escaping; and their poetry was printed together in one volume.

Sir Thomas Wyatt (_b._ 1503, _d._ 1542, and called the Elder, to distinguish him from his son, who was executed for rebellion in the reign of Queen Mary) was one of the most illustrious men of the Court of Henry VIII. His country-house was Allington Castle, in Kent, and its vicinity to the residence of the Boleyns made him a youthful companion of Anne and her brother and sister. He became attached to Anne, but was obliged to give way to the king, of whose wrath he was in some danger. After that he was long employed abroad in embassies to France, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands. Incurring the king's displeasure for aiding Cromwell in the promotion of the marriage with Anne of Cleves, he prudently withdrew from Court to his castle in Kent. He had never ceased writing poetry even when engaged in his diplomatic missions, and he now more than ever cultivated the muses. His amatory verses are polished and elegant, but his satires display more vigour, and are remarkable as containing the earliest English version of "The Town and Country Mouse." Besides his poems he has left letters, in which he not only gives us many insights into the state of the Courts where he resided, but various particulars regarding the fate of Anne Boleyn, and some addressed to his son, which place him in a most favourable light as a man and a father. His prose has been greatly admired. A short lyric, which we may give, addressed to Anne Boleyn, when her creation of Marchioness of Pembroke warned him that he saw in her the future queen, clearly informs us that he had been her accepted lover:--

"Forget not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant;
My great travail so gladly spent,
Forget not yet.

"Forget not yet when first began
The weary life ye know; since when
The suit, the service none tell can,
Forget not yet.

"Forget not yet the great assays,
The cruel wrongs, the scornful ways,
The painful patience and delays,
Forget not yet.

"Forget not, O! forget not this,
How long ago had been and is
The love that never meant amiss,
Forget not yet.

"Forget not now thine own approved,
The which so constant hath thee loved,
Whose steadfast faith hath never moved,
Forget not yet."

His friend George Boleyn was, perhaps, a more spirited poet than himself, and is said to have sung the night before his execution (May 17, 1536) a lyric which had been printed some time, along with the poems of Wyatt, called, "Farewell, my lute," the refrain of which was too strikingly applicable to his situation:--

"Farewell, my lute, this is the last
Labour that thou and I shall waste,
For ended is that we began;
Now is the song both sung and passed;
My lute, be still, for I have done."

But the most famous of these was the Earl of Surrey (_b._ 1516, _d._ 1547). Like Wyatt, he had travelled in Italy, and formed a high admiration of the great Italian poets, Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, on whose model he formed his taste. Like his ancestor, the conqueror of Flodden, he was brave and high-spirited but seems to have had a facility for getting into scrapes, both with his own family and the Government. As a gay courtier, however, he was much admired by the ladies, and still more by people of taste for his poems, which went through four editions in two months, and through seven more in the thirty years after their appearance. They are supposed to have strongly influenced the taste of Spenser and Milton. The theme of his lyrics was the fair Geraldine, but who she was precisely neither critics nor historians have quite determined, though believed to be a lady of the Irish family of Fitzgerald. A single stanza will indicate the spirit with which he proclaimed her beauty:--

"Give place, ye lovers, here before
That spent your boasts and brags in vain!
My lady's beauty passeth more
The best of yours, I dare well say'n,
Than doth the sun the candle-light,
Or brightest day the darkest night."

But the most important fact in Surrey's poetical history is his introduction of blank verse into the English language, a simple but, in its consequences, most eventful innovation, liberating both the heroic and the dramatic muse from the shackles of rhyme, and leading the way to the magnificent works of Shakespeare and Milton in that free form. There has been much dispute among critics as to whether Surrey invented blank verse, or merely copied it from some other language; but the only wonder seems that some one of our poets had not attempted it before. What so likely as that Surrey, in translating the first and fourth books of the "Æneid," should adopt the blank verse in which the original was written, not exactly the hexameter but a measure more suitable to the English language? All the verse of the ancient Greeks and Romans is of this blank species; and it is extraordinary that men well read in these tongues had so long omitted the experiment; especially as the Italians, the French, and the Spaniards had tried it. Gonsalvo Perez, secretary to Charles V., had translated Homer's "Odyssey" into blank verse; and in 1528 Trissino, in order to root out the _terza rima_ of Dante, had published his "Italia Liberata di Goti"--"Italy delivered from the Goths"--in blank verse. In the reign of Francis I. two of the most popular poets of France, Jodelle and De Baif, wrote poems in this style. Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, had already translated the "Æneid' into Scots metre, and it would seem as if Surrey, in trying his hand on two books of the same poem, had been induced to make the essay of blank verse at the same time. Whatever was the immediate cause, nothing could exceed the success of Surrey's experiment. His verse flows with a stately dignity full of music and strength. We take a specimen from the fourth book of the "Æneid," where Dido, who has vowed never to marry again, perceives her new passion for Æneas, and discloses her pain to her sister:--

"Ne to her lymmes care graunteth quiet rest.
The next morrowe with Phoebus' lampe the erthe
Alightened clere, and eke the dawning daye,
The shadowe danke gan from the pole remove,
When all unsownd her sister of like minde,
Thus spoke she to: 'O sister An, what dremes
Be these that me tormenten, thus afraide?
What newcome gest unto our realm ys come?
What one of chere? How stowt of harte in arms?
Truelie I think, ne vaine ys my beliefe,
Of goddishe race some of springe should he seeme.
Cowardie noteth harts swarved owt of kinde
He driven, lord, with how hard destinie!
What battells eke atchieved did he tell!
And but my minde was fixt immovablie
Never with wight in wedlocke for to joine,
Sithe my first love me lefte by deth disseverid,
Yf bridal bowndes and bed me lothed not,
To this one fawlt perchaunce yeet might I yeld;
For I will graunt sith wretched Syche's dethe,
My spouse and hawse with brother slaughter stained,
This onley man hath made my senses bend,
And pricketh forthe the minde that gan to slide:
Feelinglie I taste the steppes of mine old flame.
But first I wishe the erth me swallow downe,
Or with thunder the mighty Lord me send
To the pale gostes of hell and darkness depe,
Or I thee stayne shamefastness, or the lawes.'"

If we turn to Sackville's "Gorboduc," acted before Queen Elizabeth in 1561, we shall see how thoroughly blank verse had asserted its freedom of the language. Even Greene, in his "Friar Bacon," in 1594, has passages that in their rich and harmonious diction display the wonderful power of blank verse. The true vehicle for the deathless dramas of Shakespeare was established, and already he had taken possession of it with some of his noblest imaginings, for Nash, as early as 1589, alludes to "Hamlet."

But before coming to Shakespeare, we must add another word regarding Sackville (_b._ 1527, _d._ 1608). In 1559 he published "The Mirrour for Magistrates." The poetical preface to this work, which he called "The Induction," and the "Complaint of Henry, Duke of Buckingham," displayed the most remarkable powers of poetry, and at once arrested the public attention. The work itself was a mere series of the lives of personages prominent in English history; it is supposed to be an imitation of Lydgate's "Fall of Princes," but is expanded by the loftier genius of the author, while the induction is so illustrated by allegory, as to give rise to the belief that Spenser was indebted to him.

Edmund Spenser, the greatest of our allegoric poets, was born (1553) in East Smithfield, in London, and was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. He had the good fortune to secure the friendship of the all-powerful Earl of Leicester, of Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh. By their introduction to Queen Elizabeth, he obtained an annuity of £50 a year; and besides being employed by Leicester on a mission to France, went to Ireland in 1580 with Lord Grey de Wilton. We have already mentioned his "View of the State of Ireland," and for that able work, as well as for other services, he received a grant of the abbey and manor of Enniscorthy in Wexford, which the same year, probably under pressure of necessity, he transferred to a Mr. Lynot. The estate, at the time of Gilbert's survey of Ireland, was worth £8,000 a year. Afterwards Spenser obtained the grant of the castle of Kilcolman, in the county of Cork, part of the estate of the unfortunate Earl of Desmond, with 3,000 acres of land. On this property the poet went to live, and his dear friend Sir Philip Sidney being just then killed at the battle of Zutphen, he wrote his pastoral elegy of "Astrophel" in his honour. He also wrote his great work the "Faerie Queene" there; but in 1597 he was chased by the exasperated Irish from his castle, which was burned over his head, his youngest child perishing in the cradle. He reached London, with his wife and two boys and a girl, and thus broken down by his misfortunes, he sank and died in 1599 at an inn or lodging-house in King Street, Westminster. Ben Jonson says "he died for lake of bread, yet refused twenty pieces sent to him by my Lord of Essex, adding he was sorry he had not time to spend them."

It has been asked how he could die of "lack of bread" with an annuity of £50 a year. The thing is very possible. Burleigh was his life-long enemy. He hated him as the commonplace soul instinctively hates the man of genius, and this hatred was aggravated by his being patronised by Leicester, Essex, and Raleigh, all men whom Burleigh detested. Nothing was, therefore, easier than for Burleigh to withhold the dying poet's pension, or his son Robert Cecil, who now possessed his power, for Burleigh was in his last days, and Cecil inherited all his meanness. Spenser has recorded the malice of Burleigh in various places. In his "Ruins of Time" he says:--

"The rugged foremost that with grave foresight
Wields kingdoms' causes and affairs of state,
My looser verse, I wot, doth sharply wite
For praising love."

And at the close of the sixth book of "The Faerie Queene," he declares there is no hope of escaping "his venomous despite." Spenser's verses in "Mother Hubbard's Tales," describing the miseries of Court dependence, have often been quoted:--

"Full little knowest thou that hast not tryed
What hell it is in suing long to byde;
To lose good days that might be better spent;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;
To have thy prince's grace, yet want her peeres';
To have thy asking, yet wait many years;
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
To eat thy heart with comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone."

The minor poems of Spenser beside the "Astrophel," are the "Epithalamium" on his own marriage; four "Hymns to Love and Beauty;" "Sonnets;" "Colin Clout come Home again;" "The Tears of the Muses;" "Mother Hubbard's Tales," which refer to Court characters of the time; "The Ruins of Time;" "Petrarch's Visions," "Bellaye's Visions," &c. In all these there is much beauty and fancy, mingled with much that is far-fetched and fantastic--the inevitable fault of that age. The "Faerie Queene" rises above them all as the cathedral over the lesser churches of a great city. It was written in a stanza which from him has ever since been called the Spenserian, a stanza so capable of every grace, strength, and harmony, that there are few poets who have not essayed it: Thomson's "Castle of Indolence," Beattie's "Minstrel," Mrs. Tighe's "Psyche," Campbell's "Gertrude of Wyoming," and Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," have made it the vehicle of many immortal thoughts.

To the modern reader, nevertheless, the "Faerie Queene" would prove a tedious task in a continuous perusal. It is of a fashion and taste so entirely belonging to the age in which it was written--that of courtly tourneys, of parade of knighthood, at least in books, and of fondness of high-flown allegory--that it unavoidably strikes a reader of this more realistic age as visionary, formal in manner, and descriptive not of actual human life, but of an impossible style of existence. It is dedicated to Queen Elizabeth as "The Most High, Mightie, and Magnificent Empresse," and in a letter to Sir Walter Raleigh he explains its plan. Following the example of Ariosto in his "Orlando," he endeavours to exalt worthy knighthood by portraying Prince Arthur before he was king, under the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve private moral virtues, as Aristotle hath devised, in which is the purpose of these first twelve books. From the arguments of "Despair" to the "Red-Crosse Knight," we may take a specimen of the "Faerie Queene:"

"'Who travailes by the wearie, wandering way,
To come unto his wished home in haste,
And meets a flood that doth his passage stay,
Is not great grace to help him over past,
Or free his feet that in the myre sticke fast?
Most envious man that grieves at neighbour's good,
And fond, that joyest in the woe thou hast,
Why wilt not let him passe, that long hath stood
Upon the bancke, yet wilt thyselfe not pas the flood?

"'He there does now enjoy eternall rest,
And happy ease, which thou dost want and crave,
And further from it daily wanderest:
What if some little payne the passage have,
That makes frayle flesh to feare the bitter wave?
Is that not payne well borne, that bringes long ease,
And lays the soul to sleepe in quiet grave?
Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, deathe after life, does greatly please.'

"The knight much wondered at his suddeine wit,
And sayst, 'The terme of life is limited,
Ne may a man prolong, nor shorten it;
The soldier may not move from watchful steed,
Nor leave his stand, until his captaine bid.'
'Who life did limit by Almightie doome,'
Quoth he, 'knows best the terms established;
And he that points the centenel his roome,
Doth license his depart at sound of morning droome.

"'Is not his deed, whatever thing is done,
In heaven and earth? Did he not all create
To die againe? All ends, that was begoune,
Their times in his eternall booke of fate
Are written sure, and have their certain date.
Who, then, can strive with strong necessitie?
That holds the world in its still changing state,
Or shunne the death ordayned by destinee?
When houre of death is come, let none aske whence nor why.

"'The longer life, I wote, the greater sin;
The greater sin, the greater punishment.
All those great battles which thou boasts to win,
Through strife, and bloodshed, and avengement,
Now praysed, hereafter deare thou shalt repent--
For life must life, and blood must blood repay.
Is not enough thy evill life forespent?
For he that once hath missèd the right way,
The further he doth goe, the further he doth stray.'"

The language of Spenser must not be held to be the language of the time; he purposely used an antiquated diction to give a quaint and piquant tone to his romance. A modern critic has denied that the language is thus treated by the poet; but it must be allowed that Sir Philip Sidney, living at the moment, was a competent judge of this fact, and in his "Defence of Poesie" he complains of this very circumstance in the "Faerie Queene."

We arrive now at the last name which we intend to introduce in our review of the literature of England at this period, and it is the greatest; perhaps the greatest which has yet diffused its glory over this or any other country. The genius of Shakespeare appears to penetrate into all departments of human knowledge, and his instincts possess a universal accuracy. Whether he describes the beauties of Nature at large, or enters the haunts of busy life, high or low, royal, noble, or plebeian, or sends his all-searching glance into the depths of the human mind, or the strange intricacies of human nature, we are equally astonished at the clearness of his perceptive faculties, and the justness of his conclusions. We shall not here discuss the various guesses, for such to a great degree they are, which have been indulged in by his host of critics and biographers, regarding his little known life. It is sufficient that we know that he was born at Stratford-on-Avon in 1564; that his father was in the Town Council, and a man of property; that William was said to have been apprenticed to a butcher, or that one of his father's trades was that of a butcher; that at the age of nineteen he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years his senior; that at the age of twenty-two he was driven by increasing poverty, and it is said through a disturbance about poaching in Sir Thomas Lucy's park, to London, where he became connected with the theatre, and so early as 1589 we find that he had written "Hamlet," if no other of his dramas, though none of them seem to have been published till 1597, eight years afterwards. The first of his poems, "Venus and Adonis," was printed in 1593, four years earlier, and the "Rape of Lucrece" in the following year. From that time to 1603, the year of the death of Elizabeth, a great number of his dramas was published, but "King Lear," "Macbeth," "Cymbeline," "The Winter's Tale," the "Tempest," "Troilus and Cressida," "Henry VIII.," "Coriolanus," "Julius Cæsar," and "Antony and Cleopatra," would appear to have been the glorious products of his ten or thirteen years of leisure in his native town. One of the first labours of his retirement seems to have been the collection of his Sonnets, for they were published in 1609.

We mention these facts here merely as historical data; because it will be necessary to notice his plays in the next centennial period of our history, in connection with the drama at large; but we shall confine our notice of Shakespeare on this occasion solely to his poetical character.

The poems of Shakespeare are "Venus and Adonis," "The Rape of Lucrece," "Sonnets," "A Lover's Complaint," and "The Passionate Pilgrim." The poems for the most part, if not altogether--"The Passionate Pilgrim" and some of the sonnets excepted--would appear to have been his earliest productions. He dedicates "Venus and Adonis" to Lord Southampton, and styles it "the first heir of my invention." This poem, "The Rape of Lucrece," and the "Lover's Complaint," bear marks of youthful passion. They burn with a voluptuous fire, yet they are at the same time equally prodigal of a masterly vigour, imagination, and the faculty of entering into and depicting the souls of others. They as clearly herald the great poet of the age, as a morning sun in July announces what will be its intensity at noon. The language, in its purity and eloquence, is so perfect that it might have been written, not in the days of Elizabeth, but in those of Victoria, and presents a singular contrast to that of Spenser. "The Passionate Pilgrim" is an extraordinary production; it has no thread, not even the slightest, of story or connection, and seems to be merely a stringing together of various passages of poetry, which he had struck off at different moments of inspiration, and intended to use in his dramas. Some of them indeed we find there. It opens with a commencement of the legend of "Venus and Adonis," apparently his first rude sketch of the poem he afterwards wrote more to his mind. It then breaks suddenly off with those well-known lines, beginning--

"Crabbed age and youth
Cannot live together;"

soon after as suddenly changes into--

"It was a lording's daughter, the fairest one of three;"

as abruptly gives us those charming stanzas opening with--

"Take, oh, take those lips away
That so sweetly were forsworn;"

and presents us with a number of disjointed passages which are found in "Love's Labour's Lost."

But the Sonnets are the most interesting, because they give us glimpses into his own life and personal feelings. Many of them are plainly written in the characters of others; some express the sentiments of women towards their lovers, but others are unmistakably the deepest sentiments and feelings of his own life. From these we learn that Shakespeare was not exempt from the dissipations and aberrations incident on a town life at that time, but his true and noble nature led him to abandon the immoral city as early as possible, and retire to his own domestic roof in his own native place. We may select one specimen of these sonnets, which probably was addressed to his wife, and which at once betrays his dislike of his profession of an actor, and his regret over the influence which it had had on his mind, and the stigma which it had cast on his name; for the profession of a player was then so low as to stamp actors as "vagabonds."

"Oh, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds:
Thence came it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.
Pity me then, and wish I were renewed;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eysell[A] 'gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,
Even that your pity is enough to cure me."

But if the great dramatist and inimitable poet shrank with disgust from the profession of acting, because of the estimation in which the actor then was held and the pollutions which surrounded the stage, he held a very different opinion of the vocation of a dramatist. In the peaceful and virtuous retirement of his country residence he still occupied himself with the composition of the noblest dramas of all time; and whilst he was so free from the petty egotism of a small mind that he left scarcely any record of himself, he boldly avowed his assurance of the immortality of his fame:--

"Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes;[B]
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent."

[Footnote A: Vinegar.]

[Footnote B: Submits.]

FROM THE PAINTING KNOWN AS THE CHANDOS PORTRAIT, ATTRIBUTED TO RICHARD BURBAGE, IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY.]

We shall have occasion to show that Shakespeare had much to do in shaping and raising the drama out of that chaotic state in which he found it, and the wonder has always been that, with his apparently imperfect education, he could accomplish so much. But there is no education like self-education; this was William Shakespeare's, and his genius was of that brilliant and healthy kind that gave him all the advantages of such a tuition. In history and in society he found the materials of the drama, but the wealth and power of the poet he found in the great school of Nature.

In Scotland the language had remained much more stationary than in England. In this period we find the chief Scottish poets writing in a diction far more unintelligible to the English reader than Chaucer's or Gower's was in the middle of the fourteenth century. Two of the Scots poets of that period--Barbour and King James I.--wrote in English, and, therefore, in a language far in advance of Gawin Douglas, Dunbar, and Sir David Lyndsay in the sixteenth century. One great reason of this probably was the constant strife and enmity between the nations, which made the Scots cling in confirmed nationality to their own language and customs, for the works and merits of the English poets were known and acknowledged. James I. called Chaucer and Gower "his maisters dear." Henryson, a succeeding poet, even wrote a continuation of Chaucer's "Troilus and Cresseide," under the names of the "Testament," and the "Complaint of Cresseide;" and Gawin, or Gavin, Douglas, the famous Bishop of Dunkeld, pronouncing his vernacular tongue barbarous, declared that rather than remain silent through the scarcity of Scottish terms, he would use bastard Latin, French, or English. A still greater and later poet, Dunbar, expresses repeatedly his admiration of "Chawcer of Makars flowir," of "the Monck of Berry," "Lydgate," and "Gowyr." Yet if we use the very language which he did to utter his admiration in, we find no advance towards the polish of these poets:

"O reverend Chawcer, rose of rethouris all,
As in our toung the flowir imperiall,
That ever raise in Brittane, quha reids richt,
Those biers of makars the triumphs ryall,
The fresche enamallit termes celestiall;
This matter thou couth haif ilumint bricht,
Was thou not of our _Inglis_ all the licht;
Surmounting every toung terrestiall,
As far as Mayis fair morning does midnight.

"O morale Gower and Lidgate laureat,
Zour suggurat toungs and lipps aureat
Bene till our eirs cause of grit delyte."

It is curious that Dunbar calls this English and not Scots. He also enumerates a long list of Scottish poets who were deceased, as Sir Hew of Eglintoun, Etrick, Heriot, Wyntoun, Maister John Clerk, James Afflek, Holland, Barbour, Sir Mungo Dockhart of the Lie, Clerk of Tranent, who wrote the adventures of Sir Gawayn, Sir Gilbert Gray, Blind Harry, and Sandy Traill, Patrick Johnstone, Mersar, Rowll of Aberdeen, and Rowll of Corstorphine, Brown of Dunfermline, Robert Henryson, Sir John the Ross, Stobo, Quinten Schaw, and Walter Kennedy. Of these little is now known, except of Henryson, and that chiefly for his ballad of "Robert and Makyn," given by Bishop Percy in his "Reliques of English Poetry."

Gawin Douglas, third son of the celebrated fifth Earl of Angus, called Bell-the-Cat, was born in 1474. He lived a troubled life in those stormy times, and died a refugee in London, of the Plague, in 1522. He was patronised by Queen Margaret, sister of Henry VIII., and richly deserved it, for his learning, his virtues, and his genius. He was most celebrated in his own time for his translation of Virgil's "Æneid," the first metrical version of any ancient classic in either English or Scots. He also translated Ovid's "De Remedio Amoris." But his original poems, "The Palace of Honour," "King Hart," and his "Comoediæ Sacræ," or dramatic poems from the Scriptures, are now justly esteemed the real trophies of his genius. "The Palace of Honour" and "King Hart" are allegoric poems, abounding with beautiful descriptions and noble sentiments.

The principal poems of William Dunbar (_b._ 1465, _d._ 1530,) are "The Golden Terge," or target; "The Thistle and the Rose," in honour of the marriage of Margaret of England with James IV. of Scotland; "The Fained Friar;" the "Lament of the Death of the Makars," or poets, and a number of other poems, chiefly lyrical, which display versatile genius--comic, satirical, grave, descriptive, and religious--and place him in the first rank of Scotland's poets, notwithstanding the obsolete character of his language; and not the least of his distinctions is the absence of that grossness which disfigured the writings of the poets of those times. A few lines may denote the music of his versification:

"Be merry, man, and tak nocht far in mynd
The waivering of this wrechit world of sorrow,
To God be humill, and to thy freynd be kynd,
And with thy nychtbouris glaidly len and borrow;
His chance to-nycht, it may be thyne to-morrow."

The last poet of this period that we must notice is Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, Lyon King-at-Arms, whom Sir Walter Scott, in "Marmion," has made so familiar to modern readers, predating, however, Sir David's office of Lyon King by seventeen years. Sir David was born about 1490, and is supposed to have died about 1567; so that he lived in the reigns of Henry VII. of England and of Elizabeth, through the whole period of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Mary. His life was cast in times most eventful, and Sir David, as Lyon-Herald of Scotland, occupied a prominent position in the shaping of those events. At the time of the battle of Flodden in 1513, both Pitscottie and Buchanan assure us that he was with James IV. when the ghost appeared to him in the church at Linlithgow, warning him against the battle. Lyndsay was then only three-and-twenty. He was appointed page to the young king, and continued about him and in his service during the king's life. In his "Complaynt," addressing the king, he says:--

"How as are chapman beres his pack,
I bore thy grace upon my back,
And sometymes stridlingis on my neck,
Dansand with mony bend and beck:
The first syllabis that thou did mute,
Pa-da-lyn upon the lute;
For play, thou leit me never rest,
But gyngertoun, thou luffit ay best.
And ay quhen thou come from the scule,
Then I luffit to play the fule."

Lyndsay went to France on embassies of royal marriage; and after the king's early death, under the Regency, he was again sent to the Low Countries on a mission to the Emperor Charles V. In 1548 he went as Lion-King to Denmark, to King Christian, to seek aid against the English, and afterwards lived to see the great struggle between the old Church and the Reformation, the murder of Cardinal Beaton, the return of Knox, and must have died about the time of the murder of Darnley.

Sir David, though bred a courtier, was a thorough Reformer; and his poems abound with the most unrestrained exposure of the corruptions of Courts and of the Church. On the flagitious lives of monks, nuns, and clergy, he pours forth the most trenchant satire and denunciation; and in this respect he may be styled the Chaucer of Scotland. His poems are "The Dreme," "The Complaynt," "The Complaynt of Papingo," "The Complaynt of Bagsche," "Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Three Estatis," "The Answer to the King's Flyting," "Kittie's Confession," "The Tragedie of the Cardinal," "The Historie and Testament of Squire Meldrum," "Monarchie," and "The Epistill Nuncupatorie."

"The Dreme" reminds one of the dreams of former poets, of Chaucer, William Langland's, "The Vision of Piers Plowman," and of those of Douglas and Dunbar. Probably "The Golden Terge" of Dunbar suggested this poem, for just as Dunbar goes out, as "the stern of day began to schyne," and lying under a _roseir_, or arbour of roses, lulled by the songs of birds and the sound of a river, dreams, so does Lyndsay dream, passing, with Dame Remembrance as his guide, through earth, hell, purgatory, heaven, paradise, and "the planets seven," hearing and seeing all the works of God, and the rewards and punishments of the good and the evil. "The Complaynt" describes the degenerate manners of the Court whilst Lyndsay was banished from it, and the grapes were sour. "The Complaynt of the Papingo," or the king's parrot, deals out the same measure to the hierarchy as Lyndsay had given to the State, and in it Cardinal Beaton, the Pope and the clergy in general, are soundly rated. Next comes "The Three Estatis," a morality play in which all kinds of emblematical personages--Rex Humanitas, Sensualitie, Chastitie, &c.--act their parts. Its scope may be inferred from its being declared to be "in commendation of vertew and vituperation of vyce." This is the great work of Lyndsay, and was acted before the king and queen, who sat out nine mortal hours in its performance, in which they successively heard every order in the State--Court, nobility, Church, and people--severely criticised. Lyndsay's play has the merit of preceding both "Gorboduc" and "Gammer Gurton's Needle;" and it certainly possesses the moral of the former and the wit of the latter. "The Answer to the King's Flyting" is a very curious example of what the indulgence of a professional fool at Court led to: it produced not only the jester but the poet laureate. The king condescended to flyte, or jibe, with his jester; the jester in return became the satirist, and the poet laureate healed all wounds by his eulogies. James V. flyted with Lyndsay, and Lyndsay answered with interest. In "Kittie's Confession" Lyndsay ridicules auricular confession. In "The Cardinal" he sings a song of triumph over the fall of Beaton. In the "Legend of Squire Meldrum" the poet dresses up the adventures of a domestic of Lord Lyndsay's of that name in the manner of an ancient romance, and it was extremely popular. It has been declared by critics of note to be the best of Lyndsay's poems, and equal to the most polished pieces of Drayton, who lived a century after him.

We have taken thus much notice of the Lyon King-at-Arms, because nowadays he does not enjoy, perhaps, his due fame in comparison with that of our Chaucer and our early dramatists; yet a perusal of his works is necessary to a real knowledge of the times in which he lived. The reader, however, must be warned that in the search after this knowledge he will have to wade through much filth, and language now astonishing for its naked coarseness. On the other hand, he will occasionally find scientific theories of modern pretension quite familiar to our Lyon-King. For instance, Kirwan in his "Elements of Mineralogy"--a work published in 1794 and marking a considerable advance in knowledge--claimed the geologic discovery that the currents which broke up the hills in Europe came from the south-west, leaving the diluvial slopes declining to the north-east. But hear Lyndsay three hundred years ago:--

"I reid how clerkis dois conclude,
Induryng that maist furious flude
With quhilk the erth was sa opprest,
The wynd blew feorth of the south-west,
As may be sene be experience,
How, throw the watter's violence,
The heich montanis, in every art,
Ar bain fornenst the south-west part;
As the montanis of Pyreneis,
The Alpis, and rochis in the seis;
Richt sa the rochis gret and gray
Quhilk standis into Norroway.
The heichest hillis, in every art,
And in Scotland, for the maist part,
Throuch weltryng of that furious flude,
The craigis of erth war maist denude.
Travelling men may considder best
The montanis bair nixt the south-west."

The sixteenth century was nearly as distinguished for its Music as its poetry. The reproach which has been cast on England in our own time for not being a musical or music-producing nation did not apply then. On the contrary, we stood at the head of Europe in original musical composition. The monarchs of that age, like their most illustrious predecessors from Alfred downwards, were highly educated in music. Henry VIII. was himself a composer of Church music. It must be recollected that Henry, being but the second son of Henry VII., was originally educated for the Church, whose dignities were then princely; and, as a matter of course, he was made familiar with its music, which occupied so prominent a part in its worship. Erasmus bears testimony to the fact of Henry having composed Offices for the Church--a fact confirmed by Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Bishop Burnet; and Sir John Hawkins in his "History of Music," and Boyce, in his "Cathedral Music of English Masters," have preserved specimens of the Royal composition. Boyce gives a fine anthem of Henry's, "O Lord, the Maker of all things." The king's musical establishment for his chapel consisting of 114 persons cost annually upwards of £2,000, and was continued by Edward. Mary and Elizabeth were equally learned in music, though they do not appear to have patronised it as royally.

Under these circumstances great composers, both of sacred and social music flourished in the sixteenth century. The names of Tye, Marbeck, Tallis, Bird, Farrant, Dowland, Bennet, Wilbye, Ford, &c., stand in superb array as composers of some of our finest Church music, or of madrigals and part songs.

Tye was so much esteemed by Henry VIII., that he was made music preceptor to Edward VI., and was afterwards organist to Elizabeth. He composed both anthems and madrigals; and his motett, "Laudate nomen Domini," is still famous. Marbeck composed the notes to the Preces and Responses, which, with some alterations, are still in use in our cathedrals. He was organist at Windsor, and was very nearly losing his life under the ferocious Henry, being found to be a member of a society for religious reformation. He and his three accomplices were condemned to the stake; but Marbeck was saved by his musical genius, Henry observing, on Marbeck's "Latin Concordance," on which he had been employed, being shown to him, "Poor Marbeck! it would be well for thine accusers if they employed their time no worse." His fellows were burnt without mercy, though no more guilty than himself.

Tallis was indebted to Marbeck for the notes just mentioned in his compositions for the Church. His entire service, including prayers, responses, Litany, and nearly all of a musical kind, are preserved in Boyce's collections. They became the most celebrated of any of that remarkable age. In conjunction, also, with his pupil William Bird, he published, in 1575, "Cantiones Sacræ"--perfect of their kind; one of them, "O sacrum convivium," since adapted by Dean Aldrich to the words "I call and cry," still continues to be frequently performed in our cathedrals. The "Cantiones" are also remarkable as having been the first things of the sort protected by a patent for twenty-one years, granted by Elizabeth.

Bird was the author of the splendid canon, "Non nobis, Domine," which has been claimed by composers of Italy, France, and the Netherlands, but, as sufficiently proved, without any ground. The names of Tallis and Bird are of themselves an ample guarantee to the claim of musical genius by this country. Richard Farrant and Dr. Bull--the first a chorister in Edward VI.'s chapel, and the latter organist to Queen Elizabeth--added greatly to the sacred music of the period. Farrant's compositions especially are remarkable for their deep pathos and devotion. His anthem, preserved by Boyce, "Lord, for Thy tender mercy's sake." is unrivalled.

In social music the poetical Surrey stands conspicuous, having set his own sonnets to music. Madrigals and other part songs--since better known as glees--were carried to a brilliant height in this country. The madrigal was originally invented by the Flemings, but glee singing seems to be English, though no doubt derived from the madrigal. Morley's first book of madrigals was published in 1594, Weelkes's in 1597, Wilbye's in 1598, Bennet's in 1599, and soon after Ward's and Orlando Gibbons'. Dowland's and Ford's are more properly glees than madrigals; the former appeared in 1597, and the latter in 1607. Morley, one of the gentlemen of Queen Elizabeth's chapel, appears, like Dowland, to have studied the works of the great composers abroad; and the harmony and science which he evinces are eminent. His canzonets for two voices are especially lively and pleasing. Dowland not only travelled in France, Italy, and Germany, but, at the request of King Christian IV., who saw him in England, he went to reside in Denmark. Fuller declares that he was the rarest musician of the age. In 1598 Wilbye published thirty madrigals, and a second book, applicable to instrumental as well as vocal music, in 1609, amongst which are, "Lady, when I behold the roses sprouting," "As fair as morn," "Down in a valley," &c.; and in 1599 John Bennet published a set of madrigals, including the admirable ones of "O sleep, fond Fancy!" "Flow, O my tears!" Lastly, John Milton, the father of the poet, who also composed several psalm tunes, was a contributor to "The Triumphs of Oriana," a set of madrigals in praise of Queen Elizabeth. Altogether this century was brilliant in both Church and convivial music; and if we are to judge from some specimens to be found in "The Dancing Master" and "Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book," the popular airs were in many instances of a superior character, among which we may mention Bird's "Carman's Whistle" and the "Newe Northern Ditty of Ladye Green Sleeves."

The change which marked religion and literature in this country extended itself as strikingly into Architecture. We have no longer to record the rise of new Orders of ecclesiastical building, nor to direct the attention of the reader to splendid churches as examples of them. The unity of the Church, which had enabled it to erect such a host of admirable cathedrals and abbeys, was broken up; the wealth which had supplied the material and engaged the skill was dispersed into other hands, and destined not only to produce new orders of society, but new forms of architecture. Churches must give way to palaces and country halls, as full of innovations as the very faith of the country. From this period to our own time the taste for ecclesiastical architecture continued to decline, till the very principles of what is called Gothic architecture were forgotten. The architects, as Wren and Jones, went back to classic models, so little adapted to the spirit of Christian worship that, in spite of the genius expended upon them, they have remained few in number and, from the revival of the knowledge of Anglo-Gothic amongst us, are not likely to increase.

But it is even a question whether the Gothic style had not reached its full development at the period of the Reformation; for we find in most European countries that the noblest buildings of this kind are for the most part anterior to this epoch. It is at the same time true that the same causes which brought our ecclesiastical architecture to a sudden stand in the sixteenth century strongly affected all Europe, even where Roman Catholicism managed to maintain its ground. Everywhere the conflict was raging--everywhere the rending influence was felt; and the ancient power and wealth of the Church were broken and diminished. In England a few churches might be pointed to of this period, but they exhibit the influence of the age in marks of decline, and to none can we turn as examples to be named with our Westminsters, Yorks, and Winchesters. Bath Abbey was in progress of erection when the Reformation burst forth and arrested its progress. It was not completed till 1616--more than ten years after the death of Elizabeth--and cannot be named as one of our finest erections.

The wealth which was diverted from the Church into the hands of the Crown and the aristocracy, reappeared in palaces and country halls; and a totally new genius displayed itself in these. The old Tudor, so called, which marked the baronial residences even before the Tudors reached the throne, the mixture of castle and manor-house, with its small windows, battlemented roofs, and flanking turrets, began to enlarge and exaggerate most of these features, and to mix with them new elements clearly brought into the country by foreign architects, and in a great measure from Italy. The windows rapidly augmented themselves, till they soon occupied a predominant portion of the towers and fronts; the turrets became surmounted by domes, and by those bulbous domes which were often piled one above another. There was soon seen one tier of pillared or pilastered storey above another, in the Palladian or Paduan fashion. Turrets often gave way to scroll-work parapets; and instead of the house standing as heretofore on a level plain, it was elevated on a terrace, with broad and balustraded flights of steps, and all the adjuncts of fountains, statues, and balustraded esplanades essential to the Italian garden.