"Poesy to prove Affection is not Love." His poem called "The Lie" is probably the best instance of a poetical outburst of anger and scorn, which we can find throughout the minor literature of the proud and hasty Tudor times. His "Pilgrimage," with all its quaintness, is perhaps the most striking example of so-called death-bed verses. His reply to Marlowe remains even yet unrivalled, as the retort of polished common-sense to the conventionalities of pastoral poetry. Even when tested by this higher standard, the other courtiers whose verses are here represented are not unworthy to take their places by the side of Raleigh. But their poetry will also render us the minor service of enabling us to trace the changes in the tone of English society from one critical period to another; through intervals of gloom under Mary, and boundless energy under Elizabeth, and suspense under James, till the light-hearted gaiety of older England revived amidst the waning fortunes of Charles's cavaliers. By the side of much formal adulation, we can trace a vein of that manly self-respect, which has always formed the mainstay of our public life; and a strong under-current of that religious feeling, which the darkest days could never hide. And we can also trace a deepening range of thought, and a richer harmony of verse, and a growing smoothness and facility of language, which bear witness to the influence of those greater writers, who sustain the main weight of the reputation of the Elizabethan age.

Trinity College, Glenalmond,
January 28, 1870.

J. H.

APPENDIX A.

EARLY EXTRACTS ON RALEIGH'S POETRY

AND LIFE.

1. THE CRITICS.

1.

OR ditty and amorous ode, I find Sir Walter
Raleigh's vein most lofty, insolent, and pas-
sionate." Puttenham's "Art of English
Poesy," 1589,
p. 51.

2. Francis Meres mentions Sir Walter Raleigh as one of " the most passionate among us to bewail and bemoan the perplexities of love."- "Palladis Tamia," 1598, p. 154, repr.

3. Edmund Bolton speaks of his prose works, "Guiana, and his prefatory epistle before his mighty undertaking in the History of the World," as "full of proper, clear, and courtly graces of speech;" and couples his English poems with those of Donne, Holland, and Lord Brooke as "not easily to be mended."-" Hypercritica," circ. 1610, pp. 249, 251, repr.

4. Gabriel Harvey is said, in some MS. notes on Chaucer, to have called Raleigh's "Cynthia" "a fine and sweet invention." Malone's "Shakespeare," by Boswell, ii. 579.

5. "He who writeth the Art of English Poesy praiseth much Raleigh and Dyer; but their works are so few that are come to my hands, I cannot well say anything of them." -Drummond of Hawthornden, "Works," 1711, p. 226.

6. 66 Sir Walter Raleigh, a person both sufficiently known in history, and by his History of the World,' seems also by the character given him by the author of the Art of English Poetry' [Puttenham, as above], to have expressed

himself more a poet than the little we have extant of his poetry seems to import."-Edward Phillips, "Theatrum Poetarum," 1675, ii. 233.

EDMUND SPENSER.

1. "Considering she beareth two persons, the one of a most royal Queen or Empress, the other of a most virtuous and beautiful Lady, this latter part in some places I do express in Belphoebe, fashioning her name according to your own excellent conceit of Cynthia,-Phoebe and Cynthia being both names of Diana."-Letter of the Author's (of the "Faery Queen") to Sir Walter Raleigh, 1590; Spenser's "Works," by Collier, i. 149.

2.

"To thee, that art the summer's nightingale,

Thy sovereign Goddess's most dear delight,
Why do I send this rustic madrigal,

That may thy tuneful ear unseason quite?
Thou only fit this argument to write,

In whose high thoughts pleasure hath built her bower,
And dainty love learned sweetly to indite.

My rhymes I know unsavoury and sour,

To taste the streams that, like a golden shower,
Flow from thy fruitful head, of thy love's praise;
Fitter, perhaps, to thunder martial stower,
When so thee list thy lofty Muse to raise:

Yet, till that thou thy poem wilt make known,

Let thy fair Cynthia's praises be thus rudely shewn."

(Sonnet to Sir Walter Raleigh, printed with the first three books of the " Faery Queen," in 1590; ib. i. 164.)

3.

"But if in living colours and right hue

Thyself thou covet to see pictured,

Who can it do more lively or more true
Than that sweet verse, with nectar sprinkled,
In which a gracious servant pictured

His Cynthia, his heaven's fairest light?

That with his melting sweetness ravished,
And with the wonder of her beams bright,
My senses lulled are in slumber of delight.
"But let that same delicious poet lend
A little leave unto a rustic Muse

To sing his mistress' praise; and let him mend,
If ought amiss her liking may abuse:
Ne let his fairest Cynthia refuse
In mirrors more than one herself to see;

But either Gloriana let her choose,

Or in Belphœbe fashioned to be;

In th' one her rule, in th' other her rare chastity."

(Introduction to the third book of the "Faery Queen," ib. ii. 336.)

4.

"One day,' quoth he, 'I sat, as was my trade,
Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar,
Keeping my sheep amongst the coolly shade
Of the green alders by the Mulla's shore:
There a strange shepherd chanced to find me out,
Whether allured with my pipe's delight,
Whose pleasing sound ysbrilled far about,

Or thither led by chance, I know not right:
Whom when I asked from what place he came,
And how he hight, himself he did ycleepe
The Shepherd of the Ocean by name,

And said he came far from the main-sea deep. He, sitting me beside in that same shade,

Provoked me to play some pleasant fit; And, when he heard the music which I made, He found himself full greatly pleased at it: Yet, æmuling my pipe, he took in hond

My pipe, before that æmuled of many,

And played thereon, for well that skill he conned,
Himself as skilful in that art as any.

He piped, I sung; and, when he sung, I piped;
By change of turns each making other merry;
Neither envying other, nor envied,

So piped we, until we both were weary."

"His song was all a lamentable lay

Of great unkindness and of usage hard,

Of Cynthia, the Lady of the Sea,

Which from her presence faultless him debarred.

And ever and anon, with singulfs rife,

He cried out, to make his undersong,

'Ah, my love's Queen, and Goddess of my life!

Who shall me pity, when thou dost me wrong?""

"And there that Shepherd of the Ocean is,
That spends his wit in love's consuming smart;
Full sweetly tempered is that Muse of his,

That can empierce a prince's mighty heart."

("Colin Clout's come home again," 1591; ib. v. 33, 37, 47.)

III. SPECIMENS OF LAMPOONS ON RALEIGH.

1.

"Water thy plants with grace divine,

And hope to live for aye;

Then to thy Saviour Christ incline;

In Him make steadfast stay;

Raw is the reason that doth lie

Within an atheist's head,

Which saith the soul of man doth die,
When that the body's dead.

"Now may you see the sudden fall

Of him that thought to climb full high ;-
A man well known unto you all,

Whose state, you see, doth stand Rawly."
&c. &c. &c.

(The first eight lines printed in four as Raleigh's own composition, in the Oxford edition of his works, viii. 732, with the title "Moral Advice." They were taken from MS. Ashm. 781, p. 163, where they are signed "Sr. Wa. Raleigh." Also printed with a continuation, of which the above specimen will be sufficient, among Mr. Halliwell's "Poetical Miscellanies" from MSS.; Percy Society, vol. xv. p. 14. The Oxford editors failed to observe the pun on Raleigh's name, to which James I. also condescended on a famous occasion.)

1

2.

Watt, I wot well thy overweening wit,
Led by ambitious humours, wrought thy fall,"

"I pity that the summer's nightingale,'

&c. &c. &c.

Immortal Cynthia's sometime dear delight,

That used to sing so sweet a madrigal,

Should like an owl go wanderer in the night,

Quoted from Spenser's "Sonnet," above, p. xxii. The phrase was also adopted by Drayton; see Collier's "Bibl. Cat." i. 224-5; and note on Spenser.