[John Fletcher.]

sure; and that a festival with them was something better than even the excitement of wine and music. A few years after this Fletcher ventured out of the track of that species of comedy in which he won his first success, giving a real poem to the public stage, which, with all its faults, was a noble attempt to emulate the lyrical and pastoral genius of Shakspere. To our minds there is as much covert advice, if not gentle reproof, to Fletcher, as there is of just and cordial praise, in Jonson's verses upon the condemnation of The Faithful Shepherdess' by the audience of 1610:

"The wise, and many-headed bench, that sits

Upon the life and death of plays and wits,

(Compos'd of gamester, captain, knight, knight's man,
Lady, or pucelle, that wears mask or fan,

Velvet, or taffata cap, rank'd in the dark

With the shop's foreman, or some such brave spark
That may judge for his sixpence) had, before

They saw it half, damn'd thy whole play, and more:

Their motives were, since it had not to do
With vices, which they look'd for, and came to.

I, that am glad thy innocence was thy guilt,
And wish that all the Muses' blood were spilt
In such a martyrdom, to vex their eyes,
Do crown thy murder'd poem: which shall rise
A glorified work to time, when fire

Or moths shall eat what all those fools admire."

There is another young poet who has fairly won his title to a place amongst the most eminent of his day. John Donne is there, yet scarcely seven-andtwenty; who wrote the most vigorous satires that the English language had seen as early as 1593. No printed copy exists of them of an earlier date than that of his collected works in 1633; but there is an undoubted manuscript of the three first satires in the British Muscum, bearing the title " Ihon Dunne

his Satires, Anno Domini 1593." No one has left a more vigorous picture of this exact period than has Donne, the student of Lincoln's Inn, who has already looked upon the world with the eye of a philosopher. He stands in the middle street and points, as they pass along, to the "captain bright parcel gilt❞—to the “brisk perfumed pert courtier”—to the

to the "superstitious Puritan" with his "formal hat." He and his friend, the changeling motley humourist," take their onward way, and thus he paints the characters they encounter. The condensation of the picture is perfect :

"Now we are in the street: he first of all,

Improvidently proud, creeps to the wall,
And so imprison'd and hemm'd in by me,
Sells for a little state his liberty;

Yet though he cannot skip forth now to greet

Every fine silken painted fool we meet,

He them to him with amorous smiles allures,

And grins, smacks, shrugs, and such an itch endures

As 'prentices or school-boys, which do know

Of some gay sport abroad, yet dare not go ;

And as fiddlers stoop lowest at highest sound,

So to the most brave stoops he nigh'st the ground;
But to a grave man he doth move no more
Than the wise politic horse would heretofore;
Or thou, O elephant or ape! wilt do

When any names the king of Spain to you.

Now leaps he upright, jogs me, and cries, Do you see
Yonder well-favour'd youth? Which? Oh! 't is he
That dances so divinely. Oh! said I,

Stand still; must you dance here for company?

He droop'd, we went, till one (which did excel
Th' Indians in drinking his tobacco well)
Met us they talk'd; I whisper'd Let us go;

It may be you smell him not; truly I do.

He hears not me; but on the other side

A many-colour'd peacock having spy'd,

Leaves him and me: I for my lost sheep stay;

He follows, overtakes, goes on the way,

Saying, Him whom I last left all repute

For his device in handsoming a suit,

To judge of lace, pink, panes, print, cut and plait,

Of all the court to have the best conceit :

Our dull comedians want him; let him go."

There is something in these Satires deeper than mere satirical description; for example:

"Sir, though (I thank God for it) I do hate
Perfectly all this town, yet there's one state

In all ill things so excellently best,

That hate towards them breeds pity towards the rest."

Donne's genius was too subjective for the drama; yet his delineations of indi

vidual character are full of humour. Take the barrister, who "woos in language of the Pleas and Bench:"

"A motion, lady! Speak, Coscus. I have been
In love e'er since tricesimo of the queen.
Continual claims I've made, injunctions got
To stay my rival's suit, that he should not
Proceed; spare me, in Hilary term I went;
You said, if I return'd next 'size in Lent,
I should be in remitter of your grace:
In th' interim my letters should take place
Of affidavits."

Jonson well knew Donne's powers. Drummond records that "He esteemeth John Donne the first poet in the world in some things: his verses of the 'Lost Chain' he hath by heart; and that passage of the 'Calm,' 'That dust and feathers do not stir, all was so quiet.' Affirmeth Donne to have written all his best pieces ere he was twenty-five years old." That " passage of the Calm" to which Jonson alludes, is found in his poetical letters" from the Island voyage with the Earl of Essex." Never were the changing aspects of the sea painted with more truth and precision than in the two Letters' of the Storm' and 'the Calm.' He made this island voyage in 1597. He is now again in London. What a life is before him of the most ardent love, of married poverty, of dedication to the sacred profession for which his mind was best fitted, of years peace and usefulness! Jonson said that Donne, "for not being understood would perish." Not wholly so. There are some who will study him, whilst less profound thinkers are forgotten.

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The diary of Henslowe during the last three years of the sixteenth century contains abundant notices of Michael Drayton as a dramatist. According to this record, of which we have no reason to doubt the correctness, there were extant in 1597 Mother Red Cap,' written by him in conjunction with Anthony Munday; and a play without a name, which the manager calls a "book wherein is a part of a Welchman," by Drayton and Henry Chettle. In 1598 we have The Famous Wars of Henry I. and the Prince of Wales,' by Drayton and Thomas Dekker; Earl Goodwin and his three Sons,' by Drayton, Chettle, Dekker, and Robert Wilson; the Second Part of Goodwin,' by Drayton; Pierce of Exton,' by the same four authors; 'The Funeral of Richard Cœur de Lion,' by Wilson, Chettle, Munday, and Drayton; The Mad Man's Morris,'' Hannibal and Hermes,' and 'Pierce of Winchester,' by Drayton, Wilson, and Dekker; 'William Longsword,' by Drayton; 'Chance Medley,' by Wilson, Munday, Drayton, and Dekker; Worse Afeard than Hurt,' Three Parts of the Civil Wars of France,' and Connan, Prince of Cornwall,' by Drayton and Dekker. In 1600 we have the Fair Constance of Rome,' in two parts, by Munday, Hathway, Drayton, and Dekker. In 1601, The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey,' by Munday, Drayton, Chettle, and Wentworth Smith. In 1602, 'Two Harpies, by Dekker, Drayton, Middleton, Webster, and Munday. This is a most extraordinary record of the extent of dramatic associations in those days; and it is more remarkable as it regards Drayton, that his labours, which, as we see, were not entirely in copartnership, did not gain for him even the title of a dramatic poet in the next generation. Langbaine mentions him not at all. Philipps says nothing of his plays. Meres indeed thus writes of him: "We may truly term Michael Drayton Tragediographus, for his passionate penning the downfalls of valiant Robert of Normandy, chaste Matilda, and great Gaveston." But this praise has clearly reference to the 'Heroical Epistles' and the 'Legends.' If The Merry Devil of Edmonton' be his, the comedy does not place his dramatic powers in any very striking light; but it gives abundant proofs, in common with all his works, of a pure and gentle mind, and a graceful imagination. Meres is enthusiastic about his moral qualities; and his testimony also shows that the character for upright dealing which Shakspere won so early was not universal amongst the poetical adventurers of that day: "As Aulus Persius Flaccus is reported among all writers to be of an honest and upright conversation, so Michael Drayton (quem toties honoris et amoris causa nomino), among scholars, soldiers, poets, and all sorts of people, is held for a man of virtuous disposition, honest conversation, and well-governed carriage, which is almost miraculous among good wits in these declining and corrupt times, when there is nothing but roguery in villainous man, and when cheating and craftiness is counted the cleanest wit, and soundest wisdom." The good wits, according to Meres, are only parcel of the corrupt and declining times. Yet, after all, his dispraise of the times is scarcely original: "You rogue, here's lime in this sack too. There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man.”* Jonson was an exception to the best of his contemporaries when he said of Drayton that "he esteemed not of him." That Shakspere loved him we may Henry IV., Part I., Act 11., Sc. IV.

readily believe. They were nearly of an age, Drayton being only one year his elder. They were born in the same county-they had each the same love of natural scenery, and the same attachment to their native soil. claims

"My native country then, which so brave spirits hath bred,

If there be virtues yet remaining in thy earth,

Or any good of thine thou bred'st into my birth,
Accept it as thine own, whilst now I sing of thee;

Of all thy later brood th' unworthiest though I be."

Drayton ex

It is his own Warwickshire which he invokes. They had each the same familiar acquaintance with the old legends and chronicles of English history; the same desire to present them to the people in forms which should associate the poetical spirit with a just patriotism. It was fortunate that they walked by different paths to the same object. However Drayton might have been associated for a few years with the minor dramatists of Shakspere's day, it may be doubted whether his genius was at all dramatic. Yet was he truly a great poet in an age of great poets. Old Aubrey has given us one or two exact particulars of his life:-" He lived at the bay window house next the east end of St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street." Would that bay window house were standing! Would that the other house of precious memory close by it, where Izaak Walton kept his haberdasher's shop, were standing also! He "who has not left a rivulet (so narrow that it may be stepped over) without honourable mention; and has animated hills and streams with life and passion above the dreams of old mythology;"* and he who delighted to sit and sing under the honeysuckle hedge while the shower fell so gently upon the teeming earth,they loved not the hills and streams and verdant meadows the less because they daily looked upon the tide of London life in the busiest of her thoroughfares. There is one minute touch in Aubrey's notice of Drayton that must not pass without mention :-" Natus in Warwickshire, at Atherstone-upon-Stour.

Charles Lamb.