with indefatigable industry, whatever information might contribute to render it more complete. The sixth edition, published in 1607, was that which received his finishing touches; and of this an English translation, made with the author's sanction by Dr Philemon Holland, appeared in 1610. Holland's second edition (1637) contained many additions by the translator. From the preface to the translation we extract the following account by Camden of his historical labours :

I hope it shall be no discredite to me if I now use againe the same words with a few more than I used twenty-foure yeeres since in the first edition of this worke. Abraham Ortelius, the worthy restorer of ancient geographie, arriving heere in England above thirty-foure yeares past, dealt earnestly with me that I would illustrate this Ile of Britaine, or (as he said) that I would restore antiquity to Britaine, and Britaine to his antiquity; which was, as I understood, that I would renew ancientrie, enlighten obscuritie, cleare doubts, and recall home veritie by way of recovery, which the negligence of writers, and credulitie of the common sort had in a maner proscribed and utterly banished from among us. A painfull matter, I assure you, and more than difficult; wherein what toyle is to be taken as no man thinketh so no man beleeveth but he that hath made the triall. Nevertheless, how much the difficultie discouraged me from it, so much the glory of my country encouraged me to undertake it. So while at one and the same time I was fearefull to undergoe the burden, and yet desirous to doe some service to my country, I found two different affections, Feare and Boldnesse, I knowe not how, conjoined in me. Notwithstanding, by the most gratious direction of the Almighty, taking industrie for my consort, I adventured upon it; and, with all my studie, care, cogitation, continuale meditation, paine, and travaile, I emploied myselfe thereunto when I had any spare time. I made search after the etymologie of Britaine and the first inhabitants timerously; neither in so doubtfull a matter have I affirmed ought confidently. For I am not ignorant that the first originalls of nations are obscure, by reason of their profound antiquitie, as things which are seene very deepe and farre remote; like as the courses, the reaches, the confluents, and the out-lets of great rivers are well knowne, yet their first fountaines and heads lie commonly unknowne. I have succinctly runne over the Romans government in Britaine, and the inundation of forrayne people thereinto, what they were, and from whence they came. I have traced out the ancient divisions of these kingdoms.; I have summarily specified the states and judiciall Courts of the same. In the severall counties, I have compendiously set downe the limites (and yet not exactly by pearch and pole, to breed questions), what is the nature of the soile, which were places of the greatest antiquitie, who have been the dukes, marquesses, earles, viscounts, barons, and some of the most signall and ancient families therein (for who can particulate all?) What I have performed, I leave to men of judgment. But time, the most sound and sincere witnesse, will give the truest information, when envie, which persecuteth the living, shall have her mouth stopped. Thus much give mee leave to saythat I have in nowise neglected such things as are material to search and sift out the Truth. I have attained to some skill of the most ancient British and

English-Saxon tongues. I have travailed over all England for the most part; I have conferred with most skillfull observers in each country; I have studiously read over our owne countrie writers, old and new, all Greeke and Latine authors which have once made mention of Britaine; I have had conference with learned men in the other parts of Christendome; I have been diligent in the Records of this Realme; I have looked into most Libraries, Registers, and memorials of Churches, Cities, and Corporations; I have pored over many an old Rowle and Evidence, and produced their testimony (as beyond all exception) when the cause required, in their very owne words (although barbarous they be) that the honor of veritie might in no wise be impeached.

The Britannia went through many subsequent editions, and proved so useful a repository of antiquarian and topographical knowledge that it was styled 'the common sun, whereat our modern writers have all lighted their little torches.' Α later translation was by Gibson, Bishop of London (1695); and, with large additions, by Richard Gough (1789 and 1806).

In 1593 Camden became head-master of Westminster School, and, for the use of his pupils, published a Greek Grammar in 1597. In the same year he left the task-work of teaching on his receiving the appointment of Clarencieux Kingof-Arms, an office which allowed him more leisure for his favourite pursuits. Other works, all in Latin, were an account of the monuments and inscriptions in Westminster Abbey; a collection of ancient English historians; a narrative of the trial of the Gunpowder Plotters, drawn up at the desire of James VI.; and annals of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The last of these works is praised by Hume both for style and matter, and as being written with simplicity of expression, very rare in that age, and with a regard to truth.' It is eminently favourable to Elizabeth; and Robertson protested against its account of Scottish affairs under Queen Mary as inaccurate. Camden, who left a short autobiography in Latin, died unmarried at Chislehurst, 9th November 1623, at the age of seventy-two, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Not long before his death he founded and endowed a history lecture at Oxford.

In the Britannia, Camden, after describing the Britons of England, Wales, and Cornwall, and the Picts of Caledonia, thus proceeds to distinguish between the 'wild Scots' and the 'civill Scots':

Among the people of Britaine, after Picts, the Scotish nation by good right challenge the next place: concerning whom, before I speak ought, for feare lest evill willers and frowardly peevish, should calumniously misconstrue those allegations, which I, simply, ingenuously, and in all honest meaning, shall heere cite out of ancient writers as touching Scots, I must certifie the Reader before hand, that everie particular hath reference to the old, true, and naturall Scots onely whose of-spring are those Scots speaking Irish, which inhabite all the West part of the kingdome of Scotland, now so called, and the Ilands adjoyning thereto, aud who now a-daies be termed High-land men. For, the rest which are of

civill behaviour, and bee seated in the East part therof, albeit they beare now the name of Scotish-men, yet are they nothing lesse than Scots, but descended from the very same Germane originall, that we English men are. And this, neither can they chuse but confesse, nor we but acknowledge, being as they are, termed by those abovesaid, High-land men, Sassones, as well as we; and using as they doe the same language with us, to wit, the English-Saxon, different onely in Dialect, a most assured argument of one and the same originall. In which regard, so farre am I from working any discredit unto them, that I have rather respectively loved them alwaies, as of the same bloud and stocke, yea and honoured them too, even when the Kingdomes were divided but now much more, since it hath pleased our almightie and most mercifull God, that wee growe united in one bodie, under one most Sacred head of the Empire, to the joy, happinesse, welfare, and safetie of both Nations, which I heartily wish and pray for.

He is sceptical about the most current contradictory etymologies of the word Scoti, and sensibly says, 'A man may with as great probability derive the Scots pedigree from the gods as from Scota, that supposed and counterfeit daughter of the Ægyptian King Pharao, wedded (forsooth) unto Gaithelus, the sonne of Cecrops, founder of Athensa derivation not exploded in Scotland at that time. Less justly he weighs and rejects the etymology accepted by modern Celtic scholars : 'And yet I cannot but marvell whence Isidorus had this The Scots (saith he) take their name in their own proper tongue of their painted bodies, for that they are marked with sharpe yron pricks and inke.' (Professor Rhys defends the view that Scoti is a Latin word from a British verb scod, used of this tattooing process.) Camden then shows justly enough that the early Scots were Irish:

For certainely knowen it is that out of Ireland, an Ile inhabited in old time by Britans, as shall in due place be prooved, they passed into Britain, and what time as they were first known unto writers by this name, seated they were in Ireland. For Claudian the Poet hath written of their irruptions into Britaine, in these verses:

Totam cum Scotus Hibernem

Movit, et infesto spumavit remige Thetis:

What time the Scots all Ireland stir'd offensive armes to take,

And with maine stroke of enemies ores, the sea much fome did make.

Also in another place;

Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Hiberne:

And frozen Ireland heapes of Scots bewail'd with many

a teare.

Orosius likewise writeth thus; Ireland is peopled with Scotish Nations. Gildas calleth Scots, Irish Spoilers. And Beda; The Scots that inhabite Ireland, an Isle next unto Britaine as also elsewhere. Yea, and in the daies of Charles the Great, Eginhardus in expresse words calleth Ireland The Isle of Scots. Moreover, Giraldus Cambrensis; That the Scotish nation (saith he) is descended out of Ireland, the affinitie as well of

their Language, as of their apparell, of their weapons also, and of their maners even to this day doe sufficiently proove.

Camden finally accepts the tradition that the Scots came from Spain into Ireland, and the (Irish) identification of the words Scoti and Scythi. And though he sees the inconveniences of the theory, he is bound to hold that the Scythians must have been Goths, and so a kind of Germans originally. He adds a new argument for the identification of Scots, Scythi, and Gothi :

But if arguments in this case may bee taken from the habite and apparell of the people, surely the array and clothing of the wild Scots at this day, is all one with that of the Gothes in times past; as we may by and by perceive out of Sidonius Apollinaris, who in describing a Goth, portraieth and depainteth unto us a wild Scot, as right as may be. They are (saith he) of a flaming deepe yellow, died with saffron; they buckle upon their feet a paire of Broges made of raw and untanned leather up to their ankles; their knees, thighs, and calves of their legs are all bare; their garments high in the necke, straight made and of sundry colours, comming skarce downe to their hammes; the sleeves cover the upper points of their armes and no more; their souldiers coats of colour greene, edged with a red fringe; their belts hanging downe from the shoulder; the lappets of their eares hidden under the curled glibbes and lockes of haire lying all over them, (For so a man may very rightly call the manifold branched and parted twists of haire, which Scots and Irish weare;) they use also hooked Spears, which Gildas termeth Vncinata tela, and axes to fling from them. They wore likewise strait bodied coats (as saith Porphyrio) fitted close to their breasts, without girdles. If this be not for all the world the very right apparell of the wild Irish-Scots, let themselves be Iudges.

This undated letter of Camden to Sir Robert Cotton, printed by the Camden Society (Letters, 1843), illustrates Camden's use of learned leisure:

RYGHT WORTHY SYR,-That in my solitarines here I may avoide the deadly sinne of Slouth, I am now an humble suitor to you that you would send me by William Holland my servant the Book of Heraldry, if you have bound it up, or as it is. Or some other booke or Papers which you shall think fitting my studies or delight. The Booke of France which I lately receaved standeth me in small steed, for I perceave by my Notes that I have had it heretofore. And therefore I will shortly returne it. Your Absolon de Vita Guthlaci is the very same that other call Felix Monachus; and I have already both it and the other conjoined therewith. But for Theodulus, I never sawe him before. Thus presuming of your ancient kindness, I rest,-Yours in all most assuredly,

WILL'M CAMDEN.

Felix's Life of St Guthlac is still an authority for the Life of the Hermit of Crowland.

Based on his own Memorabilia de Seipso and his letters, there are Lives of Camden by Smith (1601) and in the various editions of the Britannia (Gibson's, Gough's, &c.), and in Wood's Athena Oxonienses.

John Speed (1552?-1629) published in 1611 a History of Great Britaine, in which he was assisted by Spelman, Cotton, and others. Born at Farringdon, in Cheshire, and a London tailor too by trade, he enjoyed few advantages from education; yet his history is highly creditable to his acquirements and judgment, and was long the best in existence. He rejected some of the fables of preceding chroniclers concerning the origin of the Britons, and though he retained many of the time-honoured errors, was more discriminating in his selection of authorities. His history of the island extends to the union of England and Scotland under King James, to whom the work was dedicated. In 1606 he published maps of England and Wales, subsequently extended to Scotland and Ireland, the best that had till then appeared. The following letters of the learned tailor to Cotton reveal the conscientious author and proof-reviser:

Worshipfull Sir, my thoughts runnyng upon the well performance of this worke, and fearfull to comitt any thing disagreeing from the truth, I have sent you a coppy of some part of that which you have alredy sene, because you left in writing at the Printers that with a fast eye you had overune it, and your leasure better affording that busines in the contrey then here you had; this therefore hath caused me to send you as much as my Printer cane espare, beseiching your Worshipe to read it more attentyvly, to place the Coynes, and what adicssions you will before you returne it; and I pray you to past a paper where you doe adde, and not to intirline the coppy, for somewhere we cannot read your Notes because the place geues your pene not rome to exprese your mynd. I have sent such Coynes as are cutt, and will weekly supply the same; so much therefore as you shall perfect I praye you send againe with as much speed as you can ; but where you do want the Coynes, kepe that coppy still with you, untill I send them; for I shall not be sattisfied with your other directions or Mr Coles helpe. Good Sir, afford me herein your assistanc as you have begune, and remember my suit to my L. privy-seall, wherein you shall binde me in all dutifull service and affection to your Worship's command. So beseiking the Almighty to prosper our indevours I humbly take my leave, and leave your Worship to the Lordes protection.

Your Worships to comand in all dutifull service, JOH. SPEED. I am returned to my Printers, and therfore yf you please your directions maye be thither. Remember to signify the formes of your Altars.

Sir, I do most hartely thanke for your Worships assistance and kinde remembrance of our busynes, which doth not a little revive my now decayed spirit, lying on bed of my old disease the stone, which is not more grievious unto me than the detraction of this so chargable a busyness. I have sent you as many Coynes as are done, and will weekly supply them as we can get them from detracting Swisser [Christopher Switzer, a well-known engraver]. Also you shall herewith receive two leaves of coppy which we can not read the place that you have interlyned, and either to falsify your meaning, or leave out one silable we wold be lothe. Therfore I pray you both perfect that, and the yere of Christ in the

other, and send them again in all hast possible, for the Printer already hath overtaken us. Thus comending my self most hartely to your Worship, I humble tak my leave this 30th of August.

Yor Worships in all duty,

JOH. SPEEDE. Good Sir, I most earnestly entreat you to send these towe sheets inclosed, upon Wensday next, for in truth I dowbt we shall want them before that daye.

Yf you will send a Note of all Monasteryes in the Realm, as also the Book of Henry the fourth, I shalbe much beholding to your Worship. Thus you see how bold I am, but it is in love of that Kingdom which your self seeks still to adorne.

Amongst historical writers is also the poet Samuel Daniel (see page 339), who wrote the first and second parts of a History of England, extending from the Norman Conquest to the death of Edward III., a mere compilation.-Sir Henry Spelman (1564–1641), antiquary, was born at Congham, in Norfolk, of which county he was high-sheriff in 1604. His works are almost all upon legal and ecclesiastical antiquities. Having found it necessary to study Anglo-Saxon, he embodied the fruits of his labour in his ponderous Glossarium Archæologicum (1626-64), explaining the obsolete words occurring in the laws of England; it was completed after the author's death by his son and Dugdale. Another work was a Latin history of English church councils, also left incomplete. He wrote further on tithes and on sacrilege.-Sir John Hayward (1564-1627), born at Felixstowe, in 1599 published The First Part of the Life and Reign of Henry IV., which he dedicated to the Earl of Essex. Some passages in it gave such offence to the queen that she caused the author to be imprisoned. He conciliated James I. by defending his succession and the divine right of kings, and at the desire of Prince Henry, composed Lives of the Three Norman Kings of England (1613). After his death, in 1627, was published (1630) his Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixt. He writes with smoothness, but in a dramatic style, imitating Livy and other ancient historians in the practice of putting speeches into the mouths of his historic characters. When Queen Elizabeth ordered Lord Bacon to search Hayward's Life of Henry IV. to see if it contained any treason, Bacon reported that there was no treason, but that there were many felonies; for the author had stolen many of his sentiments and conceits out of Tacitus. Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1571-1631) is celebrated as an industrious collector of records, charters, and writings of every kind pertaining to the ancient history of England. In the prosecution of his object he enjoyed only too great facilities, the recent suppression of monasteries having thrown many valuable books and written documents into private hands. In 1600 he accompanied his friend Camden on an excursion to Carlisle, for the purpose of examining the Picts' wall and other relics of former times. It was principally on his sug

gestion that James I. resorted to the scheme of creating baronets, as a means of supplying the treasury; and he himself was one of those who purchased the distinction. Sir Robert Cotton was the author of various historical, political, and antiquarian works. His Raigne of Henry III. (1627) frankly discusses kingcraft; his Dangers wherein the Kingdom now Standeth (1628) marked him out to the court as an enemy; and an ironical Proposition to Bridle the Impertinency of Parlia ment led to his imprisonment for a time. His name is remembered chiefly for the benefit which he conferred upon literature, by gathering his valuable library of manuscripts, which was not restored to him on his release from prison; and grief at the deprivation shortened his days. After being considerably augmented by his son and grandson, it became, in 1706, the property of the nation, and in 1757 was deposited in the British Museum. One hundred and eleven of the manuscripts, many of them highly valuable, had before this time been unfortunately destroyed by fire. During his lifetime materials were drawn from his library by Raleigh, Bacon, Selden, and Herbert; and he furnished literary assistance to Camden, Speed, and many contemporary authors.

Richard Knolles (1550?-1610) published a Generall Historie of the Turkes, which Johnson, in the 122nd number of the Rambler, eulogised as 'displaying all the excellences that narration can admit. His style, though somewhat obscured by time, and sometimes vitiated by false wit, is pure, nervous, elevated, and clear.' Hallam ranks Knolles high among our elder writers; and Southey and Byron were equally pronounced in their admiration. Southey recommended Coleridge to read him; Byron said old Knolles was one of the first books that gave him pleasure as a child, made him wish to visit the Levant, and 'gave perhaps that oriental colouring that has been observed in my poetry.' The historical value of the book is slender; original research on the subject was hardly possible to Knolles, and he seems to have followed a Latin history by Boissard, published at Frankfort in 1596. Knolles, born apparently at Coldashby, in Northamptonshire, was educated at Oxford, and soon after 1571 became master of the free school at Sandwich, in Kent, where he spent the rest of his life. A fifth edition was issued in 1638; and the history was continued by Sir Paul Rycaut, whose edition in three folio volumes (1687-1700) became the standard one. An abridgment by John Savage (1701) was much read.

The Taking of Constantinople.

A little before day the Turks approached the walls and began the assault, where shot and stones were delivered upon them from the walls as thick as hail, whereof little fell in vain, by reason of the multitude of the Turks, who, pressing fast unto the walls, could not see in the dark how to defend themselves, but were without number wounded or slain; but these were of

the common and worst souldiers, of whom the Turkish king made no more reckoning than to abate the first force of the defendants. Upon the first appearance

of the day, Mahomet gave the sign appointed for the general assault, whereupon the city was in a moment and at one instant on every side most furiously assaulted by the Turks; for Mahomet, the more to distress the defendants and the better to see the forwardness of the souldiers, had before appointed which part of the city every colonel with his regiment should assail. Which they valiantly performed, delivering their arrows and shot upon the defendants so thick that the light of the day was therewith darkned; other in the meantime couragiously mounting the scaling-ladders, and coming even to handy-strokes with the defendants upon the wall, where the formost were for most part violently borne forward by them which followed after. On the other side, the Christians with no less courage withstood the Turkish fury, beating them down again with great stones and weighty pieces of timber, and so overwhelmed them with shot, darts, and arrows, and other hurtful devices from above, that the Turks, dismayed with the terrour thereof, were ready to retire.

Mahomet, seeing the great slaughter and discomfiture of his men, sent in fresh supplies of his janizaries and best men of war, whom he had for that purpose reserved as his last hope and refuge; by whose coming on his fainting souldiers were again encouraged, and the terrible assault begun afresh. At which time the barbarous king ceased not to use all possible means to maintain the assault; by name calling upon this and that captain, promising unto some whom he saw forward golden mountains, and unto others in whom he saw any sign of cowardise, threatning most terrible death; by which means the assault became most dreadful, death there raging in the midst of many thousands. And albeit that the Turks lay dead by heaps upon the ground, yet other fresh men pressed on still in their places over their dead bodies, and with divers event either slew or were slain by their enemies.

In this so terrible a conflict, it chanced Justinianus the general to be wounded in the arm, who, losing much blood, cowardly withdrew himself from the place of his charge, not leaving any to supply his room, and so got into the city by the gate called Romana, which he had caused to be opened in the inner wall; pretending the cause of his departure to be for the binding up of his wound, but being indeed a man now altogether discouraged.

The souldiers there present, dismayed with the departure of their general, and sore charged by the janizaries, forsook their stations, and in hast fled to the same gate whereby Justinianus was entred; with the sight whereof the other souldiers, dismayed, ran thither by heaps also. Put whilst they violently strove all together to get in at once, they so wedged one another in the entrance of the gate, that few of so great a multitude got in; in which so great a press and confusion of minds, eight hundred persons were there by them that followed trodden under foot or thrust to death. The emperor himself, for safeguard of his life flying with the rest in that press as a man not regarded, miserably ended Lis days together with the Greek empire. His dead body was shortly after found by the Turks among the slain, and known by his rich apparel, whose head being cut off, was forthwith presented to the Turkish tyrant; by

whose commandment it was afterwards thrust upon the point of a launce, and in great derision carried about as a trophy of his victory, first in the camp, and afterward up and down the city.

The Turks, encouraged with the flight of the Christians, presently advanced their ensigns upon the top of the uttermost wall, crying Victory; and by the breach entred as if it had been a great flood, which, having once found a breach in the bank, overfloweth and beareth down all before it; so the Turks, when they had won the utter wall, entred the city by the same gate that was opened for Justinianus, and by a breach which they had before made with their great artillery, and without mercy cutting in pieces all that came in their way, without further resistance became lords of that most famous and imperial city. Some few there were of the Christians who, preferring death before the Turkish slavery, with their swords in their hands sold their lives dear unto their enemies; among whom the two brethren Paulus and Troilus Bochiardi, Italians, with Theophilus Palaeologus, a Greek, and Joannes Stiavus, a Dalmatian, for their great valour and courage deserve to be had in eternal remembrance; who after they had like lions made slaughter of their enemies, died in the midst of them embrued with their blood, rather oppressed by multitude than with true valour overcome. In this fury of the barbarians perished many thousands of men, women, and children, without respect of age, sex, or condition. Many for safeguard of their lives fled into the temple of Sophia, where they were all without pity slain, except some few reserved by the barbarous victors to purposes more grievous than death itself. The rich and beautiful ornaments and jewels of that most sumptuous and magnificent church (the stately building of Justinianus the emperor) were in the turning of a hand plucked down and carried away by the Turks; and the church it self, built for God to be honoured in, for the present converted into a stable for their horses, or a place for the execution of their abominable and unspeakable filthiness; the image of the crucifix was also by them taken down, and a Turks cap put upon the head thereof, and so set up and shot at with their arrows, and afterwards in great derision carried about in their camp, as it had been in procession, with drums playing before it, railing and spitting at it, and calling it the God of the Christians; which I note not so much done in contempt of the image, as in despite of Christ and the Christian religion.

But whilst some were thus spoiling of the churches, others were as busie in ransacking of private houses, where the miserable Christians were enforced to endure in their persons whatsoever pleased the insolent visitors; unto whom all things were now lawful that stood with their lust, every common souldier having power of life and death at his pleasure to spare or spill. At which time riches were no better than poverty; and beauty worse than deformity. What tongue were able to express the misery of that time? or the proud insolency of the conquerors? where of so many thousands every man with greediness fitted his own unreasonable desire; all which the poor Christians were enforced to endure. But to speak of the hidden money, plate, jewels and other riches there found passeth credit; the Turks themselves wondred thereat and were therewith enriched, that it is a proverb amongst them to this day, if any of them grow suddenly rich, to say, He hath

been at the sacking of Constantinople; whereof if some reasonable part had in time been bestowed upon the defence of the city, the Turkish king had not so easily taken both it and the city.

Dryden, who rarely borrowed, seems, as Macaulay pointed out, to have adapted a couplet from Knolles's history. Under the engraved portrait of Mustapha I. are these lines:

Greatnesse on goodnesse loves to slide, not stand,
And leaves for Fortune's ice Vertue's firme land.

In Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden has:

But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.
Knolles also translated Bodin's Common Weale.

Sir Paul Rycaut (1628–1700), the continuator of Knolles, deserves mention for his other works. The son of a financier from Brabant who settled in England, he was born at Aylesford, in Kent, was secretary of Embassy at the Porte, consul at Smyrna, secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and British resident at Hamburg. In 1668 he published The Present State of the Ottoman Empire, based largely on his own observations; he also translated Platina's Latin history of the Popes, long a standard authority, and Garcilaso de la Vega's Commentaries of Peru.

The Elizabethan Song-Writers.

The influence of music on the evolution of lyrical poetry in England was sudden and decisive. It saved English verse, in the very nick of time, from being ruined by the heresies of the humanists, who wished to eject rhyme and to introduce lumbering equivalents for the classical measures. The necessity of writing in such a manner as that the words could be used to accompany music drove the poets into the employment of brisk, simple, and melodious metres. It may therefore be said that Byrd and Tallis, the two first great English musicians, whose labours date from about 1575, were the earliest encouragers of Elizabethan lyric, although at first little followed their training. The year 1588 was really that which marks the starting-point of easy song-writing. This was a year of surprising musical activity in England-now was printed the Musica Transalpina, which introduced the forms of Italian madrigal amongst us; now William Byrd (1538-1623) published his first English song-book, the Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs; now Dowland began his career as a lutanist in Oxford. After this year the art of writing madrigals or songs in light English verse was one which was perfectly understood; it was rendered easier by the introduction of Luca Marenzio's very popular Roman music, which was excessively admired in London, and by the publication of Byrd's Songs of Sundry Natures in 1589 and of Thomas Watson's Italian Madrigals Englished in 1590.

It would not be right, however, while emphasising the fact that the main flood of song-writing