The transgressing Bees,

these wicked three,

The Wasp, the Drone, and Humble Bee,

are then brought forth, degraded, and condemned to everlasting banishment

Underneath two hanging rocks Gehenna.
(Where babbing Eccho sits and mocks
Poore Travellers) there lyes a grove,
With whom the Sun's so out of love,
He never smiles on't, (pale Despaire
Cals it his monarchall chaire)
Fruit halfe ripe, hang rivell'd and shrunk
On broken armes, torne from the trunk
The moorish pooles stand emptie, left
By water, stolne by cunning theft
To hollow banks, driven out by Snakes,
Adders and Newts, that own these lakes:
The mossie weeds halfe sweltered, serv’d
As beds for vermin hunger sterv'd:
The woods are Yew-trees, rent and broke
By whirle-winds, here and there an Oake

Halfe cleft with thunder, to this grove
We banish them. All. Some mercie,

Iove.

Obr. You should have cry'd so in your
youth,

When Chronos and his Daughter Truth
Sojourn'd amongst you, when you spent
Whole years in ryotous merriment,
Thrusting poore Bees out of their hives,
Seazing both honey, wax, and lives,
You should have call'd for mercie, when
Instead of giving poore Bees food,
You eat their flesh and drunk their blood.
All. Be this our warning. Obr. "Tis
too late,

Fairies, thrust them to their fate.

With this banishment, after a few more lines addressed to Prorex, the book concludes.

Charles Lamb, whose taste was never at fault, seems to have been particularly struck with this fanciful and interesting production. He twice gives extracts from it in his later specimens. We have great pleasure in referring our readers to him.

A copy was sold in Jolley's sale, pt. ii. No. 989, for 17. 178.; Bindley's ditto, pt. iv. No. 725, 27.; Heber's ditto, pt. iv. No. 554, 27.; and Skegg's ditto, 27. 58.

Collation: Sig. A (the Title) one leaf; B to H 2, in fours, twenty-seven leaves, exclusive of the woodcut.

Bound in Crimson Morocco, gilt leaves.

DAY (THE) OF DOOM:- Or a Description of the Great and Last Judgment. With a short Discourse about Eternity.

Eccles. 12. 14.

For God shall bring every work into Judgment, with every
secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

London, Printed by W. G. for John Sims, at the Kings

Head at Sweetings-Alley-end in Cornhill, next house to the
Royal-Exchange. 1673. 12mo. pp. 96.

There were several Ballads on the subject of the Day of Doom, or Dooms-day is at hand, printed in the sixteenth century, the earliest we have met with being one licensed to Richard Jacson in 1566, entitled: "The Day of domme when all men shall to Jugement comme." A work also on this subject "translated out of Duche into Englysshe by John Duesbrugh" was printed by Robert Wyer, 16mo., about the same period. The present little volume was published anonymously, and is without any preface or introduction, save only a metrical "Prayer unto Christ the Judge of the World," thirty octave lines, one leaf. The Poem of the Day of Doom consists of 224 octave stanzas, the alternate lines in each being in double rhymes. It is written, notwithstanding this bondage, with considerable ease and fluency, as the Reader may observe from our quotation of a few of the opening stanzas:

I.

Still was the night, serene and bright,
when all men sleeping lay;

Calm was the season and carnal reason
thought so 'twould last for ay.
Soul take thine ease, let sorrow cease,
much good thou hast in store;
This was their song their cups among,
the evening before.

II.

Wallowing in all kind of Sin,

vile Wretches lay secure;
The best of men had scarcely then
their Lamps kept in good ure.
Virgins unwise, who through disguise
amongst the best were number'd,
Had clos'd their eyes ;-yea, and the wise
through sloth and frailty slumber'd.
III.

Like as of old, when men grew bold
Gods threatnings to contemn,

Who stopt their ear, and would not hear
when mercy warned them:

But took their course, without remorse
till God began to pour
Destruction the World upon,
in a tempestuous shower.)

IV.

They put away the evil day,

and drown'd their cares

Till drown'd were they, and swept away
by vengeance unawares :

So at the last, whilst men sleep fast
in their security

Surpriz'd they are in such a snare
as commeth suddenly.

V.

For at midnight broke forth a light,
which turn'd the night to day :
And speedily an hideous cry

did all the World dismay.
Sinners awake, their hearts do ake,
trembling their loyns surprizeth;
Amaz'd with fear, by what they hear,
each one of them ariseth.

VI.

They rush from beds with giddy heads,
and to their windows run,

Viewing this light, which shines more bright
than doth the noon-day Sun.
Straightway appears (they see't with tears)
the Son of God most dread;
Who with his train comes on amain

to judge both Quick and Dead.

VII.

Before his Face the Heav'ns give place,
and Skies are rent asunder,
With mighty voice and hideous noise,
more terrible than Thunder.

His brightness damps Heav'ns glorious lamps
and makes them hide their heads:

As if afraid, and quite dismai'd, they quit their wonted steads.

VIII.

Ye sons of men that durst contemn
the threatnings of Gods word?
How cheer ye now? your hearts (I trow)
are thrill'd as with a sword.

Now Atheist blind, whose brutish mind
A God could never see;

Dost thou perceive, dost now believe
that Christ thy Judge shall be?

At the close of the principal Poem are some lines in heroic verse, without any title, on the vanity of all human objects, four pages, followed by "A short Discourse about eternity" mentioned in the title, in the same double rhyming metre as the Day of Doom, 22 stanzas. A long " Postscript to the Reader" in rhyming verse exceeding 400 lines, and "A Song of Emptiness to fill up the Empty Pages following" conclude the volume.

We have been informed on what we consider satisfactory authority, that the Rev. Mr. Wigglesworth was the author of this little volume, and that it has been reprinted in America with his name attached. See Bibl. Ang. Poet., No. 239.

Collation: Sig A to E 12, in twelves, but Sig. B omitted. pp. 96.
Bound by C. Smith. In Olive Calf extra, gilt leaves.

DEKKER, (THOMAS.) - The Wonderfull yeare, 1603. Wherein is shewed the picture of London, lying sicke of the Plague. At the ende of all (like a mery Epilogue to a dull Play) certaine Tales are cut out in sundry fashions, of purpose to shorten the liues of long winters nights, that lye watching in the darke for us.

Et me rigidi legant Catones.

London, Printed by Thomas Creede, and are to be solde in Saint Donstones Church-yarde in Fleet-streete. n.d. (1603.) 4to, blk. lett. pp. 48.

This work has always been assigned to Thomas Dekker; but though scarce, it is not one of the rarest of his productions. Although his name nowhere appears in the volume, he acknowledges it to be his in the Introduction to the Seven deadly Sinnes of London, 4to, 1606, in which, speaking

VOL. III. PART I.

S

of what happened "in that Wonderfull yeere, when these miserable calamities entred in at thy Gates, slaying 30,000 and more," he adds in a side note, "A Booke so called, written by the Author, describing the horror of the Plague in 1602, when there dyed 30,578 of that disease." While it professes to be printed by Thomas Creede, it has the woodcut device of Nicholas Ling the printer on the title-page, of the ling and honeysuckle intertwined, with his initials N. L. It is dedicated "To his wel-respected good friend, M. Cutbert Thuresby, Water-Bayliffe of London." This is followed by an address "To the Reader," to which is added a second short one of ten lines to the same, in which he apologizes for the insertion of certain stories at the end, relating to parties who might object to their appearance in print. The first part of the work, which is in prose, relates the death of Queen Elizabeth, which took place on the 24th of March, 1603, and is interspersed with some pieces of poetry referring to this event.

:

Never [says the author] did the English Nation behold so much black worne as there was at her Funerall. It was then but put on, to try if it were fit, for the great day of mourning was set downe (in the booke of heauen) to be held afterwards that was but the dumb shew, the Tragical Act hath bin playing euer since. Her Herse (as it was borne) seemed to be an Iland swimming in water, for round about it, there rayned showers of teares, about her death-bed none: - for her departure was so sudden and so strange, that men knew not how to weepe, because they had neuer bin taught to shed teares of that making. They that durst not speake their sorrowes, whisper'd them: they that durst not whisper, sent them foorth in sighes. Oh! what an Earth-quake is the alteration of a State! Looke from the Chamber of Presence to the Farmers cottage, and you shall finde nothing but distraction: the whole Kingdome seemes a wilderness, and the people in it are transformed to wild men. Such was the fashion of this Land, when the great Landlady thereof left it: Shee came in with the fall of the leafe, and went away in the Spring: her life (which was dedicated to Virginitie) both beginning and closing up a miraculous Mayden circle: for she was borne upon a Lady Eue, and died upon a Lady Eue: her Natiuitie and death being memorable by this wonder: the first and last yeares of her Raigne by this, that a Lee was Lorde Maior when she came to the Crowne, and a Lee Lorde Maior when she departed from it. Three places are made famous by her for three things, Greenewich for her birth, Richmount for her death, White-Hall for her funerall upon her remouing from whence (to lend our tiring prose a breathing time) stay, and looke upon these Epigrams, being composed :

1. Vpon the Queenes last Remoue being dead.

The Queene's remou'de in solemne sort,
Yet this was strange, and seldome scene,
The Queene us'de to remoue the Court,
But now the Court remou'de the Queene.

2. Vpon her bringing by water to White Hall.
The Queene was brought by water to White Hall,
At euery stroake the owers teares let fall.

More clung about the Barge: Fish vnder water
Wept out their eyes of pearle, and swom blind after.
I thinke the Barge-men might with easier thyes
Haue row'de her thither in her peoples eyes.
For howsoe're, thus much my thoughts haue skan'd,
S'had come by water, had she come by land.

3. Vpon her lying dead at White Hall.
The Queene lies now at White Hall dead,
And now at White Hall liuing,
To make this rough obiection euen,

Dead at White Hall at Westminster,
But liuing at White Hall in Heauen.

The volume next describes the Proclamation of James I., and then gives an account of the dreadful Plague which happened in that year. The latter part of the work is filled up with "a certaine mingled troope of strange Discourses fashioned into Tales." These are short stories and anecdotes of events which happened to different persons during the Plague, particularly an affecting one of a bride being seized while at the altar of this dreadful complaint. This part is powerfully and graphically written in Dekker's peculiar style, and contains also many allusions to the habits and customs of that age. Amongst other things he notices the people going about during the plague, "most bitterly miching, and muffled up and downe with Rue and Wormewood stuft into their eares and nostrils, looking like so many Bores heads stuck with branches of Rosemary, to be serued in for Brawne at Christmas; and mentions that "the price of flowers, hearbes and garlands rose wonderfully, in so much that Rosemary which had wont to be sold for 12 pence an armefull, went now for six shillings a handfull." At the end on the last page he alludes to Derick the hangman, and to the celebrated collection of stories known as Shakespeares Jest Book, mentioned by him in "Much Ado about Nothing," act ii. sc. i., now become so rare that only an imperfect copy is known, the "Hundred Merry Tales." "I could fill a large volume," says he, "and call it the second part of the hundred mery tales."

The volume is printed in blk. Iett., and, like all Dekker's works, is extremely curious and entertaining. It is reprinted in Morgan's Phoenix Bri