But he, that won in every war, at Rome in civil robe
Was stabbed to death: no certainty is underneath this globe;
The good are envied of the bad, and glory finds disdain,
And people are in constancy as April is in rain;
Whereof, amidst our serious pen, this fable entertain :
An Ass, an Old Man, and a Boy did through the city pass;
And, whilst the wanton Boy did ride, the1 Old Man led the Ass.
See yonder doting fool, said folk, that crawleth scarce for age,
Doth set the boy upon his ass, and makes himself his page.
Anon the blamed Boy alights, and lets the Old Man ride,
And, as the Old Man did before, the Boy the Ass did guide.
But, passing so, the people then did much the Old Man blame,
And told him, Churl, thy limbs be tough; let ride the boy, for shame.
The fault thus found, both Man and Boy did back the ass and ride;
Then that the ass was over-charged each man that met them cried.
Now both alight and go on foot, and lead the empty beast;
But then the people laugh, and say that one might ride at least.
The Old Man, seeing by no ways he could the people please,
Not blameless then, did drive the ass and drown him in the seas.
Thus, whilst we be, it will not be that any pleaseth all;
Else had been wanting, worthily, the noble Cæsar's fall.
The end of Richard the Third, in the Sixth Book (Chapter 26th), is given with much spirit:
Now Richard heard that Richmond was assisted, and on shore,
And like unkenneled Cerberus the crooked tyrant swore,
And all complexions act at once confusedly in him;
He studieth, striketh, threats, entreats, and looketh mildly grim;
Mistrustfully he trusteth, and he dreadingly doth 2 dare,
And forty passions in a trice in him consort and square.
But when, by his convented force, his foes increased more,
He hastened battle, finding his corrival apt therefore.
When Richmond orderly in all had battailed his aid,
Enringed by his complices, their cheerful leader said :-
Now is the time and place, sweet friends, and we the persons be
That must give England breath, or else unbreathe for her must we
No tyranny is fabled, and no tyrant was indeed,
Worse than our foe, whose works will act my words if well he speed.
For ills to ills superlative are easily enticed,
But entertain amendment as the Gergesites did Christ.
1 In the printed copy “a." The edition before us, that of 1612, abounds with typographical errata.
2 There can be no question that this is the true word, which is misprinted "did" in the edition before us.
Be valiant then; he biddeth so that would not be outbid
For courage, yet shall honour him, though base, that better did.
I am right heir Lancastrian, he in York's destroyed right
Usurpeth; but, through either source,1 for neither claim I fight,
But for our country's long-lacked weal, for England's peace, I war;
Wherein He speed us, unto whom I all events refar.
Meanwhile had furious Richard set his armies in array,
And then, with looks even like himself, this or the like did say :-
Why, lads? shall yonder Welshman, with his stragglers, overmatch?
Disdain ye not such rivals, and defer ye their dispatch?
Shall Tudor from Plantagenet the crown by craking snatch?
Know Richard's very thoughts (he touched the diadem he wore)
Be metal of this metal: then believe I love it more
Than that for other law than life to supersede my claim;
And lesser must not be his plea that counterpleads the same.
The weapons overtook his words, and blows they bravely change,
When like a lion, thirsting blood, did moody Richard range,
And made large slaughters where he went, till Richmond he espied,
Whom singling, after doubtful swords, the valorous tyrant died.
Others of Shakespeare's historical or legendary subjects are also in Albion's England; particularly the story of Lear, and that of Macbeth. In the former, which is in the Third Book (Chapter 14), the following well-turned lines occur:—
His aged eyes pour out their tears, when, holding up his hands,
He said, O God! whoso thou art that my good hap withstands,
Prolong not life, defer not death; my self I overlive
When those that owe to me their lives to me my death would give.
Thou town, whose walls rose of my wealth, stand evermore to tell
Thy founder's fall, and warn that none do fall as Leïr fell.
Bid none affy in friends; for say, His children wrought his wrack;
Yea, those that were to him most dear did loath and let him lack.
Cordella, well Cordella said, she loved as a child;
But sweeter words we seek than sooth, and so are men beguiled.
She only rests untried yet; but what may I expect
From her, to whom I nothing gave, when these do me reject?
Then die: nay, try; the rule may fail, and nature may ascend;
Nor are they ever surest friends on whom we most do spend.
The three last books, forming the continuation published in 1606, are occupied with the history of the Scots and Welsh; and the story of Macbeth is told in the Fifteenth Book (Chapter 94). Shakespeare's witches (as they are commonly called) are here designated the "three fairies," and also "the weird-elves."
This is the only reading like sense we can make out of "through eithers ours," which is the nonsense of the edition before us.
There are occasionally touches of true pathos in Warner, and one great merit which he has is, that his love of brevity generally prevents him from spoiling any stroke of this kind by multiplying words and images with the view of heightening the effect, as many of his contemporaries are prone to do. His picture of Fair Rosamond in the hands of Queen Eleanor is very touching:
Fair Rosamund, surprised thus ere thus she did expect,
Fell on her humble knees, and did her fearful hands erect:
She blushed out beauty, whilst the tears did wash her pleasing face,
And begged pardon, meriting no less of common grace.
So far, forsooth, as in me lay, I did, quoth she, withstand;
But what may not so great a king by means or force command?
And dar'st thou, minion, quoth the Queen, thus article to me?
With that she dashed her on the lips, so dyed double red :
Hard was the heart that gave the blow; soft were those lips that bled.
Then forced she her to swallow down, prepared for that intent,
But we must also give an example or two of the eloquence of another kind with which the poem more abounds. Much of it is in the style of the following curious passage (from Book IX. Chap. 47):
The younger of these widows (for they both had thrice been so) Trots to the elder's cottage, hers but little distance fro:
There, cowering o'er two sticks across, burnt at a smokey stock,
They chat how young men them in youth, and they did young men mock; And how since threescore years ago (they aged fourscore now)
Men, women, and the world were changed in all, they knew not how. When we were maids, quoth the one of them, was no such new-found
Yet served I gentles, seeing store of dainty girls beside.
Then wore they shoes of ease; now of an inch broad, corked high:
Black karsey stockings; worsted now, yea silk of youthful'st dye:
Garters of lists; but now of silk, some edged deep with gold :
With costlier toys-for coarser turns than used, perhaps, of old.
Fringed and embroidered petticoats now beg: but heard you named,
Till now of late, busks, periwigs, masks, plumes of feathers framed,
Supporters, pooters,' fardingales above the loins to wear?
Some wives, grey headed, shame not locks of youthful borrowed hair;
Some, tiring art, attire their heads with only tresses bare.
1 Chalmers has "posters."
Some (grosser pride than which, think I, no passed age might shame)
By art abusing nature, heads of antick't hair do frame.
Once lacked each foresaid term, because was lacking once the toy;
And, lacked we all those toys and terms, it were no grief but joy:
But, lawful were it some be such, should all alike be coy?
Now dwells each drossel in her glass: when I was young, I wot,
On holydays (for sildom else such idle times we got)
A tub or pail of water clear stood us instead of glass.
My parents they were wealthy, and myself in wanton youth
Was fair enough, but proud enough, so fool enough in truth.
I might have had good husbands, which my destiny withstood:
Of three now dead (all grief is dry, gossip, this ale is good)
In faith not one of them was so; for by this drink I swear
(Requarrelling the cup) we—and her lips imparted were
When the other beldam, great with chat (for talkative be cups)
The former's prate, not worth the while, thus fondly interrupts :-
When I, quoth she, the country left to be a London lass,
I was not fairer than myself believed fair I was.
Good God! how formal, prankt, and pert became I in a trice,
As if unto the place it were a nature to be nice.
And so the dialogue proceeds, though with more spirit than
refinement, for a couple of pages farther.
In another place
(Book XIV. Chap. 91) a Lar, or Elf, is introduced inveighing
against the decay of ancient manners, in the following strain :—
To farmers came I, that at least their loaf and cheese once freed
For all would eat, but found themselves the parings now to need;
So do their landlords rack their rents: though in the manor place
Scarce smoked a chimney, yet did smoke perplex me in strange case.
I saw the chimneys cleared of fire, where ne'ertheless it smoked
So bitterly as one not used to like it might have choked.
But, when I saw it did proceed from nostrils and from throats
Of ladies, lords, and silly grooms, not burning skins nor coats,
Great Belsabub! thought I, can all spit fire as well as thine?
Or where am I? It cannot be under the torrid line.
My fellow Incubus
Did put me by that fear, and said it was an Indian weed,
That fumed away more wealth than would a many thousands feed.
Freed of that fear, the novelty of coaches scathed me so,
As from their drifts and cluttering I knew not where to go.
These also work, quoth Incubus, to our avail, for why?
They tend to idle pride, and to inhospitality.
With that I, comforted, did then peep into every one,
And of my old acquaintances spied many a country Joan,
1 Chalmers has "Once starching lacked the term.”
Whose fathers drove the dung-cart, though the daughters now will none.
I knew when prelates and the peers had fair attendance on
By gentlemen and yeomanry; but that fair world is gone:
For most, like Jehu, hurry with pedanties two or three,
Yet all go down the wind, save those that hospitalious be.
Greatest ladies, with their women, on their palfreys mounted fair,
Went through the streets, well waited on, their artless faces bare,
Which now in coaches scorn to be saluted of the air.
I knew when men judicial rode on sober mules, whereby
They might of suitors, these and they, ask, answer, and reply.
I knew when more was thrived abroad by war than now by peace,
And English feared where they be frumpt since hostile terms did cease:
But by occasion all things are produced, be, decrease.
Times were when practice also preached, and well said was well done;
When courtiers cleared the old before they on the new world run;
When no judicial place was bought, lest justice might be sold;
When quirts nor quillets overthrew or long did causes hold;
When lawyers more deserved their fees, and fatted less with gold;
When to the fifteenth Psalm sometimes had citizens recourse;
When Lords of farmers, farmers of the poor, had more remorse ;
When poverty had patience more; when none, as some of late,
Illiterate, ridiculous, might on the altar wait; &c.
Warner's most abusive invectives, however, in which he exhausts the vocabulary of the kitchen and the streets, are directed against the old religion. But we cannot afford room
for any further specimens.
The great work of Samuel Daniel, who was born at Taunton, in Somersetshire, in 1562, and died in 1619, is his Civil Wars between the Two Houses of Lancaster and York, in eight Books, the first four published in 1595, the fifth in 1599, the sixth in 1602, the two last in 1609; the preceding Books being always, we believe, republished along with the new edition. He is also the author of various minor poetical productions, of which the principal are a collection of fifty-seven Sonnets entitled Delia his Musophilus, containing a General Defence of Learning, some short epistles, and several tragedies and court masques. And he wrote, besides, in prose, a History of England, from the Conquest to the end of the reign of Edward III., as well as the Defence of Rhyme (in answer to Campion) which has been already men
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