a tragedye, and to all PRINCES a right worthy instruction, we paused; having passed through a miserable tyme, full of pyteous tragedyes. And seyng the reygne of Henry the Fourth ensued, a man more ware and prosperous in hys doynges, although not untroubled with warres both of outforthe and inward enemyes, we began to serch what Pyers [peers] were fallen therein, wherof the number was not small: and yet because theyr examples were not muche to be noted for our purpose, we passed over all the Maskers, of whom kynge Rycharde's brother was chiefe: whych were all slayne and put to death for theyr trayterous attempt. And fyndynge Owen Glendoure next one of Fortune's owne whelpes, and the Percyes his confederates, I thought them unmete to be overpassed, and therefore sayd thus to the sylent cumpany, What, my maysters, is every one at once in a browne study, and hath no man affection to any of these storyes? You mynd so much some other belyke, that those do not move you. And to say the trouth, there is no special cause why they should. Howbeyt Owen Glendoure, becaus he was one of Fortune's darlynges, rather than he should be forgotten, I wil tel his tale for him, under the privelidge of Martine hundred. Which OWEN, cuming out of the wilde mountains lyke the Image of Death in al pointes, (his darte onlie excepted,) so sore hath famyne and hunger consumed hym, may lament his folly after this maner." This process was a departure from Sackville's idea; who supposes, as I have hinted, the scene laid in hell, and that the unfortunate princes appeared to him in succession, and uttered their respective complaints, at the gates of Elysium, under the guidance of SORROW.

Many stanzas in the legends written by Baldwyne and Ferrers, and their friends, have considerable merit, and often shew a command of language and versification'. But their performances have not the pathos which the subject so naturally suggests. They give us, yet often with no common degree of elegance and perspicuity, the chronicles of Hall and Fabyan in verse. I shall therefore, in examining this part of the MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES, confine my criticism to Sackville's INDUCTION and Legend of Buckingham.

* That is, Baldwyne had previously prepared and written his legend or monologue, and one of the company was to act his part, and assume this appearance. fol. xviii. b.

f These lines in Collingbourne's legend are remarkable, fol. cxliiii. a.

Like Pegasus a poet must have wynges,
To flye to heaven, or where him liketh

best;

He must have knowledge of eternal thynges,

Almightie Jove must harbor in his brest.

[Mr. Haslewood states the reference in this note to agree with the edition of 1563, and that the extract accords with an improved reading which first appeared in 1571.-PRICE.]

SECTION XLIX.

Examined.

Sackville's Induction to the Mirrour for Magistrates.
A prelude to the Fairy Queen.
Inferno.

Comparative view of Dante's

SACKVILLE'S INDUCTION, which was to have been placed at the head of our English tragical story, and which loses much of its dignity and propriety by being prefixed to a single life, and that of no great historical importance, is opened with the following poetical landscape of wintera.

The wrathfull winter, prochinge on apace,

With blustring blasts had all ybard the treene;
And old Saturnus with his frosty face
With chilling colde had pearst the tender greene:
The mantels rent, wherein enwrapped been
The gladsom groves, that nowe laye overthrowen,
The tapets torne, and every bloom downe blowne.

The soile that earst so seemly was to seen,

Was all despoyled of her beauty's hewe;

And soote freshe flowres, wherewith the sommers queen
Had clad the earth, now Boreas blastes downe blewe;
And small fowles flocking in theyr song did rewe
The winters wrath, wherewith eche thinge defaste
In wofull wise bewayld the sommer paste.

Hawthorne had lost his motley lyverye,
The naked twigges were shivering all for colde;
And droppinge downe the teares abundantly,
Eche thing, methought, with weping eye me tolde
The cruell season, bidding me witholde
Myselfe within: for I was gotten out
Into the feldes where as I walkt about.

When loe the night, with mistie mantels spred,

Gan darke the daye, and dim the azure skies, &c.

The altered scene of things, the flowers and verdure of summer deformed by the frosts and storms of winter, and the day suddenly over

See fol. cxvi. [Warton's text is taken from the edition of 1610, corrected by the emendations of Capell in his Prolusions. Some of these are manifestly erroneous, and the original readings have consequently been restored. Sir Egerton Brydges objects to the reading of the seventh line,

because "bloom applies to spring, not autumn." Have we then no autumnal flowers? It may be questioned whether the modern abstract idea of "bloom" was current in Sackville's day. But the succeeding stanza clearly justifies Warton's election.-PRICE.]

spread with darkness, remind the poet of the uncertainties of human life, the transient state of honour, and the instability of prosperity.

And sorrowing I to see the sommer flowers,
The lively greene, the lusty leas forlorne,
The sturdy trees so shattred with the showers,
The fieldes so fade, that floorisht so beforne;
It taught me wel, all earthly thinges be borne
To dye the death, for nought long time may last:
The sommors beauty yeelds to winters blast.

Then looking upwards to the heavens [1]eams,
With nightès starres thick-powdred every where,
Which erst so glistened with the golden streames
That chearfull Phebus spred downe from his sphere,
Beholding darke, oppressing day, so neare;

The sodayne sight reduced to my mynde

The sundry chaunges that in earth we fynde.

Immediately the figure of SORROW suddenly appears, which shows the poet in a new and bolder mode of composition.

And strayt forth stalking with redoubled pace,
For that I sawe the night drew on so fast,

In black all clad there fell before my face

A piteous wight, whom woe had all forwast;
Furth from her iyen the crystall teares outbrast,
And syghing sore her haundes she wronge and folde,
Tare al her haire that ruth was to beholde.

Her body small, forwithered and forespent,
As is the stalke that sommers drought opprest;
Her wealked face with wofull teares besprent,
Her colour pale, and, as it seemed her best,
In woe and playnt reposed was her rest:
And as the stone that droppes of water weares,
So dented were her cheekes with fall of teares.-

I stoode agast, beholding all her plight,
Tween dread and dolour so distreynd in hart,
That while my heares upstarted with the sight,
The teares outstreamde for sorowe of her smart.
But when I sawe no ende, that could aparte
The deadly dole which she so sore dyd make,
With dolefull voyce then thus to her I spake.

Unwrap thy woes, whatever wight thou be!
And stint betime to spill thyselfe with playnt.
Tell what thou art, and whence, for well I see

Thou canst not dure with sorowe thus attaynt.
And with that worde, of sorrowe all forfaynt,
She looked up, and prostrate as she laye,
With piteous sounde, lo! thus she gan to saye.

Alas, I wretche, whom thus thou seest distrayned,
With wasting woes, that never shall aslake,
SORROWE I am, in endeles tormentes payned,
Among the Furies in the infernall lake;
Where Pluto god of hell so grieslie blake
Doth holde his throne, and Lethes deadly taste
Doth reive remembrance of eche thyng forepast.

Whence come I am, the drery destinie,
And luckles lot, for to bemone of those,
Whom Fortune in this maze of miserie,

Of wretched chaunce, most wofull myrrours chose :

That when thou seest how lightly they did lose

Theyr pomp, theyr power, and that they thought most sure,
Thou mayest soon deeme no earthlye joye may dure.

SORROW then conducts the poet to the classical hell, to the place of torments and the place of happiness.

I shall thee guyde first to the griesly lake,

And thence unto the blissfull place of rest:

Where thou shalt see and heare the playnt they make,
That whilom here bare swingeb among the best.

This shalt thou see. But great is the unrest

That thou must byde, before thou canst attayne
Unto the dreadfull place where those remayne.

And with these wordes as I upraysed stood
And gan to folowe her that straight forth paste,
Ere I was ware, into a desert wood

We nowe were come: where hand in hand embraced,

She led the way, and through the thicke so traced

As, but I had beene guyded by her might,

It was no waye for any mortal wight.

But loe! while thus amid the desert darke
We passed on, with steppes and pace unmeete,
A rumbling roar confusde, with howle and barke
Of dogs, shooke all the grounde under our feete,
And strooke the din within our eares so deepe,
As half distraught unto the ground I fell,
Besought returne, and not to visit hell.-

An hydeous hole al vast, withouten shape,

Of endles depth, orewhelmde with ragged stone,
With oughly mouth and griesly jawes doth gape,
And to our sight confounds itself in one.
Here entred we, and yeding forth, anone
An horrible lothly lake we might discerne,
As black as pitche, that cleped' is Averne.

A deadly gulfe where nought but rubbish growes,
With fowle blake swelth in thickened lumpes that lyes,
Which upp in th' ayre such stinking vapour throwes,
That over there may flye no fowle, but dyes
Choakt with the pest'lent savours that aryse.
Hither we come, whence forth we still did pace,

In dreadfull feare amid the dreadfull place.

Our author appears to have felt and to have conceived with true taste, that very romantic part of Virgil's Eneid, which he has here happily copied and heightened. The imaginary beings which sate within the porch of hell, are all his own. I must not omit a single figure of this dreadful group, nor one compartment of the portraitures which are feigned to be sculptured or painted on the SHIELD OF WAR, indented with gashes deepe and wide.

And, first, within the porch and jaws of hell
Sat deep REMORSE OF CONSCIENCE, all besprent
With tears; and to herself oft would she tell
Her wretchedness, and, cursing, never stent
To sob and sigh, but ever thus lament
With thoughtful care; as she that, all in vain,
Would wear and waste continually in pain:

Her eyes unstedfast, rolling here and there,
Whirl'd on each place, as place that vengeance brought,
So was her mind continually in fear,

Tost and tormented with the tedious thought
Of those detested crimes which she had wrought;
With dreadful cheer, and looks thrown to the sky,
Wishing for death, and yet she could not die.

Next, saw we DREAD, all trembling how he shook,
With foot uncertain, profer'd here and there;
Benumb'd with speech; and, with a gastly look,
Search'd every place, all pale and dead for fear,
His cap born up with staring of his hair;
'Stoin'd and amazed at his own shade for dread,
And fearing greater dangers than was need.