The arraigning and indicting of Sir John Barley-corn, &c. Thomas Robins the Author. Printed for T. Passinger, 1675.

The History of Mistris Jane Shore, &c. Concubine to K. Edward the fourth, who was wife to one Matthew Shore, a goldsmith in London.

Date, &c. cut off.

No Jest like a true Jest: being a compendious record of the merry life and mad exploits of Capt. James Hind, the great rober of England. Together with the close of all at Worcester, where he was hang'd, drawn, and quartered for high-treason against the common-wealth, Septemb. 24, 1652.

·London, printed by A. P. for T. Vere, and to be sold at his shop, at the sign of the Angel without Newgate, 1674.

A SHORT time before the learned Dr. Leyden departed for India, in the spring of 1803, he put forth an interesting volume, entitled, "Scottish Descriptive Poems, with some Illustrations of Scottish Literary

Antiquities." At the close of that volume were inserted extracts from two MS. volumes in the library of Edinburgh College, comprising translations of the "Triumphs of Petrarke" and " Triumph of Love," with Sonnets, entitled "The Tarantula of Love," by WILLIAM FOWLER; one of the poets who frequented the court of James VI. before his accession to the throne of England; and who appears, after his accession, to have been made Secretary and Master of the Requests to Queen Anne; and to have had the presumption (as Mr. Lodge infers from some passages in the Talbot papers*) to become an inferior pretender to that persecuted state-sufferer, the Lady Arabella Stewart. Mr. Lodge has printed a sonnet of his, addressed to that

66

most verteous and treulye honorable Ladye," and another, "uppon a horologe of the clock." Mr. George Ellis, (a name which will never be mentioned without a throb of tender regard, and a sigh of deep regret, by those who were honoured with his friendship) in his Specimens of the early English Poets, has inserted a sonnet from a transcript of part of the Tarantula of Love, politely communicated to him by the late Lord Woodhouselee. With that transcript Mr. Ellis amicably favoured your correspondent. It contains eighteen sonnets, one of which only has been printed by Mr. Ellis, and another by Dr. Leyden: the remaining sixteen it may be in consonance with the plan of RESTITUTA to introduce. Lord Woodhouselee observes that they were copied with little regard to critical selection, and merely with the view of ascertaining

* See Illustr. of Brit. Hist. iii. 169.

Fowler's general merits as a poet. His Lordship adds, that Fowler is very remarkable for the harmony of his numbers; that all his sonnets shew an intimate acquaintance with Petrarch, and a refinement on his defects-his quaintness and concetti.

I.

"O you, who heare the accents of my smart
Diffus'd in rhyme, and sad disorder'd verse;
Gif ever flames of love have caught your heart,
I trust with sobbs and teares the same to pierce :
Yea, e'en in these rude rigours I rehearse,
Which I depaint with bloodie bloodlesss wounds,
I think despaired soules their plaints sal sterse,
And mak the haggard rocks resound sad sounds.
Yet, whereas ye the causes reids, and grounds
Off her immortal beautie and my paine,

Through which great greiffs and gente, in bothe abounds:
With humble speache speake this to her agayne-

'O iff his haples thought he stil sould sing,

'Breid him not, Deathe! that glore to thee does bring.'

II.

The fyres, the cordes, the girnes, the snaws, and dart,
Quherewith blind Love has me enflam'd and wound,
The maist fair face and the maist cruell hart

I werying wryte, and sighing dois resound:
And therewith all the beauties that rebound
From her, qha is of dames maist chaste and fair;
Qha is the object, subject, and the ground
Of my loth'd love, and undeserv'd despaire.
The sweit sour jarres, the joys, the toils, and caire,
My perjur'd othes, and my denied vowes;

Her eyes, her hands, her hyde, her hewe, and haire, Her lippes, her cheikes, her hals, and her brent browes, And things yet hidd, and to the world unseene,

To write with teares, and paint with plaintes I mean.

III.

Sen spreits, thoughts, hart, you have from me heire taine,
Then these lamentyng and complayning lynes
May justlie to your mereits appertayne,
And dois belong to yow, in dewe propynes:
Bot sen my style and Muse, not weill defynes,
Bot rather darke your prayse, than right descryve;
Your just disdaynes of reasoun more enclynes
To cast my songs aside, and them to ryve,
Which now, half dead, I have return'd alyve.
And as the laymed birthe of my blunt brayne,
Whils your despyte dois them of spreits depryve;
I send them to your plesant hands agayne,
To die by them, to perish in your yre,

To burne by flames, as they were born by fyre.

IV.

Pride of my thought, and glorye of my eyes,
Lamp of my lyfe, and onlye hartes delyte,
Hope of my paynes, sweet causer of my cryes,
Chiefe work of heaven, and natures mould perfyte;
Glass of all bountye, and of beautye qhyte,
Deare saint on earthe, and heir of heavenly grace;
Blest bright suborner of these theames I wryte,
Clere shyning sun, which darknes does displace;
Strong centryeis, and wyde storehouss of all grace,
Scharpe quick reviver of my slow ingyne,

Wha bothe my wills and witts reuls by thy face,
Receive this verse, which humblie I propyne:
And in them reid that which thy beautie bred,
Whose wonders hath me in my follye fed.

V.

If great desyre thee move to see my harte
Mak in my breist a passage with the blode,
And there you sal your beautyes al adverte,
To have them maistres of my fredome made;
There sal you see how faintinglye I faide,
And how my lyght, lyke bellows full of wynd,
Dois blow furthe deadlye sighes, for laike of aide,
And draw deep grones out of a mournfull mynde.
Bot, dear Bellisa, cruell and unkynde,

face;

Desist for death dois such efforts efface.
Behold my verse, and in them ye sal fynd
My hart, my love, your favours, and your
My plaintes, my paynes, my langours, and unrest,
Your high disdaynes, to my disgrace exprest.

VI.

O most unhappie and accursed wight!

To praise her most, qho dois me most disgrace;
Or her extoll, that, by her pryde and slight,

Dois circumvene me by a snaring face.
And yet, in all my grieffs and careful race,
Plung'd in the poole of payne and whirl of woe,
By loving and by lothed verse, I presse
To eternise her prayse, who paynes me soe.
The object makes me objects all forgoe,
Which may displace, or yet resent disdaynes ;
The subject subject met, as wylde as roe,
Or any hynde that in the woodes remaynes;
Doeth mak me of myself with shame rehearse,
That I am first in love, as last in verse."

T. P.