Robert III.'s wife, and mother of the poet-king, James I. of Scotland, was an ancestress of his own. The history was begun about 1633 and finished probably in 1644. It has no great value as history; it shows no research, and makes no attempt to set the events and the characters of men in their right perspective. Yet the style, if somewhat too ornate for history according to modern taste, is pleasing. Alexander. Sir William Alexander, afterwards Earl of Stirling (1567?-1640), a friend of Drummond, was statesman and courtier, as well as poet. Following the fashion, he wrote a series of sonnets to a fair lady, Aurora, and may have recorded therein a genuine passion. In 1613 his tragedy of Darius was printed. He wrote three other tragedies, but the best part of all of them is the choruses. His sonnets prove him capable of writing sustained verse of a high quality. V. Sir John Davies. Sir John Davies (1560?-1626) may be called a reflective poet. Like Fulke Greville, Sidney's friend, he thought that the whole domain of life Sir John was suitable for poetry. He was the first Davies, of our poets to employ verse for philosophic reasoning, a process for which prose is usually more suited; Dryden, however, was soon to follow him, and to prove that a great poet could reason in verse with fine effect. Davies was a barrister of the Middle Temple, and published in 1596 Orchestra, or a Poem on Dancing. Two years later, in consequence of his lively pranks and disregard of discipline, he was expelled from his Inn. He returned to Oxford, and there under and his the influence of soberer thoughts he wrote "Nosce his Nosce Teipsum1, a poem on the "origin, Teipsum". nature, and immortality of the human soul". It was published in 1599. He used a stanza henceforward 1 Know thyself. known as the heroic quatrain,1 and dedicated the poem to Elizabeth. As an example of the kind of poetry that Davies wrote, let us take the closing lines of this poem. They form an address to the soul after it has been released from the body by death. And thou, my Soul, which turn'st with curious eye To view the beams of thine own form divine, Thy peacock's feet with thy gay peacock's train: Cast down thyself, and only strive to raise Use all thy powers, that blessed power to praise, His quaintness and subtle imagery give his poems a charm which partly compensates for our remoteness from their spirit and interests. Raleigh. VI. Sir Walter Raleigh. The career of Spenser's friend, the "Shepherd of the Ocean", belongs more properly to history than to letters; but he is the author of some verse and of one prose work destined to live in English literature. Raleigh was born in 1552. He took a leading part in the wars against Spain, and made several voyages to the New World, where he planted the colony of Virginia. With the death of Elizabeth his fortunes changed. He was accused of plotting against king James, tried for 1 It is a four-lined stanza, each line having five iambic feet riming alternately. The measure was soon to be used by Dryden with admirable effect, and later by Gray in his famous Elegy. treason, and condemned to death. A reprieve was obtained and he was sent to the Tower, where he was kept for twelve years. He then asked the king to allow him to conduct an expedition to work a gold-mine he knew of in South America. He was released, but, disobeying James's orders, he attacked the Spaniards; to make amends to the Spanish court, in 1618 Raleigh was beheaded on the old charge of treason. In his poetry he was both playful and serious. In the former vein he replied to Marlowe's charming invitation "Come live with me and be my love", and His verse. in the latter wrote the Soul's Errand1. He wrote a fine sonnet in praise of the Faery Queen. Among his best verses are the opening stanza of the Pilgrimage,— Give me my scallop-shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon, My bottle of salvatión, My gown of glory, hope's true gage; And thus I'll take my pilgrimage. and some lines supposed to have been written in the Tower, entitled Verses found in his Bible in the Gatehouse at Westminster: Even such is time, that takes in trust And pays us but with earth and dust; Shuts up the story of our days; But from this earth, this grave, this dust, As we have seen, there had been, as yet, very little historical writing that could be called literature, and what there was dealt chiefly with England. Influenced by the adventures of the travellers and explorers, men 1 This poem is generally assigned to him, but not with certainty. His "History of the now began to take an interest in the histories of foreign lands. Knolles published a History of the Turks in 1603, and in 1614 appeared Raleigh's History of the World, written during his twelve years' imWorld". prisonment in the Tower. He finished five books, beginning with the Creation and ending with the second Macedonian war. While he is relating the history of the ancient world, chiefly of Greece and Rome, Raleigh very often draws illustrations from his knowledge of the nations round him. In one passage he compares the misfortunes of the Romans with those of the Spaniards, and in another Cæsar's practice of not changing his lieutenants in the countries he had conquered, with that of the English sovereign, who so frequently recalled his lieutenants from Ireland. 66 For", says Raleigh very wisely, "it is more than the best wit in the world can do to inform itself within one year's compass of the nature of a great nation. . . . Our princes have commonly left their deputies in Ireland three years; whence, by the reason of the shortness of that their time, many of them have returned as wise as they went out." When discussing sea-fights in general, he illustrates his remarks by Admiral Howard's methods in combating the Armada. Dr. Johnson declared that Raleigh "has produced a historical dissertation, but has seldom risen to the dignity of history". Raleigh left aside the affectations of Lyly and his school, and wrote in a simple and more dignified style; though his sentences are long and often involved, he has many eloquent passages. As an example, we may take the famous lines on death. O eloquent, just, and mighty death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, áll the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet! VII. William Browne. Pastorals". Browne, who was born in 1591, published the first book of his Britannia's Pastorals about 1613. The second book (1616) he dedicated to Browne and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, the "Britannia's! recipient of homage from so many poets. Among the writers of the commendatory verses prefixed to each book are Ben Jonson, Drayton, and Wither. The two books were republished in one volume in 1625. The third book was not printed until 1852. The poem is pleasant reading, and tells in quiet cheerful fashion of country sights and sounds, of "May games, true-love knots, and shepherds piping in the shade; of pixies and fairy circles; of rustic bridals and junketings; of angling, hunting the squirrel, nut-gathering". The following lines are characteristic of Browne's best manner : Hail thou, my native soil! thou blessed plot Such sweet clothed valleys, or aspiring hills, Such wood-ground, pastures, quarries, wealthy mines, Such rocks in whom the diamond fairly shines: And if the earth can shew the like again, The "Inner Browne wrote also the Shepherd's Pipe (1614), a series of eclogues; the Inner Temple Masque, acted by the members of the Inner Temple in 1615, a work that may have given Milton some hints Temple |