You cristal Nimphes, that haunt the bankes of Thames,
Tune your sad timbrils in this wofull day;

And force the swift winds and the sliding streames
To stand awhile, and listen to your lay.

Your fading temples bound about with yewe;
At every step your hands devoutly wring;
Let one note's fall another's height renewe,

And with compassion your sad Nænia sing.
Graces and Muses wait upon her hearse :

Three are the first, the last the sacred Nine;
The sad'st of which in a black tragique verse
Shall sing the requiem passing to her shrine.

An ebon charriot to support the biere,*

Drawne with the blacke steedes of the gloomy night, Stooping their stiffe crests with a heavie cheere,† Stirring compassion in the people's sight.

The pyle prepar'd whereon her body lyes,

In cipresse shadowes sit you downe forlorne,
Whose bowes, bedew'd with plenty of your eyes,
For her, with griefe the branches shall adorne.
Let fall your eye-lids like the sunne's cleere set,
When your pale hands put to the vestall flame;
And from your brests your sorrowes freely let,
Crying one beta and Eliza's name.

Upon the altar place your virgin-spoyles,
And one by one with comelinesse bestowe,
Diana's buskins and her hunting toyles,

Her empty quiver and her stringless bowe.

* This may recal to mind the public funeral of our illustrious Nelson.

+ Cheer was sometimes used with a countervailing epithet, as in this place,

and seems to have been applied to disposition or temperament of mind.

+ Boughs.

Let every virgin offer up a teare,

The richest incense nature can allowe;
And at her tombe for ever, yeare by yeare,
Pay the oblation of a mayden vowe.

And the tru'st vestall, the most sacred liver,
That ever harbor'd an unspotted spirit,
Retaine thy vertues and thy name for ever,
To tell the world thy beauty and thy merit.

Where's Collin Clout,* or Rowland,† now become,
That wont to leade our shepheards in a ring?
Ah me! the first pale death hath strooken dombe,
The latter none incourageth to sing.

But I unskilful, a poore shepheard's lad,
That the hye knowledge onely doe adore,
Would offer more, if I more plenty had;

But coming short of their aboundant store,

A willing heart, that on thy fame could dwell,
Thus bids Eliza happily farewell!

The remainder of this tract is taken up by "the true order and formall proceeding at the Funerall of the most high, renowned, famous, and mightye Princesse Elizabeth, of England, France, and Ireland late Queene, from Whitehall to the Cathedral Church of Westminster, the 28 day of April, 1603." A few verses are interspersed, and others appear at the beginning and end of this order of funeral procession.

[

Spenser, the Prince of Poets, in his time,' as he is titled on his monument, is now ascertained to have died on the 16th of January, 1598. See Mr. Todd's account of his life.

↑ Drayton so poetised his name: and although he wrote no elegy on Elizabeth, yet he put forth a poem congratulatory on the accession of James.

Licia: or Poemes of Love: in honour of the admirable and singular Vertues of his Lady. In the imitation of the best Latin Poets and others. Whereunto is added, the Rising to the Crowne of Richard the Third.

Auxit Musarum numerum Sappho addita Musis,
Fælix si sævus, sic voluisset Amor.

4to. pp. 92.

THIS is all the title to an apparently unpublished and anonymous production, which is inscribed to the Lady of Sir Richard Mollineux, in terms that, if the knight had been prone to jealousy, might have rendered him an easy prey to the green-eyed monster. The author may perhaps have been a Cantabrigian, as he speaks of Harrington having shown in his Ariosto that he took up his abode in King's College. His epistle dedicatory bears date from his chamber, Sept. 4, 1593; and whether he may not hence have been one of those erratic law-students who "penn'd a stanza when he should engross," must rest in conjecture wholly. His love sonnets (52 in number) are neither to be classed among the best or worst of the period in which he wrote: the lady Licia, to whom they are addressed, being probably one of those supposititious inspirers who convey the transmitted ingenuity and artifices of poetic composition, rather than the natural impulses of passion and truth. Cupid and Venus, and Cynthia and Pho

bus, and the vapid semi-demi-heroes and heroines of mythological fable, never fill the mind of a real lover. All the sonnets are not however of this unmeaning and school-boy texture; though most of them are in a strain of complimentary hyperbole: exempli gratia.

SONNET XXXIV.

Pale are my lookes, forsaken of my lyfe ;
Cynders my bones, consumed with thy flame;
Floodes are my teares, to end this burning stryfe;
And yet I sigh, for to increase the same.
I mourne alone, because alone I burne ;

Who doubts of this, then let him learn to love;
Her looks, colde yce into a flame can turne,
As I distressed in my selfe doe prove.
Respect, faire Licia! what my torments are,

Count but the tythe both of my sighes and teares;

See how my love doth still increase my care,

And care's increase my lyfe to nothing weares.
Send but a sigh, my flame for to increase,

Or lend a teare, and cause it so to cease.

When the sonnetteer here speaks of learning to love, it prompts a suspicion that he had been learning to

write about it.

To the sonnets an ode succeeds: then a dialogue between two sea-nymphs, translated out of Lucian : a quaint and conceitful poem, entitled A Lover's Maze, and three love elegies. A new title then intervenes, which bears

The Rising to the Crowne of Richard the Third. Written by Himselfe..

That is, written as if spoken by himself, after the manner of those monologues which compose the Mirrour for Magistrates. Some of the early portion of it is here extracted.

The stage is set, for stately matter fit,

Three parts are past, which prince-like acted were,
To play the fourth requires a kingly witte,
Els shall my Muse their Muses not come nere.
Sorrow! sit downe, and helpe my Muse to sing;
For weepe he may not, that was call'd a King.

Shore's Wife, a subject, though a Prince's mate,
Had little cause her fortune to lament:

Her birth was meane, and yet she liv'd with state,
The King was dead before her honour went.

Shore's wife might fall, and none can justly wonder,
To see her fall, that useth to lye under.

Rosamond was fayre, and far more fayre than she,
Her fall was great, and but a woman's fall.
Tryfles are great, compare them but with me,
My fortunes farre were higher then they all.
I left this land possest with civill strife,
And lost a crowne, mine honour, and my life.

Elstred I pitie, for she was a Queene;

But, for my selfe to sigh, I sorrow want;
Her fall was great, but greater falls have been;
Some falls they have that use the Court to haunt.
A toye did happen, and this Queene dismay'd;
But yet I see not why she was afrayd.

Fortune and I (for so the match began)
Two games we play'd at tennys for a crowne: