In the succeeding love-verses there is a turn that is not unnatural.

If, walking by some stately silver stream,

When as there chance a bloomy winde to be;
Methinks amidst that cockling vaporous gleam
I presently my fair Athelia see:

And if I trace upon their borders sweet,
Instead of trees, I still Athelia meet.

If that I chance into the fields to hie
To pluck a nosegay for Athelia fair,
Methinks amidst each flower I do espie
The sweet resemblance of hir beauty rare:
And if, by chance, to sing I do pretend;
For answer, she her ecchoing voice doth lend.

If on high mountains sometimes I ascend

To see the harmless flocks their pasture take;
Methinks from hill to dale mine eyes I lend,
If of my dear I may espial make:

And if some nymph or shepherdess I see,
Methinks, farre off, it should Athelia be.

To a well known part of Virgil's Eclogues, the following may owe its origin.

First, fish shall flie within the element,

And aiery birds live in the ocean-sea,

Fair Phoebus shall forsake the firmament,

And scorn to grace the cincture of the day.
Thetis shall wander o're proud Atlas' top,

And Nilus cease to water Egypt's land;
The earth into the skies shall fountains drop,
And Neptune's face refuse to kisse the strand.

All ships shall sail upon the massie main,
And Etna freeze at splendor of the sun;
Dame Cytherea quite shall lose her train,
And elephants, like clouds, in air shall run.
Lebanus-cedars shall like thistles spring,

And hysop-tops aspire unto the skie:

From Thule to Gange the dormouse voice shall ring,
And gnats shall drink all brooks and rivers dry;
Before th' idea of Florina's sight

Shall once have power from me to take his flight.

T

Trinarchodia: The severall raignes of Richard the second, Henrie the fourth, and Henrie the fifth.

A dedication to Liberty. An advertisement (prose). Metrical address to the readers (9 pages). General argument, (in verse) preceding the poem. And Parcebasis (2 pages at the close).

Then follow-Idyllia: The Distemper: a poeme revised and enlarged, by the author. (43 pages in heroic verse.) 5 Idyllia and L'Envoy.

To which is subjoined-Synopsodie. The Design, the Colouring, the Shadow, the Proportion, the Landskip, the Ceremonie. (3 pages in lyric verse.)

THIS is a manuscript volume, formerly in the possession of James Petit Andrews, Esq. At the end of

it is the following note by Oldys the antiquary, who appears to have been its former possessor.

"By what I can find, in perusing this book, so full of uncouth and obscure phrases, metaphorical allusions, distant, abstracted conceits, and mistical learning, the author was a Clergyman, and calls K. Ch. II. his master. He begun this book on ye 7 Nov. 1649, and ended it on All Souls Day, 1650. It further seems, these three Reigns and the Idyllia were written for the press; but not to be published till after his death, and then without his name; yet the Idyllia, by being said to be revised and enlarged, looks as if it had been publish'd before. W. OLDYS."

The author, in his reign of Henry the fifth, thus alludes to the common notion that Shakspeare had dramatised Sir John Oldcastle under the character of Falstaff.

The worthy Sir whom Falstaff's ill-us'd name
Personates on the stage; lest scandall might
Creepe backward, and blott Martir, were a shame;
Though Shakespeare, storie; and For, legend write;
That manuall, where dearth of storie brought
Such saints, worthy this age to make it out.

An "Address to the Reader" thus pointedly refers to several of our popular chroniclers.

Twer a smart piece of worke, and worth the care,
Should wee prevent you by our proeme here,

And with a chronologicke Preface, save

Your patience, for what y' have not, or have

See an elaborate disquisition on this point of critical controversy in the Biographia Britannica, vol. v. article Fastolf.

Read, of the storie; a minet Chronicle
Serv'd in, a stew'd meat to the second meale :
Hollingshead's mighty loyne, a voyder full,
Brought in a saucer; little spoon meats cull
From Stowe's ill-fardled dry-fatt, would you more
Olives, deepe swett; in jarre of Polidore ;*
Speed cutt in syppets; Trussel layd about
For a traile garnish: thus wee sett yow out
Perboyled kings, and quadled crowns, a dish
Fitt for the appetite, as you can wish.
Majestye layd in pickle; what you saw
T'affright your stomachs, being fresh and raw.

Chaucer comes in for the following allusion.

That infancie of time (when unfledg'd witt,
Imp'd from the ragged sarcill, Chaucer, dropt)
Was smooth'd by him† anew, and fancie knitt
Harmonious sence.

&c.

The following may serve as a brief specimen of the poetry, which has some merit, mingled with much and most perplexing quaintness.

From the calme tabernacle of our hopes

Our fervent vowes ascend; 'tis all; what sad
Restraint allowes our zeale, and manie stops

Of passion, checke the current of a glad
Intention; stay; the auspicie prevents

Our feare, and chides the error of complaints.

Bright as the mid-day sun, when banisht clouds.
Bind up the lower hemisphere, as soft

As new-inspired ayre, sweet as the buds
Of virgin-roses, pluckt: if, from these oft

Repeated similies, you gather how

Wee spread, to close, tis well; but these are low..

An Epicede, or funerall Song, on the most disastrous death of the high borne Prince of Men, Henry Prince of Wales, &c. With the Funeralls and representation of the Herse of the same high and mighty Prince; Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwaile and Rothsay, Count Palatine of Chester, Earle of Caricke, and late Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter. Which noble Prince deceased at St. James, the sixt day of November, 1612, and was most princely interred the seventh day of December following, within the Abbey of Westminster, in the eighteenth yeere of his

age.

London, printed by T. S. for John Budge, and are to bee sould at his shop at the great south dore of Paules, and at Brittanes bursse, 1612.

4to. 16 leaves.

THIS is inscribed by its author, George Chapman, the translator of Homer, to his "affectionate and true friend, Mr. Henry Jones," whose love to him, he says, had been "absolute, constant, and noble ;" and to