Peruse the contents of contented minde, Discretion, censure, which is better found So competence necessities may steede. Brooks satisfie thirst with convenient store, The spacious Ocean's liquid can no more. With the concluding stanzas I terminate this article. If Adam, through forbidden fruite forsooke Those Eden pleasures of felicity; In pillar of salt found such misery; These Sodome apples I will not behold, That inward are but dust, though outward gold. Vertue joyne hand in hand with Poverty, And we will walke secure from bonds of feares; Not surpris'd with preventing misery, To reape the fruits of Patience and Content. Don Zara del Fogo: a mock romance. Written originally in the Brittish Tongue, and made English by a person of much honor, Basilius Musophilus. With a marginall comment, expounding the hard things of the History. Si foret in terris rideret Democritus. London, printed by Tho. Vere, at the sign of the Angel without Newgate, 1656. This is said to have received another title in the same year, viz. Wit and Fancy in a Maze, or the incomparable Champion of Love and Beauty, embellished with many rare and choyce pieces of Drollery. It certainly had the following prefix a few years afterward: Romancio-Mastrix: or a Romance on Romances. In which the prodigious Vanities of a great part of them are (as in a Mirrour) most lively represented, and so naturally personated, that the ingenious Reader, observing their deformities, may delightfully be instructed and invited to the pursuing of more honourable and profitable studies. By Samuel Holland, Gent. * • A poetical encomium, so signatured, is prefixed to Sheppard's Epi. grams, 1657. HORAT. Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci. No man more worthy of true praise doth write, Printed for the Author, in the year of our Lord, 1660. 12mo. Pp. 216. THIS romance-travestie possesses much shrewd sarcasm and facetious wit, and fully exposes the silly incidents, absurd extravagancies, and bombastic pomposities introduced in some of the writings of that cast. The opening of the first chapter conveys no unskilful skit on some of the tinsel ornaments of the once fashionable romance style. "It was now about that mungrell hour when the blackbrow'd Night and grey-eyed Morning strove for superiority, when the mirror of martiall spirits, Don Zara del Fogo, sweeping the somniferous god from off his ample front with that broom of heaven, his face-pounding fist, entred into serious contemplation of the renowned acts of his most noble ancestors, Tristram the terrible, and the great Lancelot of the Lake. So ravishing were those heroick rhapsodies, that (upon mature chew of the cud) the champion began to tax himself of tardity: as not having accumulated that fame which at the price of so eminent dangerst he had so hotly hunted after. This second cogitation had but a while combated with the first, when he Printed Thristram, but it is presumed by an error of the press. "See the legend of Don Sordido, knight of the dripping pan, written by the author of Cassandra." summons the Squire of his body, Soto, who lay soundly sleeping at his bed's feet; commanding him (since himself never knew letters) to read the Chronicle History of Saint George, who bathed his body in the bloody bowels of a fell Dragon; or the like atchievement of Sir Elamore; or the hard quest of Sir Topaz after the Queen of Elves to Barwick; or of Sir Guy and the firce boar of Boston. Sir, (quoth Soto, who had hardly gained sight enough to see his master) you were wont to take great pleasure in hearing the redoubted adventures of Sir Bevis, sirnamed Southampton, and the Knight of the Sun.' That (quoth the champion) the Knight of the Sun's actions would put fire into a flint, animate a log, and make a wooden leg to walk.' * Soto had not long led his master by the large eares, (for our Champion boasted a long-linckt genealogie from the Phrygian King Midas, a hundred, fourscore and fourteen descents by the father's side) but suddenly deserting his bed, he seased (all naked as he was) on his naked sword (that thunder-crack of terrour, slay-a-cow, the very same that he lately won on Monta Mole-hill from the great gyant, Phrenedecrenobroso, the son of Pediculo,) and leaning thereon, (like the legitimate heyr of Mars) he very attentively hoorded up the treasures of true magnanimity." &c. Several poetic effusions are interspersed, to keep up the character of this mimic production; and a masque in masquerade, entitled Venus and Adonis, takes up several pages: which trifle has hitched the author into the Biographica Dramatica. But the most interesting • "Don Zara, descended of the stock of kings. See Cambd. Avisoc.” + For it was the custom of the knights of that age to wear no shirts." Several publications about the time this drolling work was produced appear to be glanced at sarcastically, though rather with obscurity. At p. 209, the reader is directed to Marriot's Madrigals, and Wood of Kent's Aphorisms. Qu. of what date? passage in this performance is one that introduces several of our English poets; after the Grecian and Roman bards had jangled, and thrown Elysium into an uproar. "The Brittish bards, forsooth, were also engaged in quarrel for superiority: and who, think you, threw the apple of discord amongst them, but Ben Johnson, who had openly vaunted himself the first and best of English poets? This brave was resented by all with the highest indignation; for Chawcer, by most there, was esteemed the father of English poesie; whose only unhappiness it was, that he was made for the time he lived in, but the time not for him. Chapman was wondrously exasperated at Ben's boldness, and scarce refrained to tell his own Tale of a Tub, that his Isabel and Mortimer* was now compleated by a knighted poet, whose soul remained in flesh. Hereupon Spencer, who was very busie in finishing his Faery Queen, thrust himself amid the throng, and was received with a showt by Chapman, Harington, Owen, Constable, Daniel, and Drayton so that some thought the matter decided. But behold Shakespeare and Fletcher (bringing with them a strong party) appeared as if they meant to water their bayes with blood, rather then part with their proper right; which indeed, Apollo and the Muses had with much justice conferr'd upon them: so that now there is like to be a trouble in triplex. Skelton, Gower, and the Monk of Bury [Lydgate] were at daggers-drawing for Chaucer: Spencer waited upon by a numerous troop of the best book-men in the world: Shakespeare and Fletcher surrounded with their life-guard: viz. Goffe, Massinger, Decker, Webster, Sucklin, Cartwright, Carew, &c. O • There seems to be some confusion here; since the poetical epistles of Isabel and Mortimer were the production of Drayton. The knighted poet, who is said to have completed such a production, I have in vain endeavoured to trace. |