Bellona storming with a fatall rage,

Out of th' Infernall Cells calls forth a Page, Fell Discord hight, with whom shee thus doth treat : Doe not thy trembling vaines, dear Discord, sweat Whole stormes of wrath? for that neglected warre Crest-fallen mournes in peace; and that, that barre Of milk-sop Treaties stoppes our raging Armes, Stain'd with the blood of Belgiaes former harmes. Behold that swelling State; observe and looke, How proudly shee hauing the chaines off shooke Of Castiles thraldome, liues in pleasing rest, And roaues from Holland to the farthest West, Spreading her tayle vnto* that Indian Maine, vered by Columbus. Found by Columbus for Gold thirsting Spaine.

The West Indies were first disco

I long to drinke her blood, and to intombe

Her goared carkeise in my gaping wombe:

Rather let heapes of men, let millions die,
Then my blood-thirstie soule should want supply.

These three places Think'st thou that Turnholts field, where thousands fell

in the Netherlands
were famous for
those fights which
haue been made
in them.

Sir Horace and Sir
Edward Vere.

colneshire came

Of slaughtered bodies could my longing quell?
Or famous Ostend, which for three yeares space
Maintain'd that siege, which did the world amaze?
Or that same blood, which fertiliz'd the sand,
That Mountaine like doth rise on Newports Strand?
These were but drops vnto my dropsie soule,
Which drinking still doth thirst; goe fill my bowle
Brimfull with vengeance, which I meane to powre
In stormes of blood on Belgiaes fruitfull shore.
There's liquor yet within the sacred vaines
Of great heroicke Spirits, that remaines

My Lord of Oxford, An object for my lust : — - there are the* Veares,
Three thunder-bolts of warre, whose courage dares
T'affront whole Squadrons: there is Cecill braue,
These would I haue to make the fielde their graue.
The Ogles of Lin- With these time-honour'd * Ogle let mee place,
A Branch sprung from Northumbrian Ogles race,
And valiant Mountioy, who to Blunts great house
Fresh glory giues; with these then ioyne and rouse
Saintleger, Conway, Burrowes, and the rest,
Whose daring valour fitly may contest

from the Ogles of Northumberland.

With Romes old Minions; - let their whetted Armes

Vpon thy summons take on fresh Alarmes.

And since for richer streames of Princes blood,

My soule doth long to drinke a crimson flood,

Hirduo like, faine would I sucke the vaines

Of great Nassaw, which with their mouing straines
Giue life vnto the members of that State,

Who with their power the Spanish pride doe mate.

Among the list of those who volunteered their services to join the wars, besides the Earls of Essex and Holland, he thus pleasingly eulogizes one of his own personal friends :

Besides this list there were of Voluntiers,

Braue numbers, and of brauer martiall Peeres,
Who for religions cause, for honours sake
Had left their deerest deares, to vndertake
The war gods seruice: here Essex his Counte
Appeares as Leader in the foremost frounte:
With him marcht he, that Hollands title beares
Amongst the liste of our illustrious Peeres,
And Hopton too, whom let me not forget,
(Borne in the fields of flowerie Somerset)
My friend and fellow both in Armes and Arts:
With the sweete tune of which harmonious parts,
Thou dost inforce my selfe, my muse, my loue,
T'admire their worths inspired from aboue.
Thee, vast Herciniaes woods, and Isters bedde
Swift Albis current, and the Neckars heade,
Know and resounde their Panegiricke layes,
Which blazon forth thy fame deseruing praise.

The author draws some strong pictures of the evils of famine which at times prevailed among the troops, and of the difficulty of procuring supplies of food; and also of the dreadful effects of the severity of the season in the Netherlands, of which the following passages may be taken as examples:

Nor is this all wee suffer, famine raignes,
Cleannesse of teeth in eury street complaines;
Things horrid are deuour'd, Dogs, Mice, and Rats,
Lowd croaking Toadpoles, hunger-starued Cats;
The Flemish Courser, and the Frison Steed,
High pamperd for the Saddle now must feed

The Riders Colon, whose vnsatiate maw
Both against Reason, Nature, Customes Law

Feeds on that flesh, whose liuing backe did beare

Himselfe through horrors mouth, through dangers feare.

Those high-fed palats, which not long since far'd

On Friselands fattest Fowle, Westphalias Lard,

Zealandish Salmon, and the wilde Boares haunch,
With which the richer Dutch doth cram his paunch
On solemne Feast-dayes; these, for want of meat,
Things vilifi'de and dunghil'd now must cat.
To redresse this our men their spirits rally,
And resolutely appoint a valiant sally,
By whose aduenture they might either die,
Or manumize themselues from penurie
Since better 'tis for Valour once to bleed,
Then still to feele affliction vnder need.

So also in the second book he again alludes near the close to the same cause of suffering among the troops:

Moreouer 'twas not the Castilians bent,
To take this place by forcible attempt,
By battering, Petarring, or Scalado,
By sapping, mining, or by Camisado,
They knew 'twere labour lost, 'twere worke in vaine
To seeke by force this Fortresse strong to gaine.
But famine was the plot, the Fabian course
By which they meant the Souldiers hearts to force,
And skrew to their conditions: for what strength
So Adamantine is? but yeelds at length
Vnto the force of famine; there's no law
Can giue prescription to a suff'ring mawe :
For Casars selfe must yeeld, and Pompey vaile,
If victuals with their hungry Colon faile.

But where the sworde one pettie squadron slew,
The Pestilence to Plutoes mansion drew
Thousands of soules, whose numerous Cohorts
Crowded the passage of the Stigian ports.
So that no stragling soule could portage gaine,
From th' vpper world vnto th' Infernall maine.
But O thou scourge of Armies, why shouldst thou
To Mars his steelie traine destruction vowe?
Why should Bellonaes votaries indure

Thy bloodie fluxe, thy madding Callenture?
Why should the swelling blotch, the watrie blaine
That seate of valour with contagion staine,
And tainte that purer consecrated bloud

Which vow'd itselfe for Belgiaes publicke good.

Was't not inough to powre thy malice forth,
Vpon the colder Regions of the North?

To plague the warrelike Danes, the sturdie Swecians,
The Rugians, Lappians, and the slow Norwegians?
Was't not inough for thy death miniond selfe,
To Golgothize the streetes of stately Delfe,
And make faire Leidens trembling students flie
From learnings once, now deaths Academie ?
Was't not inough to lay west Frieseland waste
And waste Traiectum ? but with winged hast
Thou must inuade the Princes warrelike Campe,
And thousands kill with that obnoxious dampe,
Which first infects the subtle poared Aire,
And from thence doth our vitall strength impaire,
By tainting those vermillion flowing vaines,
Those life conducts with thy contagious staines.
And could not heere plebeian bloud asswage
The boundles bounds of thy luxuriant rage?
But must South-hamptons Earle, must Oxfords selfe
Dye by the darts of this accursed Elfe?

Must Wriothsley, Windham, Chester, Halswell dye,
Slaine by the shafts of dire mortalitie ?

But deade they are, whether that angrie nature
Enuied to earth their more diuiner feature ;

Or being malignant both to Armes, and Arts,
Skorn'd this Sublunar should possesse those parts,
Those seates of wonder, which with such a measure
Were powred forth of great Pandoraes treasure.
Yet these being gone, Ratcliffe reputed dead.

For Pompeyes repulse Fame-eternized,

Liues and suruiues, new Honours to attaine
From the defeated Colonels of Spaine.

At the end of the poem on a separate leaf are twelve lines of verse of no merit, addressed "To my industrious friend Master W. C.," and subscribed "Iohn Dowle Bristol." This leaf appears to have been wanting in the copy described by Mr. Collier, who states the number of leaves in the volume to be thirty-nine, instead of, as they really are, forty.

Of William Crosse, the author of the work, we know nothing more than that he was a Somersetshire man, born about 1590, and educated at St. Mary Hall in the University of Oxford, where in 1610 he took the degree of B.A., and in 1613 that of M.A. He shortly after left Oxford, and repaired to the Metropolis, where, according to Wood, "he exercised his talents in history and translation, as he had before done in logic and poetry."

He was one of the contributors to the Justa Oxoniensium in 1612, and to the verses published in 1613 on the marriage of the Count Palatine with the eldest daughter of James I. He wrote also A Continuation of the Historie of the Netherlands from 1608 to 1627, Lond. 1627, folio, which had been begun by Grimeston, and a translation of Sallust, published in 1629, 8vo. He appears to have joined the army in the Netherlands as chaplain, and in his poem to have related events of which he was himself a personal eye witness; but how long he remained there, or when he died, we have no further information.

Wood was ignorant of the poem now before us, neither is it mentioned in either of the editions of Lowndes, or in Watt. See Wood's Ath. Oxon., vol. ii. p. 481, and Collier's Bibliogr. Catal., vol. i. p. 165.

Collation: Sig A two leaves; B to L 2, in fours.

Bound in Calf extra, gilt leaves.

CROWLEY, (ROBERT.) - The voyce of the laste trumpet, blowen by the seuenth Angel (as is mentioned in the eleuenth of the Apocalips) callyng al estats of men to the ryght path of theyr vocation, wherin are conteyned xii. Lessons to twelue seueral estats of me, which if thei learne and folowe, al shall be wel, and nothing amis.

The voyce of one criynge in the deserte. - Luke iii.
Make redy the Lords waie, make his pathes streight. Euery
valley shal be fylled, and euery mountayne and lyttle hyl shal
be made lowe, and thynges y' be croked shal be made streyght,
and hard passages shal be turned into plaine waies, and all flesh
shall se the heath of God. - - Esaie xl.

Imprinted at London by Robert Crowley dwellynge in
Elie rents in Holburn. Anno Do. MDL.

¶ Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum. blk.lett., sm. 8vo.

Among others who contributed to the metrical theology so prevalent in the early days of the Reformation, and who was equally well known as a printer, a puritan and a preacher, was Robert Crowley, a native of Gloucestershire, who became a student at Oxford in 1534, and took his degree of B.A. in 1540 as a demy of Magdalen College, of which he was made a 4 A

VOL. II. PART. II.