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quency and asperity of the art. Robert Armin, in his Address "Ad Lectorem hie et ubique," prefixed to "The Italian Taylor and his Boy," says, speaking of his pen, "I wander with it now in a strange time of taxation, wherein every pen and inck-horne Boy will throw up his cap at the hornes of the Moone in censure, although his wit hang there, not returning unlesse monthly in the wane: such is our ticklish age, and the itching braine of abondance;" and in the "Troia Britannica" of Thomas Heywood, the author, saluting his various readers under the titles of the Courteous, the Criticke, and the Scornefull, tells the latter, "I am not so unexperienced in the envy of this Age, but that I knowe I shall encounter most sharpe and severe Censurers, such as continually carpe at other mens labours, and superficially perusing them, with a kind of negligence and skorne, quote them by the way, Thus: This is an error, that was too much streacht, this too slightly neglected, heere many things might have been added, there it might have been better followed: this superfluous, that ridiculous. These indeed knowing no other meanes to have themselves opinioned in the ranke of understanders, but by calumniating other mens industries."

If such proved the strain of general, we need not be surprised if controversial criticism assumed a still more tremendous aspect. Between the Puritans, in the reign of Elizabeth, who carried on their warfare under the fictitious appealltive of Martin Mar-prelate, and the inembers of the episcopal church, a torrent of libels broke forth, which inundated the country with a deluge of distorted ridicule and rancorous abuse. Nor were the quarrels of literary men conducted with less ferocity, though perhaps with more wit. The republic of letters was, indeed, infested for near twenty years, from the year 1580 to 1600, with a set of Town-wits, who, void of all moral principle or decent restraint, employed their pens in lashing to death, with indiscriminate rage, the objects of their envy or their spleen. Of this description were those noted characters, Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, Thomas Dekker, and Thomas Nash; men possessed of genius, learning, and unquestioned ability, as poets, satirists, and critics; but excessively debauched in their manners, intemperate in their passions, and heedless of what they inflicted. The treatment which Gabriel Harvey, the bosom-friend of Spenser and Sidney, received from the scurrilous criticism of Greene and Nash, was, though not altogether unprovoked, beyond all measure gross, cruel, and vindictive. The literature and the moral character of Harvey were highly respectable; but he was vain, credulous, affected, and pedantic; he published a collection of panegyrics on himself; he turned astrologer and almanack-maker, he was perfectly Italianated in his dress and manner, in his style he was pompously elaborate, and he boasted himself the inventor and introducer of English Hexameters. These foibles, together with the obscurity of his parentage, his father being a rope-maker at Saffron-Walden, in Essex, a circumstance of which he had the folly to be ashamed, furnished to his adversaries an inexhaustible fund of ridicule and wit; and had these legitimate ingredients been unmingled with personal invective and brutal sarcasm, Gabriel, who was no mean railer himself, had not been sinned against; but the malignity of Greene and Nash was unbounded; and Harvey, who was morbidly irritable and bled at every pore, catching a portion of their spirit, the controversy beOne of his specimens of "our Englishe reformed Versifying," as he terms it, is entitled Encomium Lauri, and commences thus:

"What might I call this Tree? A Laurell? O bonny Laurell:

Needes to thy bowes will I bow this knee, and vayle my bonetto;"

es which Nash, in his Foure Letters confuted, 1593, has most happily ridiculed, representing Harvey waking under the "ewe-tree at Trinitie Hall," and addressing it in similar terms, and making "verses of weather-cocks on the top of steeples, as he did once of the weather-cocke of Allhallows in CamTridge:

"O thou weather-cocke, that stands on the top of All-hallows,
Come thy waies down, if thou dar'st for thy crowne, and take the wall of us!
Vide Todd's Spenser, vol. i. p. xliii.

came so outrageously virulent, that the prelates of Canterbury and London, Whitgift and Bancroft, interfering, issued an order, "that all Nashe's books and Dr. Harvey's books be taken wheresoever they may be found, and that none of the said books be ever printed hereafter; an injunction which has rendered most of the pamphlets on this literary quarrel extremely scarce, particularly Harvey's "Four Letters And Certaine Sonnets. Especially touching Robert Greene and other Poets by him abused. Imprinted by John Wolfe, 1592;" a very curious work, which we shall have occasion to quote hereafter; and Nash's "Have with you to Saffron-Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's hunt is up," 1596, which includes a humorous but unmerciful representation of Gabriel's life and character, the bitter satirist exulting in the idea that he had brought on his adversary, by the poignancy of his invectives, the effects of premature old age. "I have brought him low," he exclaims, and shrewly broken him; look on his head, and you shall find a gray hair for everie line I have writ against him; and you shall have all his beard white too by the time he hath read over this book."

How great a nuisance this bevy of lampooning critics was considered, and to what a height their shameless effrontery was carried, may be learnt from a passage in a phamphet by Dr. Lodge, a contemporary physician of great learning and good sense, who though he terms Nash, and perhaps very justly, "the true English Aretine," has drawn a picture which applies to him as accurately as to any individual of the clas; "a fellow," to adopt the words of an old play with respect to this very man, "that carried the deadly stocke in his pen, whose muze was armed with a jag tooth, and his pen possest with Hercules furyes.Ӡ

"You shall know him" (the envious critic), says Lodge, "by this; he is a foule lubber, his tongue tipt with lying, his heart steeled against charity; he walks, for the most part, in black, under colour of gravity, and looks as pale as y' wizard of the ghost which cried so miserably at y' theater, like an oister wife, Hamlet revenge: he is full of infamy and slander, insomuch as if he ease not his stomach in detracting somewhat or some man before noontide, he fals into a fever that holds him while supper time; he is alwaies devising of epigrams or scoffes and grumbles, necromances continually, although nothing crosse him, he never laughs but at other men's harms, briefly in being a tyrant over men's fames; he is a very Titius (as Virgil saith) to his owne thoughtes.

"Titiique vultus inter

Qui semper lacerat comestque mentem.

"The mischiefe is, that by grave demeanour and newes bearing, he hath got some credite with the greater sort, and manie fowles there bee, that because he can pen prettilee, hold it gospell whatever he writes or speakes, his custome is to preferre a foole to credite, to despight a wise man, and no poet lives by him that hath not a flout of him. Let him spie a man of wit in a taverne, he is a hare brained quareller. Let a scholler write, Tush (saith he) I įlike not these common fellowes; let him write well, he hath stolen it out of some note booke; let him translate, tut it is not of his owne; let him be named for preferment, he is insufficient because poore; no man shall rise in his world, except to feed his envy; no man can continue in his friendship who hateth all men." He then adds the following judicious advice, predicting what would be the consequence of neglecting to pursue it :-"Divine wits for many things as sufficient as all antiquity (1 speake it not on slight surmise, but considerate judgment) to you belongs the death that doth nourish this poison; to you the paine that endure the reproofe. Lilly, the famous for facility in discourse; Spencer, best read in ancient poetry; Daniel, choice in word and invention, Draiton, diligent and formall; Th. Nash, true English Aretine. All you unnamed professors, or friends of poetry (but by me inwardly honoured) knit your industries in private to unite your fames in publicke; let the strong stay up the weake, and the weake march under conduct of the strong; and all so imbattle yourselfes, that hate of vertue may not imbase you. Bu if besotted with foolish vain glory, emulation and contempt, you fall to neglect one another, Quod Deus

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See a copious and interesting account of the controversy between Nash and Harvey, in D'Israel's Calamities of Authors, vol. ii. p. 1. ad 49.

The Returne from Parnassus; or the Scourge of Simony, publiquely acted by the Students in St John's College in Cambridge, 1606.--Vide Ancient British Drama, vol i. p. 49.

omen avertat,' doubtless it will be as infamous a thing shortly to present any book whatsoever learned to any Mæcenas in England, as it is to be headsman in any free city in Germanie."

Turning, however, from this abuse of critical and satiric talent, let us direct our attention exclusively to those productions of the art which are distinguished as well by moderation and urbanity, as by learning and acumen.

It is worthy of remark that in English literature, during this era, nearly all the professed critical treatises, if we except those of Wilson and Ascham, were employed on the subject of poetry. We shall confine ourselves, therefore, to a chronological enumeration, accompanied by a few observations, of these interesting pieces. The first, in the order of time, is a production of George Gascoigne the poet, and was published at the close of the second edition of "The Posies of George Gascoigne Esquire, Corrected, perfected, and augmented by the Authour, 1575. Tam Marti, quam Mercurio. Imprinted at London by H. Bynneman for Richard Smith." It is entitled, "Certaine notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English, written at the request of Master Edovardo Donati;" and was again printed in "The whole workes of George Gascoigne, Esq. newlye compyled into one volume, b. 1. 1587. This little tract is more didactic than critical; but contains several judicious directions, and some sensible remarks. Ten years after, appeared a treatise on "Scottis Poesie," from the pen of King James the First, when only eighteen years of age. This learned monarch commenced his career of authorship with "The Essayes of a Prentise in the Divine art of Poesie. Imprinted at Edinburgh, by Thomas Vautrouiller, 1585, 4to. Cum privilegio Regali." The fifth article in this miscellany includes the criticism in question, under the title of "Ane schort Treatise, containing some reulis and cautelis to be observit and eschewit in Scottis poesie." This is a production highly curious, as well for its manner as matter; for, not content with mere precept, the royal critic has given us copious specimens of the several kinds of verse then in use. The eighth chapter of this short treatise is devoted to this purpose, detailing rules and examples, 1st, For lang histories. 2dly, For heroic acts. 3dly, For beich and grave subjects. 4thly, For tragic_matters. 5thly, For Flyting or invectives. 6thly, For Sonnet verse. 7thly, For Matters of love; and 8thly, For Tenfoot verse.

Under the fifth head is given as an exemplar of the Rouncefalles, or Tumbling verse, the lines formerly quoted from the Flyting of Montgomery, as illustrative of a superstition peculiar to Allhallow-Eve; and under the seventh, on "love materis," is introduced as an example of "cuttit and broken verse, quhairof new formes are daylie inventit according to the Poetis pleasour," the following stanza, which has been rendered familiar to an English ear by the genius of Burns:—

Quha wald have tyrde to heir that tone,
Quhilk birds corroborat ay abone,

Through schouting of the larkis!
They sprang sa heich into the skyes,
Quhill Cupide walknis with the cryis
Of Nature's chapell clerkis.
Then leaving all the heavins above,
He lichted on the eard;

Lo how that lytill god of love
Before me then appeard.

So mylde-like

And child-like,

With bow thre quarters skant,
So moilie

And coylie,

He lukit lyke a Sant."

It is observable that James, in assigning his "twa caussis" for composing this work, tells us that "albeit sindrie hes written of it (poesie) in English, quhilk is likest to our language, zit we differ from thame in sindrie reulis of poesie, as ze will find be experience;" but who these sundry writers were, has not, with the exception of Gascoigne's "Notes of Instruction," been hitherto discovered.†

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Wits Miserie And The Worlds Madnesse. Discovering the Devils incarnate of this Age. 1596.— Vide Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books, vol. ii. p. 164, 165.

1 For a further and more minute account of James's "Essayes," I refer the reader to Pinkerton's AnFient Scotish Poems, vol. i. p. cxix.; to Park's Royal and Noble Authors, vol. i. p. 120; to Censura Literaria, vol. ii. p. 364; and to Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books, vol. i. p. 230.

It is barely possible that the royal critic may have included in his "sindrie," the next work which we have to record on the subject, the production of our immortal Spenser, and entitled "The English Poet," a work which we lament should have been suffered to perish in manuscript. Its existence was first intimated to the public in 1579, by E. K., in his argument to the tenth Aeglogue of the "Shepheard's Calender," with a promise, which unfortunately proved faithless, of committing it to the press. Poetry, observes this commentator, is "no art, but a divine gift and heavenly instinct not to be gotten by labour and learning, but adorned with both; and poured into the witte by a certaine Enthusiasmos and celestial inspiration, as the Author hereof elsewhere at large discourseth in his booke called "The English Poet," which booke being lately come to my handes, I minde also by God's grace, upon further advisement, to publish." That the taste and erudition of Spenser had rendered this critical essay highly interesting, there is every reason to conclude, and though the only positive testimony to its composition rests on the single authority which we have quoted, it is extremely probable, from the manner in which its acquisition by the commentator is mentioned, that the MS. had circulated, and continued to circulate, among the friends and admirers of the poet, for some years.

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Scarcely had the British Solomon published his juvenile criticisms, when a kindred work issued from the London press, under the title of "A Discourse of English Poetrie, together with the Author's Judgment touching the reformation of our English verse. By William Webbe, Graduate. Imprinted at London by John Charlewood. 4to, 1586." Black letter.

The chief purport of this pamphlet, now so rare that only three copies are known to exist, is to propose, what the author terms, "a perfect platform, or prosodia of versifying, in imitation of the Greeks and Latins," a scheme which, though supported by Sidney, Dyer, Spenser, and Harvey, happily miscarried. "The hexameter verse," says Nash, with great good sense, in his controversy with Harvey, "I graunt to be a gentleman of an auncient house (so is many an English beggar, yet this clyme of ours hee cannot thrive in; our speech is too craggy for him to set his plough in; hee goes twitching and hopping in our language, like a man running upon quagmires, up the hill in one syllable and downe the dale in another, retaining no part of that stately smooth gate which he vaunts himself with amongst the Greeks and Latins."

Webbe's "Discourse," however, is valuable on account of the Characters which he has drawn of the English poets, from Chaucer to his own time. He notices, also, "Gaskoynes Instructions for versifying;" and, after declaring the Shepherd's Calender inferior neither to Theocritus nor Virgil, he expresses an ardent wish that the other works of Spenser might get abroad, and especially his "English Port, which his friend E. K. did once promise to publish." The tract concludes with the author's assertion, that his "onely ende" in compiling it was "not as an exquisite censure concerning the matter," but "that it might be an occasion to have the same thoroughly, and with greater discretion taken in hande, and laboured by some other of greater abilitie, of whom I know there be manie among the famous poets in London, who both for learning and leysure may handle the argument far more pythelie." S

In 1588, Abraham Fraunce, another encourager and writer of English Hexameter and Pentameter verses, published in octavo, a critical treatise, a mixture of prose and verse, under the quaint title of "The Arcadian Rhetoricke, or the Precepts of Rhetoricke made plain by example, Greeke, Latyne, Englishe, Italyan,

Spenser's Works apud Todd, vol. i. P. 161.

One in the King's Library, one in the late Mr. Malone's collection, and one purchased by the Marcas of Blandford, at the Roxburghe Sale, for 647. !

Vide Nash's "Four Letters Confuted," and his "Have with ye to Saffron-Walden," and D'Israel's Calamities of Authors, vol. i.

§ Vide Oldys's British Librarian, p. 86, and Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books, vol. 1. p. 234.

and Spanishe." This rare volume is in the library of Mr. Malone, and is valuable, observes Warton, for its English examples. *

In the same year which produced Fraunce's work, appeared the "Touch-Stone of Wittes," written by Edward Hake, and printed at London by Edmund Botifaunt. This little tract is employed in sketching the features of the chief poets of the day; but differs not materially from "Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie," from which, indeed, it is principally compiled. Hake describes himself (in another of his productions called "A Touchstone for this time present,") as an "attorney of the Common Pleas;" mentions his having been educated under John Hopkins, whom he terms a learned and exquisite teacher, and when criticising the "Mirrour of Magistrates" in his "Touchstone of Wittes," speaks of its augmentor, John Higgins, as his particular friend. †

But by far the most valuable work which was published in the province of criticism, during the life-time of Shakspeare, was written by George Puttenham, and entitled The Arte of English Poesie, Contrived into three Bookes: The first of Poets and Poesie, the second of Proportion, the third of Ornament. At London, Printed by Richard Field, dwelling in the black-Friers neere Ludgate. 1589." This book, which seems to have been composed considerably anterior to its publication, was printed anonymously, and has been ascribed to Spenser and Sidney. Bolton, whose "Hypocritica" was written in the reign of James I., though not printed until 1722, mentions Puttenham, however, as the reputed author; and a reference to Bolton's manuscript, preserved in the archives at Oxford, enabled Anthony Wood to announce this fact to the public." There is," says he, "a book in being called The Art of English Poesie, not written by Sydney, as some have thought, but rather by one Puttenham, sometime a Gentleman Pensioner to Qu. Elizab." S

An elegant reprint of this old critic has been lately (1811) edited by Mr. Haslewood, in which, with indefatigable industry and research, he has collected all that could throw light on the personal and literary history of his author. His opinion of the critical acumen of Puttenham, though favourable, is not too highly coloured."Puttenham," he remarks," was a candid but sententious critic. What his observations want in argument, is made up for by the soundness of his judgment; and his conclusions, notwithstanding their brevity, are just and pertinent. He did not hastily scan his author, to indulge in an untimely sneer, and his opinions were adopted by contemporary writers, and have not been dissented from by the moderns.

Of the same tenour are the sentiments of Mr. Gilchrist, who opens his analysis of the Arte of English Poesie," with asserting that it is on many accounts one of the most curious and entertaining, and, intrinsically, one of the most valuable books of the age of Elizabeth;" infinitely superior, he adds, as an elementary treatise on the arts, to the volumes of Wilson and Webbe, " as being formed on a more comprehensive scale, and illustrated by examples; while the copious intermixture of contemporary anecdote, tradition, manners, opinions, and the numerous specimens of coeval poetry, no where else preserved, contribute to form a volume of infinite amusement, curiosity, and value." ++

To various parts of this interesting treatise, we shall have occasion frequently to refer, when discussing the subjects of miscellaneous poetry and metropolitan manners. It is indeed a store-house of poetical erudition.

The next work which, in the order of publication, falls under our notice, is Sir John Harrington's "Apologie of Poetry," prefixed in 1591 to his Version of the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto. It is a production of some merit, displaying both

Ibid p. 275.

⚫ Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 406. "Mr. Wanley, in his Catalogue of the Harley Library, says he had been told, that Edm. Spencer was author of that book, which came out anonymous." Vide Todd's Spenser, vol. i. p. clviii. Wood's Athenæ Oxon. edit. 1691. vol. i. col. 184.

Censura Literaria, vol. i. p. 339.

Haslewood's Reprint, 1811, p. xi.

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