For from my graue I speake vnto you still. Whilst life I had I neuer meant you ill;

Then thinke on me that close am coucht in clay And know I liue though death wrought my decay. "I neede not I record my bloud ne birth,

For why? to you my parentage is knowne;
My mould was clay, my substance was but earth
And now the earth enioyes againe her owne:
My race is runne, my daies are ouerthrowne.

Yet Lordings list, your patience here I craue,
Heare Sidneis plea discussed from the graue."

ELLIOT. So that the "noble brutes," after all, are Lordings. Upon my word it is wretched stuff.

BOURNE. "Quanto io posso dar tutto vi dono." I suppose he could write nothing better.

ELLIOT. Then first, why write at all; and secondly, if he wrote, why should we read?

MORTON. It was worth thus much time, if only for the amusement Mr. John Phillips has afforded us. BOURNE. You must hear two more stanzas, and

:

I have done it is from one of the most ridiculous parts of the piece, where Sidney "rings out a panegyric on himself," after applauding Queen Elizabeth to the seventh heavens.

"In martiall feates I settled my delight;

The stately steede I did bestride with ioy :
At tilt and turney oft I tride my might,
In these exployts I neuer felt annoy.

My worthie friends in armes did oft imploy

Themselues with me to breake the shiuring speare; But now my want they wail with many a teare.

"My spoused wife, my Lady and my loue

whilst life I had did know my tender hart, But God that rules the rowling skies aboue

Did thincke it meete we should againe depart.
His will is done, death is my dew desart!

She wants her make, I fro my deare am gon;
She liues behind her louer true to morne."

MORTON. That is not quite such extravagant eulogy as I expected.

BOURNE. It is only the fag-end of it, if I may so say: Sidney is very warm in his admiration of himself in some places.

ELLIOT. Or rather his spirit is very warm in its admiration of his body: recollect they are now distinct and separate, and one may praise the other without any charge of egotism.

BOURNE. But perhaps the greatest absurdity of all is the minute detail the spirit gives of the whole solemnity and procession at the funeral of the body. At length the line, "Thus from my grave I bid you all adieu," winds up the poem.

ELLIOT. Was it worth while to interrupt our course through the satirists for such a production?

BOURNE." Since it is past, all argument is vain.” Now then for Richard Brathwayte, a name with which you are not unacquainted, but whose volume

of satires and other poems, I fancy, you have never seen, for they are much more scarce than any of his prose pieces. It will not be necessary, however, to read more than one or two extracts, as he was an imitator of George Wither, and by no means equal to his prototype. His title is this: "Times Curtaine drawne or the Anatomie of Vanitie with other choice Poems, entituled Health from Helicon; by Richard Brathwayte Oxonian," 1621.

MORTON. I have seen the title before, but in what way do you trace the imitation of Wither?

BOURNE. In the general style of the satires, and in the manner in which the work is disposed. Wither's "Abuses stript and whipt," had attracted much notice, and Brathwayte, early in his production, professes great admiration for him. In one place he says, in allusion to the punishment Wither had met with, "Tutch not Abuses but with modest lipp

For some I know were whipt that thought to whip,"

adding in the margin this note, "One whom I admire, being no lesse happie for his natiue inuention than excellent for his proper and elegant dimension." The latter part of the compliment refers to Wither's finely proportioned figure.

ELLIOT. Does Brathwayte take warning by the sufferings of Wither, and "touch abuses but with modest lip?"

BOURNE. I think not; but Wither had been libe

rated, as some suppose, almost on a repetition of his offence-his satire to the king; and this, if true, perhaps made his follower more bold: he is even coarser than Wither in some places. In his first satire on Riches, he says of the wealthy, for instance,

"For who are wise but Rich-men, or who can Find the golden meane but the golden man? He is Earth's darling, and in time will be Hell's darling too; for who's so fit as he?"

MORTON. He takes care, I dare say, to make his satire general?

ELLIOT. Yet Pope observes,

"The fewer still you name, you wound the more; Bond is but one, while Harpax is a score."

BOURNE. Or in the words of that satirical song in "the Beggar's Opera,"

"Each cries, that was levell'd at me."

The subsequent extract on the subject of dress, will show that Brathwayte was a writer of some power.

"For who (remēbring the cause why cloths were made)

Even then when Adam fled vnto the shade

For couert of his Nakednesse, will not blame
Himself to glorie in his Parents shame?

Weepe, weepe, (Phantasticke Minion) for to thee
My grieued passion turnes: O may I be
Cause of conuersion to thy selfe, that art
Compos'd of man, and therefore I beare part

In thy distracted habit: ougly peece
(For so I tearme thee) Woman-monster cease;
Cease to corrupt the excellence of minde,

By soiling it with such an odious rinde,

Or shamelesse Couer! Waining wauering Moone,
That spends the morne in decking thee till noone!
Hast thou no other ornaments to weare

But such wherein thy lightest thoughts appeare?
Hast thou no other honour, other Fame,

Saue roabes which make thee glory in thy shame?"

ELLIOT. That is strenuous enough, and the allusion to Adam, with its application, happy.

MORTON. He seems rougher than Wither: if he do not jerk so keenly, he appears to lay on his scourge more heavily.

BOURNE. One more specimen from his satires shall suffice for the present, at least. It is from the second, where he is adverting to the usual concomitant of poetry-poverty.

ELLIOT. There is no class of men who complain so bitterly of poverty as poets, who are always, at the same time, boasting that they are above the sordid love of money; yet they are always making themselves the objects of ridicule by their murmurs.

BOURNE. They complain most because, probably, they feel most; and their complaints are oftenest remembered because they perpetuate them by putting them in black and white: but hear Brathwayte on this point.