MORTON. In what way did he obtain it?

BOURNE. As you might have done, if you would have bid high enough-at an auction. It was sold among the books of the late Mr. Bindley, and came previously out of the collection of Major Pearson. Mr. Grenville gave no less a sum for it than 407. 19s. though only the size of a very small modern 18mo. ELLIOT. How extravagantly dear!

BOURNE. On the contrary, bibliomaniacs thought it shamefully cheap, and the purchaser would have given much more for it rather than not have secured it. The title runs thus, "The Most Honorable Tragedie of Sir Richard Grinuile [Knight.—Bramo assai, poco spero, nulla chieggio.-Printed by J. Roberts for Richard Smith 1595."

MORTON. Then Markham's name does not appear. BOURNE. Not upon the title-page, but the dedication to "Lord Montioy," which immediately follows, is signed "Ieruis Markham :" it is succeeded by three sonnets, the first to the Earl of Sussex, the second to the Earl of Southampton (inserted in Rest. III. 414), and the third to Sir Edward Wingfield. Next we have "the argument of the whole Tragedie," to which are subjoined "faults escaped in printing."

ELLIOT. HOW minute you are in your description; as if the "faults escaped in printing" would give us a better idea of the merit of the poem.

BOURNE. I should not be so particular if the poem

had ever been described before; but, excepting the sonnet to Lord Southampton, no part of it has ever been reprinted or quoted. A new leaf is headed, "The most honorable Tragedie of Sir Richard Grinuile Knight," and under it an address "To the Fayrest," which, I suppose, means the poet's mistress.

MORTON. Not "to the fairest" Elizabeth, the queen; the subject (according to Mr. Chalmers, in his "Supplemental Apology") of the Sonnets of Spenser and Shakespeare.

BOURNE. No; it is certain that Markham means some other female, to the full as beautiful, by the following stanza in the address:

"To thee faire Nymph, my life, my loue, my gaze,
My soules first mouer, essence of my blisse,
Thought-chast Dictinna, Natures only maze,
Heauen of all whatever heauenlie is;

More white than Atlas browe or Pelops blaze,
Compleat perfection which all creatures misse :
More louelie than was bright Astioche

Or Ivnos hand-mayd sacred Diope."

This is the more clear, because in the last stanza but of this part of the poem, he expressly turns to Elizabeth,

one

"And with her thou great Souereigne of the earth, Onelie immatchlesse monarchesse of harts!"

MORTON. I suppose you can afford us some quotation from the body of Markham's work?

BOURNE. Yes; in the following stanzas the poet

is describing Sir R. Grenville's eagerness to enter into the engagement with the Spaniards.

"Looke how a wanton bridegroome in the morne Busilie labours to make glad the day,

And at the noone, with wings of courage borne Recourts his bride with dauncing and with play, Vntill the night, which holds meane blisse in scorne, By action kills imaginations sway;

And then, euen then, gluts and confounds his thought

With all the sweets, conceit or Nature wrought.

game,

"Even so our Knight, the bridegroome vnto Fame,
Toil'd in this battailes morning with unrest
At noone triumph'd, and daunst and made his
That vertue by no death could be deprest ;
But when the night of his loues longings came,
Euen then his intellectual soule confest

All other ioyes imaginarie were

Honour vnconquer'd, heauen and earth held deare.

"The bellowing shotte which wakened dead mens swounds,

As Dorian musick sweetened in his eares:

Ryuers of blood, issuing from fountaine wounds,
He pytties but augments not with his teares.
The flaming fier which mercilesse abounds,
Hee not so much as masking torches feares;

The dolefull Eccho of the soules half dying
Quicken his courage, in their banefull crying."

ELLIOT. It seems, as well as we can judge, much in the same puffed-up and heightened strain as Fitzgeffrey, only the latter exceeded his prototype.

BOURNE. Markham goes on in a similar style for a few more stanzas, and then he represents Misfortune (who is personified) descending to destroy Sir Richard Grenville: the poet exclaims;

"O why should such immortall enuie dwell
In the inclosures of eternall mould?

Let Gods with Gods, and men with men rebell
Vnequall warres, vnequall shame is soul'd;
But for this damned deede came shee from Hell
And Ioue is sworne, to doe what dest'rie would:

Weepe then my pen, the tell-tale of our woe,
And curse the fount from whence our sorrowes
flowe."

ELLIOT. Most assuredly nothing you have read warrants the extravagant eulogium by Fitzgeffrey.

Quaintly he hath eternized his acts

In lasting registers of memory

Even co-eternall with eternity;

So that the world envies his happy state
That he should live when it is ruinate."

MORTON. Markham's last stanza ends with a very paltry conceit. In what way does Misfortune execute her fearful mission?

BOURNE. Not very poetically-by taking a musket and mortally wounding Sir R. Grenville.

ELLIOT. Writing, as he did, so soon after the event, Markham was probably confined too much by the truth of history to be able to terminate his poem differently.

MORTON. You remember, perhaps, what Racine says in the preface to his Bajazet, that to a poet the distance of the country where his scene is laid, is of much the same use as the lapse of time, car le peuple ne met guère de différence entre ce qui est à mille ans de lui, et ce qui est à mille lieues. According to this rule, Markham might fairly have availed himself of some poetical licence in describing the death of his

hero.

ELLIOT. That of course must depend upon the notoriety of the facts. Racine's remark applies merely to dramatic poetry, and to the respect entertained by audiences for the heroes of tragedies— major e longinquo reverentia.

BOURNE. It seems agreed on all hands, that Sir R. Grenville was shot, but the time and mode of his death are disputable. Camden, in his Annals, touches the matter very briefly; but here is a scarce contemporary pamphlet relating to this very conflict: it purports to be " A Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Iles of the Azores this last Summer Betwixt the Revenge, one of her Maiesties Shippes, and the Armada of the King of Spaine." It was printed in 1591, and in it the manner of the death of Sir R. Grenville is differently related. I do not