quently exhibits a strength of description, and a power of drawing allogorical characters, scarcely inferior to Spenser. From this poem we extract the following descriptions of its various allegorical characters :

ALLEGORICAL PERSONAGES IN THE INFERNAL REGIONS.

And first, within the porch and jaws of hell,

Sat deep Remorse of Conscience, all bespent
With tears; and to herself oft would she tell

Her wretchedness, and, cursing, never stent

To sob and sigh, but ever thus lament
With thoughtful care; as she that, all in vain,
Would wear and waste continually in pain.

Her eyes unsteadfast rolling here and there,

Whirl'd on each place, as place that vengeance brought,
So was her mind continually in fear,

Tost and tormented with the tedious thought

Of those detested crimes which she had wrought;
With dreadful cheer, and looks thrown to the sky,
Wishing for death, and yet she could not die.
Next, saw we Dread, all trembling how he shook,

With foot uncertain, proffer'd here and there;
Benumb'd with speech, and with a ghastly look,

Searched every place, all pale and dead for fear,

His cap borne up with staring of his hair;
'Stoin'd and amazed at his own shade for dread,
And fearing greater dangers than was need.
And, next, within the entry of this lake,

Sat fell Revenge, gnashing her teeth for ire;
Devising means how she may vengeance take;

Never in rest, till she have her desire;

But frets within so far forth with the fire
Of wreaking flames, that now determines she
To die by death, or 'veng'd by death to be.

When fell Revenge, with bloody foul pretense,

Had show'd herself, as next in order set,
With trembling limbs we softly parted thence,

Till in our eyes another sight we met;

When fro my heart a sigh forthwith I fet,
Rueing, alas, upon the woful plight
Of Misery, that next appear'd in sight:

His face was lean, and some-deal pin'd away,

And eke his hands consumed to the bone;
But, what his body was, I can not say,

For, on his carcass raiment had he none,

Save clouts and patches pieced one by one;
With staff in hand, and scrip on shoulders cast,
His chief defense against the winter's blast :

His food, for most, was wild fruits of the tree,

Unless sometime some crumbs fell to his share,

Which in his wallet long, Got wot, kept he,

As on the which full daintily would he fare;

His drink, the running stream; his cup, the bare Of his palm closed; his bed, the hard cold ground: To this poor life was Misery y-bound. Whose wretched state when we had well beheld,

With tender ruth on him, and on his fears, In thoughtful cares forth then our pace we held;

And, by and by, another shape appears

Of greedy Care, still brushing up the briers; His knuckles knob’d, his flesh deep dinted in With tawed hands, and hard y-tanned skin: The morrow gray no sooner had begun

To spread his light s'en peeping in our eyes, But he is up, and to his work y-run;

But let the night's black misty mantles rise,

And with foul dark never so much disguise The fair bright day, yet ceaseth he no while, But hath his candles to prolong his toil.

And next in order sad, Old Age we found :

His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind; With drooping cheer still poring on the ground,

As on the place where nature him assign'd

To rest, when that the sisters had untwined His vital thread, and ended with their knife The fleeting course of fast declining life. There heard we him with broke and hollow plaint

Rue with himself his end approaching fast, And all for nought, his wretched mind torment

With sweet remembrance of his pleasures past.

And fresh delights of lusty youth forewaste; Recounting which, how would he sob and shriek, And to be young again of Jove beseek!

Crook-back'd he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-eyed;

Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four; With old lame bones, that rattled by his side ;

His scalp all piled, and he with eld forelore,

His wither'd fist still knocking at death's door; Fumbling, and drivelling, as he draws his breath; For brief, the shape and messenger of Death. And fast by him pale Malady was placed :

Sore sick in bed, her colour all foregone;

Bereft of stomach, savor, and of taste.

Ne could she brook no meat but broths alone;

Her breath corrupt; her keepers every one
Abhorring her; her sickness past recure,
Detesting physic, and all physic's cure.
But oh, the doleful sight that then we see !

We turn'd our look, and on the other side
A grisly shape of Famine mought we see:

With greedy looks, and gasping mouth, that cried

And roard for meat, as she should there have died;
Her body thin and bare as any bone,
Whereto was left nought but the case alone.
And that, alas, was gnawen every where,

All full of holes ; that I me nought refrain
From tears, to see how she her arms could tear,

And with her teeth gnash on the bones in vain,

When, all for nought, she fain would so sustain
Her starven corpse, that rather seem'd a shade
Than any substance of a creature made:
Great was her force whom stone wall could not stay:

Her tearing nails spatching at all she saw;
With gaping jaws, that by no means ymay

Be satisfied from hunger of her maw,

But eats herself as she that hath no law;
Gnawing, alas, her carcass all in vain,
Where you may count each sinew, bone, and vein.

Lastly, stood War, in glittering arms yclad,

With visage grim, stern look, and blackly hued:
In his right hand a naked sword he had,

That to the hilts was ail with blood imbued;

And in his left (that kings and kingdoms rued)
Famine and fire he held, and therewithal
He razed towns and threw down towers and all:
Cities he sack'd, and realms that (whilom flower'd

In honour, glory, and rule, above the rest)
He overwhelm'd, and all their fame devour'd,

Consum’d, destroy'd, wasted, and never ceas'd,

Till he their wealth, their name, and all oppress'd:
His face forehew'd with wounds; and by his side

There hung his targe, with gashes deep and wide. Sir Pallip SIDNEY and SIR WALTER RALEIGH deserve a passing notice among the early poets of Elizabeth's reign, though it is chiefly for their compositions in

prose

that their memories are cherished. The former has left us a few Sonnets, delicate in sentiment, and sweet and flowing in expression, of which the following are specimens :

Because I oft in dark abstracted guise
Seem most alone in greatest company,
With dearth of words, or answers quite awry
To them that would make speech of speech arise,
They deem, and of their doom the rumour flies,

That poison foul of bubbling Pride doth lie
So in my swelling breast, that only I
Fawn on myself, and others do despise.
Yet Pride, I think, doth not my soul possess,
Which looks too oft in his unflattering glass ;
But one worst fault Ambition I confess,
That makes me oft my best friends overpass,
Unseen, unheard, while thought to highest place
Bends all his powers, even unto Stella's grace.
Come, Sleep, 0 Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
The indifferent judge between the high and low
With shield of proof shield me from out the preasel
Of those fierce darts, Despair at me doth throw;
O make in me those civil wars to cease:
I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed;
A chamber, deaf to noise, and blind to light;
A rosy garland, and a weary head.
And if these things as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.
O happy Thames, that didst my Stella bear!
I saw thee with full many a smiling line
Upon thy cheerful face joy's livery wear,
While those fair planets on thy streams did shine.
The boat for joy could not to dance forbear;
While wanton winds, with beauties so divine
Ravish'd, staid not, till in her golden hair
They did themselves (0 sweetest prison) twine:
And fain those Eols' youths there would their stay
Have made ; but, forced by nature still to fly,
First did with puffing kiss those locks display.
She, so dishevell’d, blush'd. From window I,
With sight thereof, cried out, “O fair disgrace;
Let Honour's self to thee grant highest place.'

Sir WALTER RALEIGH wrote comparatively little poetry, but that which we have is sufficient to satisfy us that had he courted the poetic muse exclusively, he would have attained to a very high degree of celebrity. The following extracts from a poem under the title of The Country's Recreations breathe a melancholy tenderness that poetic feeling alone could inspire :

Heart-tearing cares and quiv'ring fears,
Anxious sighs, untimely tears,

Fly, fly to courts,

Fly to fond worldling's sports ;
Where strained sardonic smiles are glozing still,
And grief is forced to laugh against her will;

Where mirth's but mummery,

And sorrows only real be.
Fly from our country pastimes, fly,
Sad troop of human misery!

Come, serene looks,

Clear as the crystal brooks,
Or the pure azur'd heaven that smiles to see
The rich attendance of our poverty.

Peace and a secure mind,

Which all men seek, we only find.
Abused mortals, did you know
Where joy, heart's ease, and comforts grow,

You'd scorn proud towers,

And seek them in those bowers
Where winds perhaps our woods may sometimes shake,
But blustering care could never tempest make,

Nor murmurs e'er come nigh us,
Saving of fountains that glide by us.

Blest silent groves! ( may ye be
Forever mirth's best nursery !

May pure contents

Forever pitch their tents
Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains,
And peace still slumber by these purling fountains,

Which we may every year
Find when we come a-fishing here.

To the preceding extract from The Country's Recreations' we shall add Sir Walter Raleigh's response to The Passionate Shepherd of Christopher Marlow. The author of the latter poem will occupy so conspicuous a place in our remarks

upon

the dramatic writers of the age at present under consideration, that no farther notice of him is here required. The poem itself, and the response to it both, richly deserve the great popularity which they have, for more than two and a half centuries, enjoyed :

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.-MARLOW.

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, and hills and fields,
Woods or steepy mountains yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle: