THOMAS SACKVILLE, 1536-1608.

THOMAS SACKVILLE, ultimately Earl of Dorset and Lord High Treasurer of England, deserves consideration, if for no other reason, as the author of the first regular English tragedy, entitled Ferrex and Porrex. Every act of this play is closed by something like the chorus of the Greek Tragedy, namely, an ode in long-lined stanzas, drawing back the attention of the audience to the substance of what has just passed, and illustrating it by moral reflections. The following ode closes the third act, the moral beauties as well as the spirit of which must strike every reader. Sir Philip Sidney, in his "Defence of Poesy," says that this whole tragedy is "full of notable morality."

The lust of kingdom knows no sacred faith,
No rule of reason, no regard of right,

No kindly love, no fear of heaven's wrath:
But with contempt of gods' and man's despight,
Through bloody slaughter doth prepare the ways
To fatal sceptre, and accursed reign:

The son so loathes the father's lingering days,
Nor dreads his hand in brothers' blood to stain!
O wretched prince! nor dost thou yet record
The yet fresh murders done within the land
Of thy forefather, when the cruel sword
Bereft Morgain his life with cousin's hand!
Thus fatal plagues pursue the guilty race,

Whose murderous hand imbrued with guiltless blood,
Asks vengeance still before the heavens' face,
With endless mischief on the cursed brood.

The wicked child thus brings to woful sire
The mournful plaints, to waste his weary life:
Thus do the cruel flames of civil fire

Destroy the parted reign with hateful strife:

And hence doth spring the well, from which doth flow
The dead black streams of mourning, plaint, and woe.

But the poem by which Sackville is best known, is entitled "The Mirror for Magistrates." In it, most of the illustrious but unfortunute characters

meaning, which is, " be not distracted about," " be not over anxious about." In justice, however, to the translators, I should say that in King James' day, the phrase "take no thought" had a much stronger meaning than it now has, being nearly equivalent to "let not your thoughts be unduly exercised." In many other cases also the present translation fails to express the sense, owing to changes which our language has undergone. One more instance will suffice. David says (Psalm cxix. 147), "I prevented the dawning of the morning," where "prevent" is used in its original Latin sense of "going before," "anticipating," and in King James' day it was so understood. Now, we know, it is used in the sense of to "hinder." This is a most interesting subject of inquiry, but this is not the appropriate place to pursue it.

of English history, from the Conquest to the end of the fourteenth century, are made to pass in review before the poet, who, conducted by Sorrow, descends, like Dante, into the infernal regions. Each character recites his own misfortunes in a separate soliloquy. But Sackville finished only the preface called the "Induction," and one legend, the Life of the Duke of Buckingham. He left the completion of the whole to Richard Baldwyne and George Ferrers. These called in others to aid them, and the whole collection or set of poems was published in 1559, with this title, "A Mirror for Magistrates, wherein may be seen by example of others, with how grievous plagues vices are punished, and how frail and how unstable worldly prosperity is found, even of those whom fortune seemeth most highly to favor."

The whole poem is one of a very remarkable kind for the age, and the part executed by Sackville exhibits a strength of description and a power of drawing allegorical characters, scarcely inferior to Spenser, and had he completed the whole, and with the same power as that exhibited in the commencement, he would have ranked among the first poets of England.

ALLEGORICAL CHARACTERS IN HELL.

And first, within the porch and jaws of hell,
Sat deep REMORSE OF CONSCIENCE, all besprent
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 unstedfast, 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, profer'd here and there;
Benumb'd with speech; and, with a ghastly look,
Searched every place, all pale and dead for fear,
His cap born 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 pretence,
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,
Ruing, alas, upon the woeful 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 cannot say,
For, on his carcase raiment had he none,
Save clouts and patches pieced one by one;
With staff in hand, and scrip on shoulders cast,
His chief defence 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, God wot, kept he,
As on the which full daint'ly 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 ybound.

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 ytanned skin :

The morrow grey no sooner hath begun
To spread his light e'en peeping in our eyes,
But he is up, and to his work yrun;
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.

By him lay heavy SLEEP, the cousin of Death,
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,
A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath;
Small keep took he, whom fortune frowned on,
Or whom she lifted up into the throne

Of high renown, but, as a living death,

So dead alive, of life he drew the breath:

The body's rest, the quiet of the heart,

The travel's ease, the still night's feer was he,
And of our life in earth the better part;
Riever of sight, and yet in whom we see
Things oft that [tyde] and oft that never be;
Without respect, esteem[ing] equally
King Croesus' pomp and Irus' poverty.

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 untwin'd
His vital thread, and ended with their knife
The fleeting course of fast declining life:

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 pil'd, and he with eld forelore,
His wither'd fist still knocking at death's door;
Fumbling, and driveling, 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, savour, 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 gaping mouth, that cried
And roar'd 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 ne mought 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 snatching at all she saw;
With gaping jaws, that by no means ymay
Be satisfy'd from hunger of her maw,
But eats herself as she that hath no law;
Gnawing, alas, her carcase 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 all with blood imbrued;
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.

Then first came Henry Duke of Buckingham,
His cloak of black all piled, and quite forlorn,
Wringing his hands, and Fortune oft doth blame,
Which of a duke had made him now her scorn;
With ghastly looks, as one in manner lorn,
Oft spread his arms, stretched hands he joins as fast,
With rueful cheer, and vapoured eyes upcast.

His cloak he rent, his manly breast he beat;
His hair all torn, about the place it lain:
My heart so molt to see his grief so great,
As feelingly, methought, it dropped away:
His eyes they whirled about withouten stay:
With stormy sighs the place did so complain,
As if his heart at each had burst in twain

Thrice he began to tell his doleful tale,
And thrice the sighs did swallow up his voice;
At each of which he shrieked so withal,
As though the heavens ryved with the noise;
Till at the last, recovering of his voice,
Supping the tears that all his breast berained,
On cruel Fortune weeping thus he plained.

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, 1564-1616.

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE,2 the great dramatic poet, not of England only, but of the world, was born at Stratford, on the Avon, in the county of

This is Henry, Duke of Buckingham, the principal instrument of King Richard III. What an admirable impersonation of extreme wretchedness. 2 Read Drake's "Shakspeare and his Times"-Johnson's Preface to Shakspeare-Hazlitt's "Characters of Shakspeare's Plays"-Campbell's Essay on English Poetry-Richardson's Analysis of Shakspeare-Schlegel's Lectures on Dramatic Art-Pope's Preface to Shakspeare-Dodd's Beauties-Price's "Wisdom and Genius of Shakspeare." The best family edition is Bowdler's "Family Shakspeare," 8 vols. 8vo., recently printed in one large octavo. The best critical edition is the variorum of Isaac Reed, London, 1813, 23 vols., with the Prolegomena and Addenda. "The proof sheets of this edition were corrected by Mr. Harris, Librarian of the Royal Institution.”— Lowndes.