"And there is old Palemon, free from spight, "In all this skill, though knowen yet to few; "Who lives that can match that heroick song accountably is represented by his eulogist as a mere penner of love-verses, when he had produced at least fifteen of his incomparable plays : "Who loves Adonis' love, or Lucrece' rape, "His sweeter verse contains heart-throbbing strife, "Could but a graver subject him content, "Without love's foolish lazy languishment." Return from Parnassus, 4to. 1606; but written about the end of the year 1602. s Surely there is here some errour of the press. I cannot but think the poet wrote "O dearest dread." So, in the conclusion of his address to the same personage, prefixed to the Faery Queen: "The which to heare vouchsafe, O dearest dread, awhile.” The same form of expression is found also in book ii. c. 2, st. 30; and book iv. c. 8, st. 17. So also, in his Hymn of Beautie: "And you faire Venus' dearling, my dear dread." Sir Henry Sidney begins one of his letters to Queen Elizabeth thus-"Most feared and beloved," which is precisely Spenser's "dearest dread." So also, Sir Richard Gresham's Petition to King Henry VIII. (1535), Bib. Cotton. Cleop. E IV. fol. 122, My most dradd, beloved and naturall sov'aigne." "O dreaded dread," has no meaning. 66 "Nor Po nor Tybur's swans, so much renown'd, "Nor all the brood of Greece so highly prais'd, "Can match that Muse, when it with bayes is crown'd "And to the pitch of her perfection rais'd.— "And there is a new shepheard late up sprong, "That which doth all afore him far surpasse; "Appearing well in that well-tuned song, "Which late he sung unto a scornfull lasse: "Yet doth his trembling muse but lowly flie, "As daring not too rashly mount on hight, "And doth her tender plumes as yet but trie, "In love's soft laies and looser thoughts' delight. "Then rouze thy feathers quickly, Daniell, "And to what course thou please, thy selfe advance; "But most me seemes, thy accent will excell "In tragick plaints and passionate mischance."And there that shepheard of the Ocean is, "That spends his wit in love's consuming smart : "Full sweetly temperd is that muse of his, "That can empierce a princes mightie hart. "There also is, ah no, he is not now, "But since I said he is, he quite is gone, "Amyntas quite is gone and lies full low, Having his Amaryllis left to mone: "Helpe, O ye shepheards, helpe ye all in this, "Helpe Amaryllis this her losse to mourne: "Her losse is yours, your losse Amyntas is; "Amyntas, floure of shepheards pride forlorne. "He, whilst he lived, was the noblest swaine "That ever piped in an oaten quill; "Both did he other which could pipe, maintaine, "And eke could pipe him selfe with passing skill.— "And there, though last, not least, is Aetion, "A gentler shepheard may no where be found; "Whose Muse full of high thoughts' invention, "Doth like him selfe heroically sound."All these, and many others mo remaine "Now after Astrofell is dead and gone ; "But while as Astrofell did live and raine, "Amongst all these was none his paragone. "All these do florish in their sundry kynd, "And doth their Cynthia immortall make; "Yet found I lyking in her royal mynd, "Not for my skyll, but for that shepheards sake." Though probably at the time when these verses were published, all the poets here alluded to under fictitious names, were well known to the more enlightened class of readers, they can now be discovered only by conjecture. Indeed, at the first view, the inquiry concerning them seemed to me quite hopeless; for many years ago, when I consulted the late Mr. Warton on this point, expecting that his various and profound researches into the history of the poetry and poets of that age might furnish some aid towards overcoming this difficulty, he told me that nothing had occurred in the course of his reading, which could throw any light upon the subject. Since that period, however, a minute and very careful investigation of all the circumstances and facts, supplied by the lines themselves, has enabled me to dispel a great part of the artful obscurity in which these persons were involved, and to point them out with, at least, a considerable degree of probability. The first poet alluded to, under the description of the "aged Harpalus," was doubtless Thomas Churchyard, at that time above seventy years old. He had 6 "Thomas Churchyard (says Oldys in his manuscript notes on Winstanley's Lives of the Poets) was born about the year 1520; at the age of seventeen (1537) came to King Henry's court; had served in the wars abroad, and was subject at home, under eight crowned heads: had also been in the service of two or three of the noblest families in England: had dedicated books to about been a writer of poetry, in the reign of Henry the Eighth; and for some years lived in the service of twenty great personages of fortune and distinction: yet with his fighting and writing, loss of much blood and time in camps and courts, in a fearful and fruitless attendance and dependance upon the ungrateful great, for above sixty-seven years, he never could get more than a very scanty pension from Queen Elizabeth, so scanty that upon the death of Dr. John Underhill, Bishop of Oxford, one of his best friends [1589], he had no better prospect of sustaining himself to the end of his natural course, than [by] exposing again, in 1592, his aged and scarified limbs to the hardships of war in foreign service; yet did struggle on to salute King James with a Congratulation upon his entrance, printed 4to. 1604. He was a most grateful man in receiving kindnesses, and in celebrating the merits of the dead." Oldys, in the foregoing statement, seems to have thought that Churchyard had obtained a pension before 1589; but he was mistaken. See note 8. A copious account of Churchyard's Works may be found in Herbert's edition of Ames's Typ. Antiq. vol. iii. p. 1806. His poem, entitled The Mirrour and Manners of Men, which was published in 1594, was written fifty years before; hence it appears that he was an author so early as 1544, the 36th year of Henry VIII. His last publication appeared in 1604, and was addressed to King James, under the title of A blessed Balme to Search and Salve Sedition; to which was added "A Pean Trimphal upon the King's Publick Entry," &c. He died in the same year, and was buried in the church of St. Margaret, Westminster. See Weaver's Fun. Mon. p. 497. It appears that Nashe, in some pamphlet, now unknown, had reflected upon Churchyard; for in his Apologie of Pierce Pennilesse, 4to. 1593, (signat. H 4. b), he complains that Gabriel Harvey had reproached him with crying this poet mercy. “This," he says, "could not be done but with an intent to stir him up to write against Churchyard afresh, which nothing under heaven should draw him to do." "I love you" (adds Nashe, addressing Churchyard,)" unfainedly, and admire your aged Muse, that Henry Earl of Surrey; and he has himself told us, that among the Miscellaneous Verses, by various authors, appended in 1557, and in subsequent editions, to the poems of that accomplished and unfortunate nobleman, many of his productions are to be found. Here we meet with one, entitled “ Harpalus' Complaint of Philladaes love bestowed on Corin," which was deservedly admired; and being, I suppose, well known in Spenser's time to be written by Churchyard, he denominates him from the hero of the piece. He had now been long in the service of Queen Elizabeth, here denominated "fair Cynthia," and recently (January 27, 1592-3), had obtained from her Majesty a pension of eighteen pence a-day 3, or may well be grandmother to our grand eloquentest poet, at this present. Sanctum et venerabile vetus omne poema. "Shore's wife [inserted in The Mirrour for Magistrates] is yong, though you be stept in yeares: in her shall you live when you are dead." Churchyard, in return, speaks highly of Nashe, in his New Years Gift to Queen Elizabeth, 1593. 7 Mr. Warton has reprinted this poem entire in the third volume of his Hist. of Eng. Poet. p. 57, with the following high eulogy: "From the same collection, [Churchyard's Challenge,] the following is perhaps the first example in our language of the pure and unmixed pastoral; and in the erotick species, for ease of numbers, elegance of rural allusion, and simplicity of imagery, excels every thing of this kind in Spencer, who is erroneously ranked as our earliest English Bucolick." 8" Pat. 35 Eliz. p. 4. Jan. 27. Elizabeth by the Grace of God &c. To All Men to whom &c. Greeting.-Knowe Ye that Wee for certen good Causes and Consideracons us hereunto specially moving, Of our Grace especiall, certen Knowledge, and meere Mocon, Have Gyven and Graunted and by these psentes for us our Heyres and Successors Doe Gyve and Graunte to our |