period. He is the type of that warm brood of poetic youth that still sings in chorus from the dells of England's Helicon, or the Paradise of Princely Pleasures. Life and the whole world of youthful pleasures attract him with their delight, and he hastens to clothe himself in a gay silken doublet, and to throw away his forefather's Puritan coat of hodden gray. But anything more specific and definite than this it would scarcely be safe to say. Greene has not Lodge's individuality of style, nor does he approach his finest flights, but he is more nearly allied to him than to any other of his contemporaries. It will probably seem to a careful reader that his ordinary level of writing was sustained at a higher point than Lodge's. In his rapid passages of octosyllabic verse Greene sometimes comes very close to Barnefield, and, through that mysterious and exquisite poet, to the juvenile manner of Shakespeare, with whom, as is well known, he cultivated a lively spirit of rivalry. But the most curious and notable thing, after all, about Greene's poetry is that, in all its sylvan sweetness, it should have proceeded from the lawless bully, whose ruffled hair and long red beard became a beacon and terror to all good citizens, till in the midst of his 'villainous cogging and foisting,' and all his rascally sleights, he was carried off in the thirty-second year of his life by a surfeit of Rhenish wine and pickled herrings. Upon the poor dishonoured head of this strange genius, the wretched woman who was with him when he died set a garland of bay-leaves, in a happy prescience of the tenderness with which posterity would pardon all his sins for the sake of his pure and beautiful verses.

EDMUND W. Gosse

SEPHESTIA'S SONG TO HER CHILD.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
Mother's wag, pretty boy,

Father's sorrow, father's joy;
When thy father first did see
Such a boy by him and me,
He was glad, I was woe,
Fortune changèd made him so,
When he left his pretty boy

Last his sorrow, first his joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee
Streaming tears that never stint,

Like pearl drops from a flint,
Fell by course from his eyes,
That one another's place supplies;
Thus he grieved in every part,

Tears of blood fell from his heart,
When he left his pretty boy,

Father's sorrow, father's joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, When thou art old there's grief enough for thee The wanton smiled, father wept,

Mother cried, baby leapt ;

More he crowed, more we cried,
Nature could not sorrow hide :

He must go, he must kiss
Child and mother, baby bless,
For he left his pretty boy,
Father's sorrow, father's joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,

When thou art old there's grief enough for thee

SAMELA.

Like to Diana in her summer weed,

Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dyc,
Goes fair Samela;

Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed,
When washed by Arethusa faint they lie,
Is fair Samela;

As fair Aurora in her morning grey,

Decked with the ruddy glister of her love,

Is fair Samela;

Like lovely Thetis on a calmèd day,

When as her brightness

Neptune's fancy move, Shines fair Samela ;

Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams, Her teeth are pearl, the breasts are ivory

Of fair Samela ;

Her cheeks, like rose and lily yield forth gleams, Her brow's bright arches framed of ebony ;

Thus fair Samela

Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue,

And Juno in the show of majesty,

For she's Samela,

Pallas in wit; all three, if you well view,
For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity

Yield to Samela.

FAWNIA

Ah, were she pitiful as she is fair.

Or but as mild as she is seeming so,

Then were my hopes greater than my despair,
Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe.

Ah, were her heart relenting as her hand,

That seems to melt even with the mildest touch, Then knew I where to seat me in a land,

Under wide heavens, but yet [I know] not such.

So as she shows, she seems the budding rose,
Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower,
Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows,
Compassed she is with thorns and cankered flower,
Yet were she willing to be plucked and worn,
She would be gathered, though she grew on thorn.

Ah, when she sings, all music else be still,
For none must be compared to her note;
Ne'er breathed such glee from Philomela's bill,
Nor from the morning-singer's swelling throat.
Ah, when she riseth from her blissful bed,

She comforts all the world, as doth the sun,
And at her sight the night's foul vapour's fled;
When she is set, the gladsome day is done.
O glorious sun, imagine me the west,

Shine in my arms, and set thou in my breast!

THE PALMER'S ODE IN 'NEVER TOO LATE.

Old Menalcas, on a day,

As in field this shepherd lay,
Tuning of his oaten pipe,

Which he hit with many a stripc,

Said to Coridon that he

Once was young and full of glee.
"Blithe and wanton was I then:

Such desires follow men.

As I lay and kept my sheep,
Came the God that hateth sleep,
Clad in armour all of fire,

Hand in hand with queen Desire,
And with a dart that wounded nigh,
Pierced my heart as I did lie;
That when I woke I 'gan swear
Phillis beauty's palm did bear.
Up I start, forth went I,

With her face to feed mine eye;

There I saw Desire sit,

That my heart with love had hit,
Laying forth bright beauty's hooks
To entrap my gazing looks.
Love I did, and 'gan to woo,

Pray and sigh; all would not do:
Women, when they take the toy,
Covet to be counted coy.

Coy she was, and I 'gan court;
She thought love was but a sport;
Profound hell was in my thought;
Such a pain desire had wrought,
That I sued with sighs and tears;
Still ingrate she stopped her ears,
Till my youth I had spent.
Last a passion of repent

Told me flat, that Desire

Was a brond of love's fire,

Which consumeth men in thrall,
Virtue, youth, wit, and all.

At this saw, back I start,

Beat Desire from my heart,

Shook off Love, and made an oath
To be enemy to both.

Old I was when thus I filed

Such fond toys as cloyed my head,
But this I learned at Virtue's gate,
The way to good is never late.'

SONG.

Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content;
The quiet mind is richer than a crown;
Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent ;
The poor estate scorns fortune's angry frown:
Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss
Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss.