were not so loose as his expressions, nor his life so vain as his
thoughts; and at the same time makes an allowance for his youth and
sanguine complexion; which, says he, a little more time and experience
would have corrected. Of this, we have instances in his occasional
discourses about religion to my Lord Dorset, to whom he was related;
and in his thoughts of the posture of affairs; in both which he has
discovered that he could think as coolly, and reason as justly as men
of more years, and less fire.
To a Lady that forbad to love before company.
What! no more favours, not a ribbon more,
Not fan, nor muff, to hold as heretofore?
Must all the little blesses then be left,
And what was once love's gift become our theft?
May we not look ourselves into a trance,
Teach our souls parley at our eyes, not glance,
Nor touch the hand, but by soft wringing there,
Whisper a love that only yes can hear.
Not free a sigh, a sigh that's there for you,
Dear must I love you, and not love you too?
Be wise, nice fair; for sooner shall they trace,
The feather'd choristers from place to place,
By prints they make in th' air, and sooner say
By what right line, the last star made its way,
That fled from heaven to earth, than guess to know,
How our loves first did spring, or how they grow.
The above are as smooth lines as could be found among our author's
works; but in justice to Suckling, before we give an account of his
plays, we shall transcribe one of his letters, when we are persuaded
the reader will join in the opinion already given of his works in
general; it is addressed to his mistress, and has something in it gay
and sprightly.
This verifies the opinion of Mr. Dryden, that love makes a man a
rhimster, if not a poet.
My Dear, Dear!
Think I have kissed your letter to nothing,
and now know not what to answer; or that
now I am answering, I am kissing you to nothing,
and know not how to go on! For you
must pardon, I must hate all I send you here,
because it expresses nothing in respect of what
it leaves behind with me. And oh! why should
I write then? Why should I not come myself?
Those Tyrants, Business, Honour, and Necessity,
what have they to do with with you, and me?
Why Should we not do Love's Commands
before theirs, whose Sovereignty is but
usurped upon us? Shall we not smell to Roses,
cause others do look on, or gather them because
there are Prickles, or something that
would hinder us?----Dear----I fain would
and know no Hindrance----but what must come
from you,----and----why should any come?
Since 'tis not I but you must be sensible how
much Time we lose, it being long since I was
not myself,----but----
"Yours."----
His dramatic works are,
1. Aglaura, presented at a private House in Black Fryars. Langbaine
says, 'that it was much prized in his Time; and that the last Act is
so altered, that it is at the pleasure of the Actors to make it a
Tragedy, or Tragi-Comedy.'
2. Brennoralt, or the Discontented Colonel; a Tragedy, presented at a
private House in Black-Fryars by his Majesty's Servants.
3. Sad-one, a Tragedy. This Piece was never finished.
4. Goblings, a Tragi-Comedy, presented at a private House in
Black-Fryars, by his Majesty's Servants.
* * * * *
PETER HAUSTED.
This gentleman was born at Oundle in Northamptonshire, and received
his education in Queen's-College, Cambridge. After he had taken his
degrees, he entered into holy orders, became curate of Uppingham in
Rutlandshire; and according to Wood in his Fasti Oxon. was at length
made rector of Hadham in Hertfordshire. Upon the breaking out of the
civil wars, he was made chaplain to Spencer Earl of Northampton, to
whom he adhered in all his engagements for the Royal Interest, and
was with him in the castle of Banbury in Oxfordshire, when it was
vigorously defended against the Parliament's forces. In that castle
Mr. Wood says, he concluded his last moments in the year 1645, and was
buried within the precincts of it, or else in the church belonging to
Banbury.
This person, whom both Langbaine and Wood account a very ingenious
man, and an excellent poet, has written the following pieces:
Rival Friends, a Comedy; acted before the King and Queen when their
Majesties paid a Visit to the University of Cambridge, upon the 19th
of March, 1631; which Mr. Langbaine thus characterizes. "It was cried
down by Boys, Faction, Envy, and confident Ignorance; approved by the
Judicious, and exposed to the Public by the Author, printed in
4to. Lond. 1632, and dedicated by a copy of Verses, to the Right
Honourable, Right Reverend, Right Worshipful, or whatever he be, shall
be, or whom he hereafter may call patron. The Play is commended by a
copy of Latin Verses, and two in English. The Prologue is a Dialogue
between Venus, Thetis, and Phoebus, sung by two Trebles, and a Base.
Venus appearing at a Window above, as risen, calling to Sol, who lay
in Thetis lap, at the East side of the Stage, canopy'd with an Azure
Curtain. Our Author," continues Langbaine, "seems to be much of the
Humour of Ben Johnson, whose greatest Weakness was, that he could not
bear Censure, and has so great a Value for Ben's Writings, that his
Scene between Loveall, Mungrel, and Hammeshin Act 3. Scene 7, is
copied from Ben Johnson's Silent Woman, between True-wit, Daw, and
La-fool, Act 4. Scene 5."
2. Ten Sermons preached upon several Sundays, and Saints Days, London
1636, 4to. To which is added an Assize Sermon.
3. Ad Populum, a Lecture to the People, with a Satire against
Sedition, Oxon, 1644, in three Sheets in 4to.
This is a Poem, and the Title of it was given by King Charles I. who
seeing it in Manuscript, with the Title of a Sermon to the People, he
altered it, and caused it to be called a Lecture, being much delighted
with it.
This Author also translated into English, Hymnus, Tobaci, &c. Lond.
1651, 8vo.
* * * * *
WILLIAM DRUMMOND of HAWTHORNDEN Esq;
This gentleman was a native of Scotland, and a poet of no
inconsiderable rank. We had at first some doubt whether he fell within
our design, as being no Englishman, but upon observing that Mr.
Langbaine has given a place to the earl of Stirling, a man of much
inferior note; and that our author, though a Scotchman, wrote
extremely pure and elegant English, and his life, that is fruitful of
a great many incidents, without further apology, it is here presented
to the reader.
He was born the 13th of November, 1585; his father was Sir John
Drummond of Hawthornden, who was Gentleman Usher to King James VI.
but did not enjoy that place long, being in three months after he
was raised to his new dignity, taken away by death[1]. The family of
Drummond in the article of antiquity is inferior to none in Scotland,
where that kind of distinction is very much regarded.
The first years of our author's youth were spent at the high school
at Edinburgh, where the early promises of that extraordinary genius,
which afterwards appeared in him, became very conspicuous. He was in
due time sent to the university of Edinburgh, where after the ordinary
stay, he was made Master of Arts. When his course at the university
was finished, he did not, like the greatest part of giddy students,
give over reading, and vainly imagine they have a sufficient stock of
learning: he had too much sense thus to deceive himself; he knew that
an education at the university is but the ground-work of knowledge,
and that unless a man digests what he has there learned, and
endeavours to produce it into life with advantage, so many years
attendance were but entirely thrown away. Being convinced of this
truth, he continued to read the best authors of antiquity, whom he not
only retained in his memory, but so digested, that he became quite
master of them, and able to make such observations on their genius
and writings, as fully shewed that his judgment had been sufficiently
exercised in reading them.
In the year 1606 his father sent him into France, he being then only
twenty-one years old. He studied at Bourges the civil law, with great
diligence and applause, and was master not only of the dictates of
the professors, but made also his own observations on them, which
occasioned the learned president Lockhart to observe, that if Mr.
Drummond had followed the practice, he might have made the best figure
of any lawyer in his time; but like all other men of wit, he saw more
charms in Euripides, Sophocles, Seneca, and other the illustrious
ancients, than in the dry wranglings of the law; as there have been
often instances of poets, and men of genius being educated to the law,
so here it may not be amiss to observe, that we remember not to
have met with one amongst them who continued in that profession, a
circumstance not much in its favour, and is a kind of proof, that the
professors of it are generally composed of men who are capable of
application, but without genius. Mr. Drummond having, as we have
already observed, a sovereign contempt for the law, applied himself to
the sublimer studies of poetry and history, in both which he became
very eminent. Having relinquished all thoughts of the bar, or
appearing in public, he retired to his pleasant seat at Hawthornden,
and there, by reading the Greek and Latin authors, enriched the world
with the product of his solitary hours. After he had recovered a very
dangerous fit of sickness, he wrote his Cypress Grove, a piece of
excellent prose, both for the fineness of the stile, and the sublimity
and piety of the sentiments: In which he represents the vanity and
instability of human affairs; teaches a due contempt of the world;
proposes consolations against the fear of death, and gives us a view
of eternal happiness. Much about this time he wrote the Flowers of
Sion in verse. Though the numbers in which these poems are wrote are
not now very fashionable, yet the harmony is excellent, and during the
reign of King James and Charles I. we have met with no poet who seems
to have had a better ear, or felt more intimately the passion he
describes. The writer of his life already mentioned, observes, that
notwithstanding his close retirement, love stole upon him, and
entirely subdued his heart. He needed not to have assigned retirement
as a reason why it should seem strange that love grew upon him, for
retirement in its own nature is the very parent of love. When a man
converses with but few ladies, he is apt to fall in love with her
who charms him most; whereas were his attention dissipated, and his
affections bewildered by variety, he would be preserved from love by
not being able to fix them; which is one reason why we always find
people in the country have more enthusiastic notions of love, than
those who move in the hurry of life. This beautiful young lady, with
whom Mr. Drummond was enamoured, was daughter of Mr. Cunningham of
Barnes, of an ancient and honourable family. He made his addresses to
her in the true spirit of gallantry, and as he was a gentleman who had
seen the world, and consequently was accomplished in the elegancies of
life, he was not long in exciting proper returns of passion; he gained
her affections, and when the day of the marriage was appointed, and
all things ready for its solemnization, she was seized with a fever,
and snatched from him, when his imagination had figured those scenes
of rapture which naturally fill the mind of a bridegroom. As our
author was a poet, he no doubt was capable of forming still a greater
ideal fealt, than a man of ordinary genius, and as his mistress was,
as Rowe expresses it, 'more than painting can express,' or 'youthful
poets fancy when they love,' those who have felt that delicate
passion, may be able in some measure to judge of the severity of
distress into which our poetical bridegroom was now plunged: After
the fervours of sorrow had in some measure subsided, he expressed his
grief for her in several letters and poems, and with more passion
and sincerity celebrated his dead mistress, than others praise their
living ones. This extraordinary shock occasioned by the young lady's
death, on whom he doated with such excessive fondness, so affected his
spirits, that in order as much as possible to endeavour to forget her,
he quitted his retirement, and resided eight years at Paris and Rome;
he travelled through Germany, France and Italy, where he visited all
the famous universities, conversed with the learned men, and made an
excellent collection of the best ancient Greek, and of the modern
Spanish, French, and Italian books. Mr. Drummond, though a scholar and
a man of genius, did not think it beneath him to improve himself in
those gay accomplishments which are so peculiar to the French, and
which never fail to set off wit and parts to the best advantage.
He studied music, and is reported to have possessed the genteel
accomplishment of dancing, to no inconsiderable degree.
After a long stay of eight years abroad, he returned again to his
native country, where a civil war was ready to break out. He then
found that as he could be of no service by his action, he might at
least by his retirement, and during the confusion, he went to the feat
of his Brother-in-law, Sir John Scott, of Scotts Tarvat, a man of
learning and good sense. In this interval it is supposed he wrote his
History of the Five James's, successively Kings of Scotland, which
is so excellent a work, whether we consider the exact conduct of the
story, the judicious reflections, and the fine language, that no
Historian either of the English or Scotch nation (the lord Clarendon
excepted) has shewn a happier talent for that species of writing,
which tho' it does not demand the highest genius, yet is as difficult
to attain, as any other kind of literary excellence. This work was
received in England with as much applause, as if it had been written
by a countryman of their own, and about English affairs. It was first
published six or seven years after the author's death, with a preface,
or introduction by Mr. Hall of Grays-Inn, who, tho' not much disposed
to think favourably of the Scotch nation, has yet thus done justice to
Mr. Drummond; for his manner of writing, says he, "though he treats of
things that are rather many than great, and rather troublesome than
glorious; yet he has brought so much of the main together, as it may
be modestly said, none of that nation has done before him, and for his
way of handling it, he has sufficiently made it appear, how conversant
he was with the writings of venerable antiquity, and how generously
he has emulated them by a happy imitation, for the purity of that
language is much above the dialect he wrote in; his descriptions
lively and full, his narrations clear and pertinent, his orations
eloquent, and fit for the persons who speak, and his reflections solid
and mature, so that it cannot be expected that these leaves can be
turned over without as much pleasure as profit, especially meeting
with so many glories, and trophies of our ancestors." In this history
Mr. Drummond has chiefly followed bishop Elphiston, and has given a
different turn to things from Buchanan, whom a party of the Scotch
accuse of being a pensioner of Queen Elizabeth's, and as he joined
interest with the earl of Murray, who wanted to disturb the reign of
his much injured sister Mary Queen of Scots, he is strongly suspected
of being a party writer, and of having misrepresented the Scotch
transactions of old, in order to serve some scheme of policy.
In the short notes which Mr. Drummond has left behind him in his
own life, he says, that he was the first in the island that ever
celebrated a dead mistress; his poems consist chiefly of Love-Verses,
Madrigals, Epigrams, Epitaphs, &c. they were highly esteemed by his
contemporaries both for the wit and learning that shone in them.
Edward Philips, Milton's nephew, writes a preface to them, and
observes, 'that his poems are the effects of genius, the most polite
and verdant that ever the Scots nation produced, and says, that if he
should affirm, that neither Tasso, Guarini, or any of the most neat
and refined spirits of Italy, nor even the choicest of our English
poets can challenge any advantage above him, it could not be judged
any attribute superior to what he deserves; and for his history he
says, had there been nothing else extant of his writings, consider
but the language how florid and ornate it is; consider the order and
prudent conduct of the story, and you will rank him in the number of
the best writers, and compare him even with Thuanus himself: Neither
is he less happy in his verse than prose, for here are all those
graces met together, that conduce any thing towards the making up a
compleat and perfect poet, a decent and becoming majesty, a brave and
admirable heighth, and a wit flowing.' Thus far the testimony of Mr.
Philips.
In order to divert himself and his friends, he wrote a small poem
which he called Polemio-Middinia; 'tis a sort of Macronic poetry, in
which the Scots words are put in Latin terminations. In Queen Anne's
time it was reprinted at Oxford, with a preface concerning Macronic
poetry. It has been often reprinted in Scotland, where it is thought a
very humorous performance.
Our author, who we have already seen, suffered so much by the immature
fate of his first mistress, thought no more of love for many years
after her decease, but seeing by accident one Elizabeth Logan,
grandchild to Sir Robert Logan, who by the great resemblance she bore
to his first favourite, rekindled again the flame of love; she was
beautiful in his eyes because she recalled to his mind the dear image
of her he mourned, and by this lucky similarity she captivated him.
Though he was near 45 years of age, he married this lady; she bore to
him several children; William, who was knighted in Charles II's
time; Robert, and Elizabeth, who was married to one Dr. Henderson, a
physician, at Edinburgh.
In the time of the public troubles, Mr. Drummond, besides composing
his history, wrote several tracts against the measures of the
covenanters, and those engaged in the opposition of Charles I. In a
piece of his called Irene, he harangues the King, nobility, gentry,
clergy and commons, about their mutual mistakes, jealousies and fears;
he lays before them the dismal consequences of a civil war, from
indisputable arguments, and the histories of past times. The great
marquis of Montrose writ a letter to him, desiring him to print this
Irene, as the best means to quiet the minds of the distracted people;
he likewise sent him a protection, dated August, 1645, immediately
after the battle of Kylsyth, with another letter, in which he highly
commends Mr. Drummond's learning and loyalty. Besides this work of
Irene, he wrote the Load Star, and an Address to the Noblemen, Barons,
Gentlemen, &c. who leagued themselves for the defence of the liberties
and religion of Scotland, the whole purport of which is, to calm
the disturbed minds of the populace, to reason the better sort into
loyalty, and to check the growing evils which he saw would be the
consequence of their behaviour. Those of his own countrymen, for whom
he had the greatest esteem, were Sir William Alexander, afterwards
earl of Stirling, Sir Robert Carr, afterwards earl of Ancram, from
whom the present marquis of Lothian is descended, Dr. Arthur Johnston,
physician to King Charles I. and author of a Latin Paraphrase of the
Psalms, and Mr. John Adamson, principal of the college of Edinburgh.
He had great intimacy and correspondence with the two famous English
poets, Michael Drayton, and Ben Johnson, the latter of whom travelled
from London on foot, to see him at his seat at Hawthornden. During
the time Ben remained with Mr. Drummond, they often held conversation
about poetry and poets, and Mr. Drummond has preserved the heads of
what passed between them; and as part of it is very curious, and
serves to illustrate the character of Johnson, we have inserted it in
his life: though it perhaps was not altogether fair in Mr. Drummond,
to commit to writing things that passed over a bottle, and which
perhaps were heedlesly advanced. It is certain some of the particulars
which Mr. Drummond has preferred, are not much in Ben's favour, and as
few people are so wise as not to speak imprudently sometimes, so it
is not the part of a man, who invites another to his table, to
expose-what may there drop inadvertently; but as Mr. Drummond had only
made memorandums, perhaps with no resolution to publish them, he may
stand acquitted of part of this charge. It is reported of our author
that he was very smart, and witty in his repartees, and had a most
excellent talent at extempore versifying, above any poet of his time.
In the year 1645, when the plague was raging in Scotland, our author
came accidentally to Forfar, but was not allowed to enter any house,
or to get lodging in the town, though it was very late; he went two
miles further to Kirrimuir, where he was well received, and kindly
entertained. Being informed that the towns of Forfar and Kirrimuir
had a contest about a piece of ground called the Muirmoss, he wrote
a letter to the Provost of Forfar, to be communicated to the
town-council in haste: It was imagined this letter came from the
Estates, who were then sitting at St. Andrew's; so the Common-Council
was called with all expedition, and, the minister sent for to pray for
direction and assistance in answering the letter, which was opened in
a solemn manner. It contained the following lines,
The Kirrimorians and Forforians met at Muirmoss,
The Kirrimorians beat the Forforians back to the cross,
[2]Sutors ye are, and sutors ye'll be
T----y upon Forfar, Kirrimuir bears the gree.
By this innocent piece of mirth he revenged himself on the town of
Forfar. As our author was a great cavalier, and addicted to the King's
party, he was forced by the reformers to send men to the army which
fought against the King, and his estate lying in three different
counties; he had not occasion to send one entire man, but halves, and
quarters, and such like fractions, that is, the money levied upon him
as his share, did not amount to the maintaining one man, but perhaps
half as much, and so on through the several counties, where his
estates lay; upon this he wrote the following verses to the King.
Of all these forces, rais'd against the King,
'Tis my strange hap not one whole man to bring,
From diverse parishes, yet diverse men,
But all in halves, and quarters: great king then,
In halves, and quarters, if they come, 'gainst
thee,
In halves and quarters send them back to me.
Being reputed a malignant, he was extremely harrassed by the
prevailing party, and for his verses and discourses frequently
summoned before their circular tables. In the short account of his
life written by himself, he says, 'that he never endeavoured to
advance his fortune, or increase such things as were left him by his
parents, as he foresaw the uncertainty and shortness of life, and
thought this world's advantages not worth struggling for.' The year
1649, remarkable for the beheading of Charles I. put likewise a period
to the life of our author: Upon hearing the dismal news that his
Sovereign's blood was shed on a scaffold, he was so overwhelmed with
grief, and being worn down with study, he could not overcome the
shock, and though we find not that he ever was in arms for the King,
yet he may be said, in some sense, to have fallen a sacrifice to
his loyalty. He was a man of fine natural endowments, which were
cultivated by reading and travelling; he spoke the Italian, Spanish,
and French languages as well as his mother tongue; he was a judicious
and great historian, a delicate poet, a master of polite erudition,
a loyal subject, a friend to his country, and to sum up all, a pious
christian.
Before his works are prefixed several copies of verses in his praise,
with which we shall not trouble the reader, but conclude the life
of this great man, with the following sonnet from his works, as a
specimen of the delicacy of his muse.
I know, that all beneath the moon decays,
And what by mortals in this world is brought,
In times great period shall return to nought;
That fairest states have fatal nights and days;
I know that all the Muses heavenly lays,
With toil of spirit, which are so dearly bought.
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought,
That there is nothing lighter than vain praise.
I know frail beauty like the purple flower,
To which one morn, oft birth, and death affords,
That love a jarring is, of minds accords,
Where sense, and will, bring under reason's
power:
Know what I lift, all this cannot me move,
But, that alas, I both must write and love.
[Footnote 1: The reader will please to observe, that I have taken the
most material part, of this account of Mr. Drummond, from a life of
him prefixed to a 4to Edition printed at Edinburgh, 1711.]
[Footnote 2: Shoemakers.]
* * * * *
WILLIAM ALEXANDER, Earl of STIRLING.
It is agreed by the antiquaries of Scotland, where this nobleman was
born, that his family was originally a branch of the Macdonalds.
Alexander Macdonald, their ancestor, obtained from the family of
Argyle a grant of the lands of Menstry, in Clackmananshire, where they
fixed their residence, and took their sirnames from the Christian name
of their predecessor[1]. Our author was born in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, and during the minority of James VI. of Scotland, but on
what year cannot be ascertained; he gave early discoveries of a rising
genius, and much improved the fine parts he had from nature, by a very
polite and extensive education. He first travelled abroad as tutor to
the earl of Argyle, and was a considerable time with that nobleman,
while they visited foreign countries. After his return, being happy
in so great a patron as the earl of Argyle, and finished in all the
courtly accomplishments, he was caressed by persons of the first
fashion, while he yet moved in the sphere of a private gentleman.
Mr. Alexander having a strong propensity to poetry, he declined
entering upon any public employment for some years, and dedicated all
his time to the reading of the ancient poets, upon which he formed
his taste, and whose various graces he seems to have understood. King
James of Scotland, who with but few regal qualities, yet certainly had
a propension to literature, and was an encourager of learned men, took
Mr. Alexander early into his favour. He accepted the poems our author
presented him, with the most condescending marks of esteem, and was so
warm in his interest, that in the year 1614, he created him a knight,
and by a kind of compulsion, obliged him to accept the place of Master
of the Requests[2]; but the King's bounty did not stop here: Our
author having settled a colony in Nova Scotia in America, at his own
expence, James made him a grant of it, by his Royal Deed, on the 21st
of September, 1621, and intended to have erected the order of Baronet,
for encouraging and advancing so good a work; but the three last years
of that prince's reign being rendered troublesome to him, by reason
of the jealousies and commotions which then subsisted in England, he
thought fit to suspend the further prosecution of that affair, 'till a
more favourable crisis, which he lived not to see.
As soon as King Charles I. ascended the throne, who inherited from his
father the warmest affection for his native country, he endeavoured to
promote that design, which was likely to produce so great a benefit
to the nation, and therefore created Sir William Alexander Lord
Lieutenant of New Scotland, and instituted the order of Knight
Baronet, for the encouraging, and advancing that colony, and gave
him the power of coining small copper money, a privilege which some
discontented British subjects complained of with great bitterness;
but his Majesty, who had the highest opinion of the integrity and
abilities of Sir William, did not on that account withdraw his favour
from him, but rather encreased it; for in the year 1626 he made
him Secretary of State for Scotch affairs, in place of the earl of
Haddington, and a Peer, by the title of Viscount Stirling, and soon
after raised him to the dignity of an Earl, by Letters Patent, dated
June 14, 1633, upon the solemnity of his Majesty's Coronation at the
Palace of Holy-rood-house in Edinburgh. His lordship enjoyed the place
of secretary with the most unblemished reputation, for the space
of fifteen years, even to his death, which happened on the 12th of
February, 1640.
Our author married the daughter of Sir William Erskine, Baronet,
cousin german to the earl of Marr, then Regent of Scotland; by her he
had one son, who died his Majesty's Resident in Nova Scotia in the
life time of his father, and left behind him a son who succeeded his
grandfather in the title of earl of Stirling.
His lordship is author of four plays, which he stiles Monarchic
Tragedies, viz. The Alexandræan Tragedy, Cræsus, Darius, and
Julius Cæsar, all which in the opinion of the ingenious Mr. Coxeter
(whose indefatigable industry in collecting materials for this work,
which he lived not to publish, has furnished the present Biographers
with many circumstances they could not otherwise have known) were
written in his lordship's youth, and before he undertook any state
employment.
These plays are written upon the model of the ancients, as appears
by his introducing the Chorus between the Acts; they are grave and
sententious throughout, like the Tragedies of Seneca, and yet the
softer and tender passions are sometimes very delicately touched. The
author has been very unhappy in the choice of his verse, which is
alternate, like the quatrains of the French poet Pibrach, or Sir
William Davenant's heroic poem called Gondibert, which kind of verse
is certainly unnatural for Tragedy, as it is so much removed from
prose, and cannot have that beautiful simplicity, that tender pathos,
which is indispensable to the language of tragedy; Mr. Rymer has
criticised with great judgment on this error of our author, and shewn
the extreme absurdity of writing plays in rhime, notwithstanding the
great authority of Dryden can be urged in its defence.
Writing plays upon the model of the ancients, by introducing choruses,
can be defended with as little force. It is the nature of a tragedy to
warm the heart, rouze the passions, and fire the imagination, which
can never be done, while the story goes languidly on. The soul cannot
be agitated unless the business of the play rises gradually, the
scene be kept busy, and leading characters active: we cannot better
illustrate this observation, than by an example.
One of the best poets of the present age, the ingenious Mr. Mason of
Cambridge, has not long ago published a Tragedy upon the model of the
ancients, called Elfrida; the merit of this piece, as a poem has
been confessed by the general reading it has obtained; it is full of
beauties; the language is perfectly poetical, the sentiments chaste,
and the moral excellent; there is nothing in our tongue can much
exceed it in the flowry enchantments of poetry, or the delicate flow
of numbers, but while we admire the poet, we pay no regard to the
character; no passion is excited, the heart is never moved, nor is the
reader's curiosity ever raised to know the event. Want of passion and
regard to character, is the error of our present dramatic poets,
and it is a true observation made by a gentleman in an occasional
prologue, speaking of the wits from Charles II. to our own times, he
says,
From bard, to bard, the frigid caution crept,
And declamation roared while passion slept.
But to return to our author's plays;
The Alexandræan Tragedy is built upon the differences about the
succession, that rose between Alexander's captains after his decease;
he has borrowed many thoughts, and translated whole speeches from
Seneca, Virgil, &c. In this play his lordship seems to mistake the
very essence of the drama, which consists in action, for there is
scarce one action performed in view of the audience, but several
persons are introduced upon the stage, who relate atchievements done
by themselves and others: the two first acts are entirely foreign to
the business of the play. Upon the whole it must be allowed that his
lordship was a very good historian, for the reader may learn from it a
great deal of the affairs of Greece and Rome; for the plot see Quintus
Curtius, the thirteenth Book of Justin, Diodorus Siculus, Jofephus,
Raleigh's History, &c. The Scene is in Babylon.
Cræsus, a Tragedy; the Scene of this Play is laid in Sardis, and is
reckoned the most moving of the four; it is chiefly borrowed from
Herodotus, Clio, Justin, Plutarch's Life of Solon, Salian, Torniel. In
the fifth Act there is an Episode of Abradates and Panthæa, which the
author has taken from Xenophon's Cyropædeia, or The Life and Education
of Cyrus, lib. vii. The ingenious Scudery has likewise built upon this
foundation, in his diverting Romance called the Grand Cyrus.
Darius, a Tragedy; this was his lordship's first dramatic performance;
it was printed at Edinburgh in 4to. in the year 1603; it was first
composed of a mixture of English and Scotch dialect, and even then was
commended by several copies of verses. The Scene of this Play is
laid in Babylon. The author afterwards not only polished his native
language, but altered the Play itself; as to the plot consult Q.
Curtius, Diodorus Siculus, Justin, Plutarch's Life of Alexander, &c.
Julius Cæsar, a Tragedy. In the fifth Act of this Play, my lord brings
Brutus, Cassius, Cicero, Anthony, &c. together, after the death of
Cæsar, almost in the same circumstances Shakespear has done in his
Play of this name; but the difference between the Anthony and Brutus
of Shakespear, and these characters drawn by the earl of Stirling, is
as great, as the genius of the former transcended the latter. This is
the most regular of his lordship's plays in the unity of action. The
story of this Play is to be found in all the Roman Histories written
since the death of that Emperor.
His lordship has acknowledged the stile of his dramatic works not to
be pure, for which in excuse he has pleaded his country, the Scotch
dialect then being in a very imperfect state. Having mentioned the
Scotch dialect, it will not be improper to observe, that it is at this
time much in the same degree of perfection, that the English language
was, in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth; there are
idioms peculiar to the Scotch, which some of their best writers have
not been able entirely to forget, and unless they reside in England
for some time, they seldom overcome them, and their language is
greatly obscured by these means; but the reputation which some Scotch
writers at present enjoy, make it sufficiently clear, that they are
not much wanting in perspicuity or elegance, of which Mr. Hume, the
ingenious author of Essays Moral and Political, is an instance. In the
particular quality of fire, which is indispensible in a good writer,
the Scotch authors have rather too much of it, and are more apt to be
extravagantly animated, than correctly dull.
Besides these Plays, our author wrote several other Poems of a
different kind, viz. Doomsday, or the Great Day of the Lord's
Judgment, first printed 1614, and a Poem divided into 12 Book, which
the author calls Hours; In this Poem is the following emphatic line,
when speaking of the divine vengeance falling upon the wicked; he
calls it
A weight of wrath, more than ten worlds could
bear.
A very ingenious gentleman of Oxford, in a conversation with the
author of this Life, took occasion to mention the above line as the
best he had ever read consisting of monysyllables, and is indeed one
of the most affecting lines to be met with in any poet. This Poem,
says Mr. Coxeter, 'in his MS. notes, was reprinted in 1720, by
A. Johnston, who in his preface says, that he had the honour of
transmitting the author's works to the great Mr. Addison, for the
perusal of them, and he was pleased to signify his approbation
in these candid terms. That he had read them with the greatest
satisfaction, and was pleased to give it as his judgment, that the
beauties of our ancient English poets are too slightly passed over by
the modern writers, who, out of a peculiar singularity, had rather
take pains to find fault, than endeavour to excel.'
A Parænæsis to Prince Henry, who dying before it was published, it was
afterwards dedicated to King Charles I.[3]
Jonathan; intended to be an Heroic Poem, but the first Book of it is
only extant. He wrote all these Poems in the Ottavo Rima of Tasso, or
a Stanza of eight lines, six interwoven, and a Couplet in Base. His
Plays and Poems were all printed together in folio, under the title of
Recreations with the Muses, 1637, and dedicated to the King.
The earl of Stirling lived in friendship with the most eminent wits of
his time, except Ben Johnson, who complained that he was neglected by
him; but there are no particulars preserved concerning any quarrel
between them.
My lord seems to have often a peculiar inclination to punning, but
this was the characteristic vice of the times. That he could sometimes
write in a very elegant strain will appear by the following lines, in
which he describes love.
Love is a joy, which upon pain depends;
A drop of sweet, drowned in a sea of sours:
What folly does begin, that fury ends;
They hate for ever, who have lov'd for hours.
[Footnote 1: Crawford's Peerage of Scotland.]
[Footnote 2: Crawford, ubi supra.]
[Footnote 3: Langbaire.]
* * * * *
JOSEPH HALL, Bishop of NORWICH.
This prelate was born, according to his own account, July 11, 1574,
in Bristow-Park, within the parish of Ashby de la Zouch, a town in
Leicestershire.[1] His father was an officer under Henry Earl of
Huntingdon, president of the North, who from his infancy had devoted
him to the service of the church; and his mother, whom he has
celebrated for her exemplary and distinguished piety, was extremely
sollicitous that her favourite son would be of a profession, she
herself held so much in veneration. Our author, who seems to have been
very credulous in his disposition, rather religious than wise, or
possessing any attainments equal to the dignity to which he rose, has
preserved in his Specialities, some visions of his mother's, which he
relates with an air of seriousness, sufficient to evidence his own
conviction of their reality; but as they appear to have been the
offspring of a disordered imagination, they have no right to a place
here.
In order to train him up to the ministry, his father at first resolved
to place him under the care of one Mr. Pelset, lately come from
Cambridge to be the public preacher at Leicester, who undertook to
give him an education equally finished with that of the university,
and by these means save much expence to his father: This resolution,
however, was not executed, some other friends advising his father to
send him to Cambridge, and persuaded him that no private tuition could
possibly be equal to that of the academical. When our author had
remained six years at Cambridge, he had a right to preferment, and to
stand for a fellowship, had not his tutor Mr. Gilby been born in the
same county with him, and the statutes not permitting two of the same
shire to enjoy fellowships, and as Mr. Gilby was senior to our
author, and already in possession, Mr. Hall could not be promoted.
In consequence of this, he proposed to remove, when the Earl of
Huntingdon, being made acquainted with this circumstance, and hearing
very favourable accounts of our author, interested himself to prevent
his removal. He made application to Mr. Gilby, promised to make
him his chaplain, and promote him in the church, provided he would
relinquish his place in the college, in favour of Mr. Hall. These
promises being made with seeming sincerity, and as the Earl of
Huntingdon was a man of reputation for probity, he complied with his
lordship's request, and relinquished his place in the college. When
he was about to enter upon his office of chaplain, to his great
mortification, the nobleman on whose promises he confided, and on
whom he immediately depended, suddenly died, by which accident he was
thrown unprovided upon the world. This not a little affected Mr. Hall,
who was shocked to think that Mr. Gilby should be thus distressed, by
the generosity of his temper, which excited him to quit a certainty in
order to make way for his promotion. He addressed Dr. Chadderton,
then the master of the college, that the succeeding election might be
stopped, and that Mr. Gilby should again possess his place; but in
this request he was unsuccessful: for the Doctor told him, that Mr.
Gilby was divested of all possibilty of remedy, and that they
must proceed in the election the day following; when Mr. Hall was
unanimously chosen into that society. Two years after this, he was
chosen Rhetorician to the public schools, where, as he himself
expresses it, "he was encouraged with a sufficient frequence of
auditors;" but this place he soon resigned to Dr. Dod, and entered
upon studies necessary to qualify him for taking orders.
Some time after this, the mastership of a famous school erected at
Tiverton in Devon, became vacant; this school was endowed by the
founder Mr. Blundel, with a very large pension, and the care of it was
principally cast upon the then Lord Chief Justice Popham. His lordship
being intimately acquainted with Dr. Chadderton, requested him to
recommend some learned and prudent man for the government of that
school. The Dr. recommended Mr. Hall, assuring him that great
advantage would arise from it, without much trouble to himself: Our
author thinking proper to accept this, the Doctor carried him to
London, and introduced him to Lord Chief Justice Popham, who seemed
well pleased and thanked Dr. Chadderton for recommending a man so well
qualified for the charge. When Dr. Chadderton and Mr. Hall had
taken leave of his lordship and were returning to their lodgings, a
messenger presented a letter to Mr. Hall, from lady Drury of Suffolk,
earnestly requesting him to accept the rectory of Halsted, a place in
her gift. This flow of good fortune not a little surprized him, and as
he was governed by the maxims of prudence, he made no long hesitation
in accepting the latter, which was both a better benefice, and
a higher preferment. Being settled at Halsted, he found there
a dangerous antagonist to his ministry, whom he calls in his
Specialities, a witty, and a bold Atheist: "This was one Mr. Lilly,
who by reason of his travels, (says he) and abilities of discourse and
behaviour, had so deeply insinuated himself into my patron, that there
were small hopes for me to work any good upon that noble patron of
mine; who by the suggestion of this wicked detractor, was set off from
me before he knew me. Hereupon, I confess, finding the obduredness,
and hopeless condition of that man, I bent my prayers against him,
beseeching God daily, that he would be pleased to remove by some means
or other, that apparent hindrance of my faithful labours; who gave
me an answer accordingly. For this malicious man going hastily up to
London, to exasperate my patron against me, was then and there
swept away by the pestilence, and never returned to do any further
mischief." This account given by Mr. Hall of his antagonist, reflects
no great honour upon himself: it is conceived in a spirit of
bitterness, and there is more of spite against Lilly's person in it,
than any tenderness or pity for his errors. He calls him a witty
Atheist, when in all probability, what he terms atheism, was no more
than a freedom of thinking, and facetious conversation, which to the
pious churchman, had the appearance of denying the existence of God;
besides, had Hall dealt candidly, he should have given his readers
some more particulars of a man whom he was bold enough to denominate
an Atheist, a character so very singular, that it should never be
imputed to any man, without the strongest grounds. Hall in his usual
spirit of enthusiasm, in order to remove this antagonist of his, has
recourse to a miracle: He tells us, he went up to London and died of
the Plague, which he would have us to understand was by the immediate
interpolition of God, as if it were not ridiculous to suppose our
author of so great importance, as that the Supreme Being should work
a miracle in his favour; but as it is with natural so is it with
spiritual pride, those who are possessed by either, never fail to
over-rate their own significance, and justly expose themselves to the
contempt of the sober part of mankind.
Our author has also given us some account of his marriage, with the
daughter of Mr. George Winniff, of Bretenham; he says of her, that
much modesty, piety, and good disposition were lodged in her seemly
presence. She was recommended to him, by the Rev. Mr. Grandig his
friend, and he says, he listened to the recommendation, as from the
Lord, whom he frequently consulted by prayer, before he entered into
the matrimonial state. She lived with him 49 years.
Not long after Mr. Hall's settlement at Halsted, he was sollicited by
Sir Edmund Bacon to accompany him in a journey to the Spa in Ardenna,
at the time when the Earl of Hertford went ambassador to the archduke
Albert of Brussels. This request Mr. Hall complied with, as it
furnished him with an opportunity of feeing more of the world, and
gratified a desire he had of conversing with the Romish Jesuits.
The particulars of his journey, which he has preserved in his
Specialities, are too trifling to be here inserted: When he came to
Brussels, he was introduced by an English gentleman, who practiced
physic there, to the acquaintance of father Costrus; who held some
conversation with him concerning the miracles said to be lately
done, by one Lipsieus Apricollis, a woman who lived at Zichem. From
particular miracles, the father turned the discourse to the difference
between divine and diabolical miracles; and he told Mr. Hall, that if
he could ascertain that one miracle ever was wrought in the church
of England, he would embrace that persuasion: To which our author
replied, that he was fully convinced, that many devils had been
ejected out of persons in that church by fasting and prayer. They both
believed the possibility and frequency of miracles; they only differed
as to the church in which miracles were performed. Hall has censured
father Costrus, as a barren man, and of superficial conversation; and
it is to be feared, that whoever reads Hall's religious works will
conclude much in the same manner of him. They departed from Brussels
soon after this interview between father Costrus and our author, and
met with nothing in their journey to and return from the Spa, worth
relation, only Mr. Hall had by his zeal in defending his own church,
exposed himself to the resentment of one Signior Ascanio Negro, who
began notwithstanding Mr. Hall's lay-habit, to suspect him to be a
clergyman, and use some indecent freedoms with him in consequence of
this suspicion. Our author to avoid any impertinence which the captain
was likely to be guilty of towards him, told him, Sir Edmund Bacon,
the person with whom he travelled, was the grandchild of the great
lord Verulam, High Chancelor of England, whose fame was extended to
every country where science and philosophy prevailed, and that they
were protected by the earl of Hertford, the English embassador at
Brussels. Upon the Italian's being made acquainted with the quality of
Sir Edmund, and the high connections of the two travellers, he thought
proper to desist from any acts of impertinence, to which bigotry and
ignorance would have excited him. Hall returned to England after being
absent eighteen months, and was received but coldly by Sir Robert
Drury his patron; there having never been much friendship between
them. In consequence of this, Mr. Hall came to London, in search of a
more comfortable provision; he was soon recommended by one Mr. Gurrey,
tutor to the Earl of Essex, to preach before Prince Henry at Richmond.
Before this accident Mr. Hall had been author of some Meditations,
whom Mr. Gurrey told him, had been well received at Henry's court, and
much read by that promising young Prince. He preached with success,
for the Prince desired to hear him a second time, and was so well
pleased with him, that he signified an inclination of having him
attend about his court. Mr. Hall's reputation growing, he was taken
notice of by persons of fashion, and soon obtained the living of
Waltham, presented him by the Earl of Norwich.
While he exercised his function at Waltham, the archdeacon of
Norwich engaged him to interest himself in favour of the church of
Wolverhampton, from which a patrimony was detained by a sacrilegious
conveyance. In the course of this prosecution, our author observes,
"that a marvellous light opened itself unexpectedly, by revealing a
counterfeit seal, in the manifestation of razures, and interpolations,
and misdates of unjustifiable evidences, that after many years suit,
Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, upon a full hearing, gave a decree in
favour of the church."
During Mr. Hall's residence at Waltham, he was thrice employed by his
Majesty in public service. His first public employment was to attend
the Earl of Carlisle, who went on an embassy to France, and during his
absence his Majesty conferred upon him the deanery of Worcester. Upon
his return, he attended the King in a journey to Scotland, where
he exerted himself in support of episcopacy, in opposition to the
established ministry there, who were Presbyterians. Having acquired
some name in polemical divinity, and being long accustomed to
disputations, the King made choice of him to go to the Netherlands,
and assist at the synod of Dort, in settling the controverted points
of faith, for which that reverend body were there convened. Hall has
been very lavish in his own praise, while he acted at the synod of
Dort; he has given many hints of the supernatural assistance he was
blessed with: he has informed us, that he was then in a languishing
state of health; that his rest was broken, and his nights sleepless;
but on the night preceding the occasion of his preaching a Latin
sermon to the synod, he was favoured with, refreshing sleep, which he
ascribes to the immediate care of providence. The states of Holland,
he says, "sent Daniel Heinsius the poet to visit him, and were so much
delighted with his comportment, that they presented him with a
rich medal of gold, as a monument of their respect for his poor
endeavours." Upon our author's returning home, he found the church
torn to pieces, by the fierce contentions which then subsisted
concerning the doctrines of Arminius: he saw this with concern, and
was sensible true religion, piety, and virtue, could never be promoted
by such altercation; and therefore with the little power of which he
was master, he endeavoured to effect a reconciliation between the
contending parties: he wrote what he calls a project of pacification,
which was presented to his Majesty, and would have had a very happy
influence, had not the enemies of Mr. Hall misrepresented the book,
and so far influenced the King, that a royal edict for a general
inhibition, buried it in silence. Hall after this contended with the
Roman Catholics, who upon the prospect of the Spanish match, on the
success of which they built their hopes, began to betray a great
degree of insolence, and proudly boast the pedigree of their church,
from the apostles themselves. They insisted, that as their church was
the first, so it was the best, and that no ordination was valid which
was not derived from it. Hall in answer to their assertions, made a
concession, which some of his Protestant brethren thought he had no
right to do; he acknowledged the priority of the Roman Church, but
denied its infallibility, and consequently that it was possible
another church might be more pure, and approach more to the apostolic
practice than the Romish. This controversy he managed so successfully,
that he was promoted to the see of Exeter; and as King James I. seldom
knew any bounds to his generosity, when he happened to take a person
into his favour, he soon after that removed him from Exeter, and gave
him the higher bishoprick of Norwich; which he enjoyed not without
some allay to his happiness, for the civil wars soon breaking out,
he underwent the same severities which were exercised against other
prelates, of which he has given an account in a piece prefixed to his
works, called, Hall's hard Measure; and from this we shall extract the
most material circumstances.
The insolence of some churchmen, and the superiority they assumed in
the civil government, during the distractions of Charles I. provoked
the House of Commons to take some measures to prevent their growing
power, which that pious monarch was too much disposed to favour. In
consequence of this, the leading members of the opposition petitioned
the King to remove the bishops from their seats in Parliament, and
degrade them to the station at Commons, which was warmly opposed by
the high church lords, and the bishops themselves, who protested
against whatever steps were taken during their restraint from
Parliament, as illegal, upon this principle, that as they were part of
the legislature, no law could pass during their absence, at least
if that absence was produced by violence, which Clarendon has fully
represented.
The prejudice against the episcopal government gaining ground,
petitions to remove the bishops were poured in from all parts of the
kingdom, and as the earl of Strafford was then so obnoxious to the
popular resentment, his cause and that of the bishops was reckoned by
the vulgar, synonimous, and both felt the resentment of an enraged
populace. To such a fury were the common people wrought up, that they
came in bodies, to the two Houses of Parliament, to crave justice,
both against the earl of Strafford, and the archbishop of Canterbury,
and, in short, the whole bench of spiritual Peers; the mob besieged
the two Houses, and threatened vengeance upon the bishops, whenever
they came out. This fury excited some motion to be made in the House
of Peers, to prevent such tumults for the future, which were sent down
to the House of Commons. The bishops, for their safety, were obliged
to continue in the Parliament House the greatest part of the night,
and at last made their escape by bye-ways and stratagems. They were
then convinced that it was no longer safe for them to attend the
Parliament, 'till some measures were taken to repress the insolence
of the mob, and in consequence of this, they met at the house of the
archbishop of York, and drew up a protest, against whatever steps
should be taken during their absence, occasioned by violence. This
protest, the bishops intended should first be given to the Secretary
of State, and by him to the King, and that his Majesty should cause it
to be read in the House of Peers; but in place of this, the bishops
were accused of high treason, brought before the bar of the House of
Peers, and sent to the Tower. During their confinement, their enemies
in the House of Commons, took occasion to bring in a bill for taking
away the votes of bishops in the House of Peers: in this bill lord
Falkland concurred, and it was supported by Mr. Hambden and Mr. Pym,
the oracles of the House of Commons, but met with great opposition
from Edward Hyde, afterwards earl of Clarendon, who was a friend to
the church, and could not bear to see their liberties infringed.
The bishops petitioned to have council assigned them, in which they
were indulged, in order to answer to the charge of high treason. A day
was appointed, the bishops were brought to the bar, but nothing was
effected; the House of Commons at last finding that there could be no
proof of high treason, dropt that charge, and were content to libel
them for a misdemeanor, in which they likewise but ill succeeded, for
the bishops were admitted to bail, and no prosecution was carried on
against them, even for a misdemeanor.
Being now at liberty, the greatest part of them retired to their
dioceses, 'till the storm which had threatened them should subside.
Bishop Hall repaired to Norwich, where he met, from the disaffected
party, a very cold reception; he continued preaching however in his
cathedral at Norwich, 'till the order of sequestration came down, when
he was desired to remove from his palace, while the sequestrators
seized upon all his estate, both real and personal, and appraized all
the goods which were in the palace. The bishop relates the following
instance of oppression which was inflicted on him; 'One morning (says
his lordship) before my servants were up, there came to my gates one
Wright, a London trooper, attended with others requiring entrance,
threatening if they were not admitted, to break open the gates, whom,
I found at first sight, struggling with one of my servants for a
pistol which he had in his hand; I demanded his business at that
unseasonable time; he told me he came to search for arms and
ammunition, of which I must be disarmed; I told him I had only two
muskets in the house, and no other military provision; he not resting
upon my word, searched round about the house, looked into the chests
and trunks, examined the vessels in the cellar; finding no other
warlike furniture, he asked me what horses I had, for his commission
was to take them also; I told him how poorly I was stored, and that my
age would not allow me to travel on foot; in conclusion, he took one
horse away.'
The committee of sequestration soon after proceeded to strip him of
all the revenue belonging to his see, and as he refused to take the
covenant, the magistrates of the city of Norwich, who were no
friends to episcopal jurisdiction, cited him before them, for giving
ordination unwarrantably, as they termed it: to this extraordinary
summons the bishop answered, that he would not betray the dignity
of his station by his personal appearance, to answer any complaints
before the Lord Mayor, for as he was a Peer of the realm, no
magistrate whatever had a right to take cognizance of his conduct, and
that he was only accountable to the House of Lords, of which he was
one. The bishop proceeds to enumerate the various insults he received
from the enraged populace; sometimes they searched his house for
malignants, at other times they threatened violence to his person; nor
did their resentment terminate here; they exercised their fury in
the cathedral, tore down the altar, broke the organ in pieces, and
committed a kind of sacrilegious devastation in the church; they burnt
the service books in the market-place, filled the cathedral with
musketeers, who behaved in it with as much indecency, as if it had
been an alehouse; they forced the bishop out of his palace, and
employed that in the same manner. These are the most material
hardships which, according to the bishop's own account, happened to
him, which he seems to have born with patience and fortitude, and may
serve to shew the violence of party rage, and that religion is often
made a pretence for committing the most outrageous insolence, and
horrid cruelty. It has been already observed, that Hall seems to have
been of an enthusiastic turn of mind, which seldom consists with any
brilliance of genius; and in this case it holds true, for in his
sermons extant, there is an imbecility, which can flow from no other
cause than want of parts. In poetry however he seems to have greater
power, which will appear when we consider him in that light.
It cannot positively be determined on what year bishop Hall died; he
published that work of his called Hard Measure, in the year 1647, at
which time he was seventy-three years of age, and in all probability
did not long survive it.
His ecclesiastical works are,
A Sermon, preached before King James at Hampton-Court, 1624.
Christian Liberty, set forth in a Sermon at Whitehall, 1628.
Divine Light and Reflections, in a Sermon at Whitehall, 1640.
A Sermon, preached at the Cathedral of Exeter, upon the Pacification
between the two Kingdoms, 1641.
The Mischief of Faction, and the Remedy of it, a Sermon, at Whitehall
on the second Sunday in Lent, 1641.
A Sermon, preached at the Tower, 1641.
A Sermon, preached on Whitsunday in Norwich, printed 1644.
A Sermon, preached on Whitsunday at Higham, printed 1652.
A Sermon, preached on Easter day at Higham, 1648.
The Mourner in Sion.
A Sermon, preached at Higham, printed 1655.
The Women's Veil, or a Discourse concerning the Necessity or
Expedience of the close Covering the Heads of Women.
Holy Decency in the Worship of God.
Good Security, a Discourse of the Christian's Assurance.
A Plain and Familiar Explication of Christ's Presence, in the
Sacrament of his Body and Blood.
A Letter for the Observation of the Feast of Christ's Nativity.
A Letter to Mr. William Struthers, one of the Preachers at Edinburgh.
Epistola D. Baltasari Willio. S.T.D.
Epistola D. Lud. Crocio. S.T.D.
Reverendissimo Marco Antonio de L'om. Archiep. Spalatensi.
Epistola decessus sui ad Romam dissuasiva.
A Modest Offer.
Certain Irrefragable Propositions, worthy of serious Consideration.
The Way of Peace in the Five Busy Articles, commonly known by the name
of Arminius.
A Letter concerning the Fall Away from Grace.
A Letter concerning Religion.
A Letter concerning the frequent Injection of Temptations.
A Consolatory Letter to one under Censure.
A Short Answer to the Nine Arguments which are brought against the
Bishops sitting in Parliament.
For Episcopacy and Liturgy.
A Speech in Parliament.
A Speech in Parliament, in Defence of the Canons made in Convocation.
A Speech in Parliament, concerning the Power of Bishops in secular
things.
The Anthems for the Cathedral of Exeter.
All these are printed in 4to, and were published 1660. There are also
other Works of this author. An Edition of the whole has been printed
in three Vols. folio.
Besides these works, Bishop Hall is author of Satires in Six Books,
lately reprinted under the title of Virgidemiarum, of which we cannot
give a better account than in the words of the ingenious authors of
the Monthly Review, by which Bishop Hall's genius for that kind of
poetical writing will fully appear.
He published these Satires in the twenty third year of his age, and
was, as he himself asserts in the Prologue, the first satirist in the
English language.
I first adventure, follow me who list,
And be the second English satyrist.
And, if we consider the difficulty of introducing so nice a poem as
satire into a nation, we must allow it required the assistance of no
common and ordinary genius. The Italians had their Ariosto, and
the French their Regnier, who might have served him as models for
imitation; but he copies after the ancients, and chiefly Juvenal and
Persius; though he wants not many strokes of elegance and delicacy,
which shew him perfectly acquainted with the manner of Horace. Among
the several discouragements which attended his attempt in that kind,
he mentions one peculiar to the language and nature of the English
versification, which would appear in the translation of one of
Persius's Satires: The difficulty and dissonance whereof, says he,
shall make good my assertion; besides the plain experience thereof
in the Satires of Ariosto; save which, and one base French satire, I
could never attain the view of any for my direction. Yet we may pay
him almost the same compliment which was given of old to Homer and
Archilochus: for the improvements which have been made by succeeding
poets bear no manner of proportion to the distance of time between him
and them. The verses of bishop Hall are in general extremely musical
and flowing, and are greatly preferable to Dr. Donne's, as being of
a much smoother cadence; neither shall we find him deficient, if
compared with his successor, in point of thought and wit; but he
exceeds him with respect to his characters, which are more numerous,
and wrought up with greater art and strength of colouring. Many of his
lines would do honour to the most ingenious of our modern poets;
and some of them have thought it worth their labour to imitate him,
especially Mr. Oldham. Bishop Hall was not only our first satyrist,
but was the first who brought epistolary writing to the view of the
public; which was common in that age to other parts of Europe, but not
practised in England, till he published his own epistles. It may be
proper to take notice, that the Virgidemiarum are not printed with his
other writings, and that an account of them is omitted by him, through
his extreme modesty, in the Specialities of his Life, prefixed to the
third volume of his works in folio.
The author's postscript to his satires is prefixed by the editor in
the room of a preface, and without any apparent impropriety. It is not
without some signatures of the bishop's good sense and taste; and,
making a just allowance for the use of a few obsolete terms, and
the puerile custom of that age in making affected repetitions and
reiterations of the same word within the compass of a period, it would
read like no bad prose at present. He had undoubtedly an excellent
ear, and we must conclude he must have succeeded considerably in
erotic or pastoral poetry, from the following stanza's, in his
Defiance to Envy, which may be considered as an exordium to his
poetical writings.
Witnesse, ye muses, how I wilful sung
These heady rhimes, withouten second care;
And wish'd them worse my guilty thoughts among;
The ruder satire should go ragg'd and bare,
And shew his rougher and his hairy hide,
Tho' mine be smooth, and deck'd in carelesse pride.
Would we but breathe within a wax-bound quill,
Pan's seven-fold pipe, some plaintive pastoral;
To teach each hollow grove, and shrubby hill,
Each murmuring brook, each solitary vale
To found our love, and to our song accord,
Wearying Echo with one changelesse word.
Or lift us make two striving shepherds sing,
With costly wagers for the victory,
Under Menalcas judge; while one doth bring
A carven bowl well wrought of beechen tree,
Praising it by the story; or the frame,
Or want of use, or skilful maker's name.
Another layeth a well-marked lamb,
Or spotted kid, or some more forward steere,
And from the paile doth praise their fertile dam;
So do they strive in doubt, in hope, in feare,
Awaiting for their trusty empire's doome,
Faulted as false by him that's overcome.
Whether so me lift my lovely thought to sing,
Come dance ye nimble Dryads by my side,
Ye gentle wood-nymphs come; and with you bring
The willing fawns that mought their music guide.
Come nymphs and fawns, that haunts those shady groves,
While I report my fortunes or my loves.
The first three books of satires are termed by the author Toothless
satires, and the three last Biting satires. He has an animated idea
of good poetry, and a just contempt of poetasters in the different
species of it. He says of himself, in the first satire.
Nor can I crouch, and writhe my fawning tayle,
To some great Patron for my best avayle.
Such hunger-starven trencher-poetrie,
Or let it never live, or timely die.
He frequently avows his admiration of Spenser, whose cotemporary he
was. His first book, consisting of nine satires, appears in a manner
entirely levelled at low and abject poetasters. Several satires of the
second book reprehend the contempt of the rich, for men of science and
genius. We shall transcribe the sixth, being short, and void of all
obscurity.
A gentle squire would gladly entertaine
Into his house some trencher-chaplaine;
Some willing man that might instruct his sons,
And that would stand to good conditions.
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,
While his young maister lieth o'er his head.
Second, that he do on no default,
Ever presume to sit above the salt.
Third, that he never change his trencher twise.
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies;
Sit bare at meales, and one halfe raise and wait.
Last, that he never his young maister beat,
But he must ask his mother to define,
How manie jerkes she would his breech should line.
All these observed, he could contented bee,
To give five markes and winter liverie.
The seventh and last of this book is a very just and humorous satire
against judicial astrology, which was probably in as high credit then,
as witchcraft was in the succeeding reign.
The first satire of the third book is a strong contrast of the
temperance and simplicity of former ages, with the luxury and
effeminacy of his own tines, which a reflecting reader would be apt to
think no better than the present. We find the good bishop supposes our
ancestors as poorly fed as Virgil's and Horace's rustics. He says,
with sufficient energy,
Thy grandsire's words favour'd of thrifty leekes,
Or manly garlicke; but thy furnace reekes
Hot steams of wine; and can a-loose descrie
The drunken draughts of sweet autumnitie.
The second is a short satire on erecting stately monuments to
worthless men. The following advice is nobly moral, the subsequent
sarcasm just and well expressed.
Thy monument make thou thy living deeds;
No other tomb than that true virtue needs.
What! had he nought whereby he might be knowne
But costly pilements of some curious stone?
The matter nature's, and the workman's frame;
His purse's cost: where then is Osmond's name?
Deserv'dst thou ill? well were thy name and thee,
Wert thou inditched in great secrecie.
The third gives an account of a citizen's feast, to which he was
invited, as he says,
With hollow words, and [2] overly request.
and whom he disappointed by accepting his invitation at once, and not
Maydening it; no insignificant term as he applies it: for, as he says,
Who looks for double biddings to a feast,
May dine at home for an importune guest.
After a sumptuous bill of fare, our author compares the great plenty
of it to our present notion of a miser's feast--saying,
Come there no more; for so meant all that cost;
Never hence take me for thy second host.
The fourth is levelled at Ostentation in devotion, or in dress. The
fifth represents the sad plight of a courtier, whose Perewinke, as
he terms it, the wind had blown off by unbonnetting in a salute, and
exposed his waxen crown or scalp. 'Tis probable this might be about
the time of their introduction into dress here. The sixth, which is a
fragment, contains a hyperbolical relation of a thirsty foul, called
Gullion, who drunk Acheron dry in his passage over it, and grounded
Charon's boat, but floated it again, by as liberal a stream of urine.
It concludes with the following sarcastical, yet wholesome irony.
Drinke on drie foule, and pledge Sir Gullion:
Drinke to all healths, but drink not to thyne owne.
The seventh and last is a humorous description of a famished beau, who
had dined only with duke Humfrey, and who was strangely adorned with
exotic dress.
To these three satires he adds the following conclusion.
Thus have I writ, in smoother cedar tree,
So gentle Satires, penn'd so easily.
Henceforth I write in crabbed oak-tree rynde,
Search they that mean the secret meaning find.
Hold out ye guilty and ye galled hides,
And meet my far-fetched stripes with waiting sides.
In his biting satires he breathes still more of the spirit and
stile of Juvenal, his third of this book being an imitation of that
satirist's eighth, on Family-madness and Pride of Descent; the
beginning of which is not translated amiss by our author. The
principal object of his fourth satire, Gallio, would correspond with
a modern Fribble, but that he supposes him capable of hunting and
hawking, which are exercises rather too coarse and indelicate for
ours: this may intimate perhaps, that the reign of the great Elizabeth
had no character quite so unmanly as our age. In advising him to wed,
however, we have no bad portrait of the Petit Maitre.
Hye thee, and give the world yet one dwarfe more,
Such as it got when thou thy selfe was bore.
His fifth satire contrasts the extremes of Prodigality and Avarice;
and by a few initials, which are skabbarded, it looks as if he had
some individuals in view; though he has disclaimed such an intention
in his postscript (now the preface) p. 6. lin. 25, &c. His sixth sets
out very much like the first satire of Horace's first book, on the
Dissatisfaction and Caprice of mankind--Qui fit Mecænas; and, after
a just and lively-description of our different pursuits in life, he
concludes with the following preference of a college one, which, we
find in the Specialities of his life, he was greatly devoted to in his
youth. The lines, which are far from inelegant, seem indeed to come
from his heart, and make him appear as an exception to that too
general human discontent, which was the subject of this satire.
'Mongst all these stirs of discontented strife,
Oh let me lead an academick life;
To know much, and to think we nothing know;
Nothing to have, yet think we have enowe;
In skill to want, and wanting seek for more;
In weele nor want, nor wish for greater store.
Envy, ye monarchs, with your proad excesse,
At our low sayle, and our high happinesse.
The last satire of this book is a severe one on the clergy of the
church of Rome. He terms it POMH-PYMH, by which we suppose he intended
to brand Roma, as the Sink of Superstition. He observes, if Juvenal,
whom he calls Aquine's carping spright, were now alive, among other
surprising alterations at Rome,
--that he most would gaze and wonder at,
Is th' horned mitre, and the bloody hat,
The crooked staffe, their coule's strange form and store,
Save that he saw the fame in hell before.
The first satire of the fifth book is levelled at Racking Landlords.
The following lines are a strong example of the taste of those times
for the Punn and Paronomasia.
While freezing Matho, that for one lean fee
Won't term each term the term of Hillary,
May now, instead of those his simple fees,
Get the fee-simples of faire manneries.
The second satire lashes the incongruity of stately buildings and want
of hospitality, and naturally reminds us of a pleasant epigram
of Martial's on the same occasion, where after describing the
magnificence of a villa, he concludes however, there is no room either
to sup or lodge in it. It ends with a transition on the contumely with
which the parasites are treated at the tables of the great; being a
pretty close imitation of Juvenal on the same subject. This satire has
also a few skabbarded initials.
In his third, titled, [Greek: KOINA PHIAON], where he reprehends
Plato's notion of a political community of all things, are the
following lines:
Plato is dead, and dead is his device,
Which some thought witty, none thought ever wise:
Yet certes Macha is a Platonist
To all, they say, save whoso do not list;
Because her husband, a far traffick' man,
Is a profess'd Peripatician.
His last book and satire, for it consists but of one, is a humorous
ironical recantation of his former satires; as the author pretends
there can be no just one in such perfect times as his own. The
latter part of it alludes to different passages in Juvenal; and he
particularly reflects on some poetaster he calls Labeo, whom he had
repeatedly lash'd before; and who was not improbably some cotemporary
scribler.
Upon the whole, these satires sufficiently evince both the learning
and ingenuity of their author. The sense has generally such a
sufficient pause, and will admit of such a punctuation at the close of
the second line, and the verse is very often as harmonious too, as if
it was calculated for a modern ear: tho' the great number of obsolete
words retained would incline us to think the editors had not procured
any very extraordinary alteration of the original edition, which we
have never seen. The present one is nearly printed; and, if it should
occasion another, we cannot think but a short glossary at the end of
it, or explanations at the bottom of the pages, where the most uncouth
and antiquated terms occur, would justly increase the value of it, by
adding considerably to the perspicuity of this writer; who, in other
respects, seems to have been a learned divine, a conscientious
christian, a lover of peace, and well endued with patience; for the
exercise of which virtue, the confusions at the latter end of his
life, about the time of the death of Charles I. furnished him with
frequent opportunities, the account of his own hard measures being
dated in May 1647. We have met with no other poetical writings of
the bishop's, except three anthems, composed for the use of his
cathedral-church; and indeed, it seems as if his continual occupation
after his youth, and his troubles in age, were sufficient to suppress
any future propensity to satirical poetry: which we may infer from the
conclusion of the first satire of his fourth book.
While now my rhimes relish of the ferule still,
Some nose-wise pedant saith; whose deep-seen skill
Hath three times construed either Flaccus o'er,
And thrice rehears'd them in his trivial flore.
So let them tax me for my hot blood's rage,
Rather than say I doated in my age.
[Footnote 1: Specialities of this bishop's life prefixed to his
works.]
[Footnote 2: Slight.]
* * * * *
RICHARD CRASHAW.
Son of an eminent divine named William Crashaw, was educated in
grammar learning in Sutton's-Hospital called the Charter-House, near
London, and in academical, partly in Pembroke-Hall, of which he was a
scholar, and afterwards in Peterhouse, Cambridge, of which he was a
fellow, where, as in the former house, he was distinguished for his
Latin and English poetry. Afterwards he took the degree of master of
arts; but being soon after thrown out of his fellowship, with many
others of the University of Cambridge, for denying the Covenant during
the time of the rebellion, he was for a time obliged to shift for
himself, and struggle against want and oppression. At length being
wearied with persecution and poverty, and foreseeing the calamity
which threatened and afterwards fell upon his church and country, by
the unbounded fury of the Presbyterians, he changed his religion,
and went beyond sea, in order to recommend himself to some Popish
preferment in Paris; but being a mere scholar was incapable of
executing his new plan of a livelihood. Mr. Abraham Cowley hearing of
his being there, endeavoured to find him out, which he did, and to his
great surprize saw him in a very miserable plight: this happened in
the year 1646. This generous bard gave him all the assistance he
could, and obtained likewise some relief for him from Henrietta Maria
the Queen Dowager, then residing at Paris. Our author receiving
letters of recommendation from his Queen, he took a journey into
Italy, and by virtue of those letters became a secretary to a Cardinal
at Rome, and at length one of the canons or chaplains of the rich
church of our lady of Loretto, some miles distant from thence, where
he died in 1650.
This conduct of Crashaw can by no means be justified: when a man
changes one religion for another, he ought to do it at a time when no
motive of interest can well be supposed to have produced it; for it
does no honour to religion, nor to the person who becomes a convert,
when it is evident, he would not have altered his opinion, had not
his party been suffering; and what would have become of the church
of England, what of the Protestant religion, what of christianity in
general, had the apostles and primitive martyrs, and later champions
for truth, meanly abandoned it like Crashaw, because the hand of power
was lifted up against it. It is an old observation, that the blood of
the martyrs is the seed of the church; but Crashaw took care that
the church mould reap no benefit by his perseverance. Before he left
England he wrote poems, entitled, Steps to the Temple; and Wood says,
"That he led his life in St. Mary's church near to Peterhouse, where
he lodged under Tertullian's roof of angels; there he made his nest
more glad than David's swallow near the house of God, where like a
primitive saint he offered more prayers in the night than others
usually offer in the day. There he pen'd the poems called Steps to the
Temple for Happy Souls to climb to Heaven by. To the said Steps are
joined other poems, entitled, The Delights of the Muses, wherein are
several Latin poems; which tho' of a more humane mixture, yet are
sweet as they are innocent. He hath also written Carmen Deo Nostro,
being Hymns and other sacred Poems, addressed to the Countess of
Denbigh. He is said to have been master of five languages, besides
his mother tongue, viz. Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, and Spanish."
Mr. Crashaw seems to have been a very delicate and chaste writer; his
language is pure, his thoughts natural, and his manner of writing
tender.
* * * * *
WILLIAM ROWLEY.
An author who lived in the reign of Charles I. and was some time a
member of Pembroke-Hall in Cambridge. There are no particulars on
record concerning this poet. He was beloved, says Langbaine, by
Shakespear, Johnson, and Fletcher, and writ with the former the
British Merlin, besides what he joined in writing with poets of the
third class, as Heywood, Middleton, Day, and Webster.
The author has six plays in print of his own writing, which are as
follows;
1. A New Wonder, a Woman never vext, a Comedy, acted Anno 1632. The
Widow's finding her wedding Ring (which she dropt crossing the Thames)
in the Belly of a Fish, is taken from the Story of Polycrates, in the
Thalia of Herodotus.
2. A Match at Midnight, a Comedy, acted by the Children of the Revels,
1633. Part of the Plot is taken from a Story in the English Rogue,
Part the fourth.
3. All's lost by Lust, a Tragedy, acted at the Phoenix in Drury-lane
by the Lady Elizabeth's Servants, 1633. This is esteemed a tolerable
Play.
4. Shoemaker's a Gentleman, a Comedy, acted at the Red-Bull, 1638.
This Play was afterwards revived at the Theatre in Dorset-Garden. Plot
from Crispin and Crispianus; or the History of the Gentle Craft.
5. The Witch of Edmonton, a Tragi-Comedy, acted by the Prince's
Servants at the Cock-pit in Drury-Lane, 1658. This Play was afterwards
acted at Court with Applause.
6. The Birth of Merlin, a Tragi-Comedy, 1662. The Plot from Geofrey of
Monmouth. Shakespear assisted in this Play. He joined with Middleton
in his Spanish Gypsies, Webster in his Thracian Wonder.
* * * * *
THOMAS NASH.
A versifier in the reign of King Charles I. was educated in the
university of Cambridge, and was designed for holy orders. He was
descended from a family in Hertfordshire, and was born at Leostoff
in Suffolk. Whether he obtained any preferment in the church, or was
honoured with any great man's patronage, is no where determined. It
is reasonable to believe the contrary, because good fortune is seldom
without the evidence of flattery, or envy, whereas distress and
obscurity, are almost inseparable companions. This is further
confirmed in some lines vehemently passionate, in a performance of
his called Piers Penniless; which to say nothing of the poetry, are a
strong picture of rage, and despair, and part of which as they
will shew that he was no mean versifier, shall be quoted by way
of specimen. In the abovementioned piece of Piers Penniless, or
Supplication to the Devil, he had some reflections on the parentage
of Dr. Harvey, his father being a rope-maker of Saffron-Walden. This
produced contests between the Doctor and him, so that it became a
paper war. Amongst other books which Mr. Nash wrote against him, was
one entitled, Have with ye, to Saffron Walden; and another called,
Four letters confuted. He wrote likewise a poem, called, The White
Herring and the Red. He has published two plays, Dido Queen of
Carthage, in which he joined with Marloe: and Summers last Will and
Testament, a Comedy. Langbaine says, he could never procure a sight of
either of these, but as to the play called, See me, and See me
not, ascribed to him by Winstanley, he says, it is written by one
Drawbridgecourt Belchier, Esq; Thomas Nash had the reputation of a
sharp satirist, which talent he exerted with a great deal of acrimony
against the Covenanters and Puritans of his time: He likewise wrote a
piece called, The Fourfold way to Happiness, in a dialogue between a
countryman, citizen, divine, and lawyer, printed in 4to. London, 1633.
In an old poem called the return to Parnassus; or a scourge for
Simony, Nash's character is summed up in four lines, which Mrs. Cooper
thinks is impartially done.
Let all his faults sleep in his mournful chest,
And there for ever with his ashes rest!
His stile was witty; tho he had some gall:
Something he might have mended----so may all
From his PIERS PENNILESS.
Why is't damnation to despair and die,
When life is my true happiness disease?
My soul! my soul' thy safety makes me fly
The faulty means that might my pain appease,
Divines, and dying men may talk of Hell;
But, in my heart, her sev'ral torments dwell!
Ah! worthless wit to train me to this woe!
Deceitful arts, that nourish discontent!
Ill thrive the folly that bewitched me so!
Vain thoughts adieu, for now I will repent!
And yet my wants persuade me to proceed,
Since none take pity of a Scholar's need!
Forgive me God, altho' I curse my birth,
And ban the air wherein I breath a wretch!
Since misery hath daunted all my mirth
And I am quite undone, thro' promise breach
O friends! no friends! that then ungently frown,
When changing fortune casts us headlong down!
Without redress, complains my careless verse,
And Midas ears relent not at my moan!
In some far land will I my griefs rehearse,
'Mongst them that will be moved when I shall groan!
England adieu! the soil that brought me forth!
Adieu unkind where still is nothing worth!
* * * * *
JOHN FORD,
A Gentleman of the Middle-Temple, who wrote in the reign of Charles I.
He was a well-wisher to the muses, and a friend and acquaintance of
most of the poets of his time. He was not only a partner with Rowley
and Decker in the Witch of Edmonton, and with Decker in the Sun's
Darling; but wrote likewise himself seven plays, most of which were
acted at the Phænix in the Black-Fryars, and may be known by an
Anagram instead of his name, generally printed in the title-page, viz,
FIDE HONOR.
His genius was more turned for tragedy than comedy, which occasioned
an old poet to write thus of him:
Deep in a dump, John Ford was alone got,
With folded arms, and melancholy hat.
These particulars I find in Mr. Langbaine, who gives the following
account of his plays;
1. Broken Heart, a Tragedy, acted by the King's Servants at the
private House in Black-Fryars, printed in 4to. London 1633, and
dedicated to Lord Craven, Baron of Hamstead-Marshal: The Speaker's
Names are fitted to their Qualities, and most of them are derived from
Greek Etymologies.
2. Fancies Chaste and Noble, a Tragi-Comedy, acted by the Queen's
Servants, at the Phoenix in Drury Lane, printed 4to. London 1638, and
dedicated to Lord Randel Macdonell, Earl of Antrim, in the Kingdom of
Ireland.
3. Ladies Tryal, a Tragi-Comedy, acted by both their Majesties
Servants, at the Private House in Drury-Lane, printed 4to. London,
1639.
4. Lover's Melancholy, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at a Private House in
Black-Fryars, and publickly at the Globe by the King's Servants,
printed 4to. London 1629, and dedicated to the Society of Gray's-Inn.
This Play is commended by four of the author's Friends, one of whom
writes the following Tetrastich:
'Tis not the language, nor the fore-placed rhimes
Of friends, that shall commend to after times
The lover's melancholy: It's own worth
Without a borrowed praise shall see it forth.
The author, says Langbaine, has imbellished this Play with several
fancies from other Writers, which he has appositely brought in, as
the Story of the Contention between the Musician and the Nightingale,
described in Strada's academical Prolusions, Lib. ii. Prol. 6.
5. Love's Sacrifice, a Tragedy, received generally well, acted by the
Queen's Servants, at the Phoenix in Drury-Lane; printed 4to. Lond.
1663. There is a copy of verses prefixed to this Play, written by
James Shirley, Esq; a dramatic writer.
6. Perkin Warbeck, a Chronicle History, and strange Truth, acted by
the Queen's Servants in Drury-Lane, printed 4to. 1634, and dedicated
to William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle. This Play, as several of
the former, is attended with Verses written by four of the Author's
friends. The Plot is founded on Truth, and may be read in all the
Chronicles of Henry VII.
7. Sun's Darling, a Moral Mask, often presented by their Majesties
Servants at the Cock-pit in Drury-Lane, with great Applause, printed
in 4to. London 1657, dedicated to the Right Hon. Thomas Wriothesley,
Earl of Southampton. This Play was wrote by our author and John
Decker, but not published till after their decease. A Copy of Verses
written by Mr. John Tateham is the Introduction to the Mask, at the
Entry whereof the Reader will find an Explanation of the Design
alluding to the Four Seasons of the Year.
8. 'Tis Pity she's a Whore, a Tragedy, printed in 4to. Mr.
Langbaine says, that this equals if not exceeds any of our author's
performances, and were to be commended did not he paint the incestuous
love between Giovanni, and his Sister Annabella, in too beautiful
colours. I have not been able to ascertain the year in which this
author died; but imagine from circumstances, that it must have been
some time before the Restoration, and before the Year 1657, for the
Sun's Darling, written between him and Decker was published in 1657,
which Mr. Langbaine says, was after their Decease.
* * * * *
THOMAS MIDDLETON
Lived in the reign of King Charles I. he was cotemporary with Johnson,
Fletcher, Maslinger and Rowley, in whose friendship he is said to have
shared, and though he fell much short of the two former, yet being
joined with them in writing plays, he arrived at some reputation. He
joined with Fletcher and Johnson in a play called The Widow, and the
highest honour that is known of this poet, is, his being admitted to
make a triumvirate with two such great men: he joined with Massinger
and Rowley in writing the Old Law; he was likewise assisted by
Rowley in writing three plays[1]. We have not been able to find any
particulars of this man's life, further than his friendship and
connection already mentioned, owing to his obscurity, as he was never
considered as a genius, concerning which the world thought themselves
interested to preserve any particulars.
His dramatic works are,
1. The Five Gallants, acted at the Black Fryars.
2. Blur, Mr. Constable, or the Spaniard's Night Walk, a Comedy, acted
by the Children of St. Paul's School, 1602.
3. The Phænix, a Tragedy, acted by the Children of St. Paul's, and
also before his Majesty, 1607; the story is taken from a Spanish
Novel, called the Force of Love.
4. The Family of Love, a Comedy, acted by the children of his
Majesty's Revels, 1608.
5. The Roaring Girl, or Moll Cutpurse, acted by the Prince's Players,
1611; part of this play was writ by Mr. Decker.
6. A Trick to catch the Old One, a Comedy, acted both at St. Paul's
and Black Fryars before their Majesties, with success, 1616.
7. The Triumphs of Love and Antiquity, a Masque, performed at the
Confirmation of Sir William Cokain, General of his Majesty's Forces,
and Lord Mayor of the city of London, 1619.
8. The Chaste Maid of Cheapside, a pleasant Comedy, acted by the Lady
Elizabeth's servants, 1620.
9. The World toss'd at Tennis, a Masque, presented by the Prince's
servants, 1620.
10. The Fair Quarrel, a Comedy, acted in the year 1622, Mr. Rowley
assisted in the composing this Play.
11. The Inner Temple Masque, a Masque of Heroes, represented by the
Gentlemen of the Inner-Temple, 1640.
12. The Changeling, a Tragedy, acted at a private house in Drury Lane,
and Salisbury Court, with applause, 1653, Mr. Rowley joined in writing
this play; for the plot see the story of Alsemero, and Beatrice Joanna
in Reynolds's God's Revenge against Murder.
13. The Old Law, or a New Way to Please You, a Comedy, acted before
the King and Queen in Salisbury Court, printed 1656. Massenger and
Rowley assisted in this Play.
14. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's, a Comedy, acted in the year 1657.
15. Women, beware Women, a Tragedy, 1657. This Play is founded on a
Romance called Hyppolito and Isabella.
16. More Dissemblers besides Women, a Comedy, acted 1657.
17. The Spanish Gypsies, a Comedy, acted with applause, both at the
private house in Drury Lane, and Salisbury Court, 1660; in this Play
he was assisted by Mr. Rowley. Part of it is borrowed from a Spanish
Novel called the Force of Blood, written originally by Cervantes.
18. The Mayor of Queenborough, a Comedy, acted by his Majesty's
servants, 1661. For the plot see the Reign of Vartigas, by Stow and
Speed.
19. Any Thing for a Quiet Life, acted at the Globe on the Bank Side.
This is a game between the Church of England, and that of Rome,
wherein the former gains the victory.
20. Michaelmas Term, a Comedy; it is uncertain whether this play was
ever acted.
21. A Mad World, my Masters, a Comedy, often acted at a private house
in Salisbury Court with applause.
[Footnote 1: Langbaine's Lives of the Poets, p. 370.]
* * * * *
End of the First VOLUME.