THE CAPTIVE KING.

Whereas in ward full oft I would bewail
My deadly life, full of pain and penance,
Saying right thus, "What have I guilt' to fail
My freedom in this world, and my pleasance?
Sin every wight has thereof suffisance
That I behold, and I a creäture

Put from all this, hard is mine aventure!

"The bird, the beast, the fish eke in the sea, They live in freedom, every in his kind, And I a man, and lacketh liberty;

What shall I sayn, what reason may I find, That Fortune should do so?" Thus in my mind My folk I would argue, but all for nought; Was none that might that on my painés rought!'

Robert Henryson.

Henryson (circa 1425-1507) was the oldest of an important group of Scottish poets, who, at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, "were filling the North country with music." Admitted in 1462 to the newly-founded University of Glasgow, he beeame notary public and school-master at Dunfermline. In his lifetime the art of printing first came into use in England. He was a writer of ballads; and his "Robin and Mawkin" is one of the best early specimens of pastoral verse. He also wrote a metrical version of Æsop's Fables.

Sir Thomas Wyatt.

Among the principal successors of Henryson were William Dunbar (circa 1460–1520), John Skelton (1460 ?-1529), Gavin Douglas (1475-1522), Sir David Lyndsay (14901557), and Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542), who translated many of the Sonnets of Petrarch. He became M.A. of Cambridge at seventeen; was made a gentleman of King Henry VIII.'s bedchamber; was knighted in 1537; and went as ambassador to the Emperor Charles V. in Spain. In the winter of 1540-41 he was in the Tower, charged with treasonable correspondence with Cardinal Pole. Acquitted in 1541, he was again befriended by the king; but in the autumn of 1542 he died of a fever, caught in riding fast through bad weather to meet an ambassador from Charles V.

Her wily looks my wits did blind; Thus as she would I did agree: But ha ha! ha! full well is me, For I am now at liberty.

Was never bird tangled in lime
That brake away in better time
Than I, that rotten boughs did climb,

And had no hurt, but scapéd free: Now ha! ha! ha! full well is me, For I am now at liberty.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.

The son of the Duke of Norfolk, the victor of Flodden in 1513, Henry Howard (circa 1517-1546), was from his youth associated with the Court of Henry VIII. in the capacity of companion to the Duke of Richmond, a natural son of that prince. He was subsequently employed in high military commands. But the whole family of Howard fell under Henry's hatred, after the execution of Queen Catharine, Surrey's sister. He and his father were thrown into the Tower, and condemned on frivolous accusations. He was executed in 1546, the warrant for his death being one of the latest signed by Henry VIII, then upon his death-bed. Surrey was the first translator in blank verse of the Æneid of Virgil; he likewise introduced the Petrarchan sonnet into English literature.

HOW NO AGE IS CONTENT. Laid in my quiet bed,

In study as I were,

I saw within my troubled head
A heap of thoughts appear;
And every thought did show

So lively in mine eyes,

That now I sighed, and then I smiled,

As cause of thought did rise.

I saw the little boy,

In thought how oft that he Did wish of God to 'scape the rod, A tall young man to be: The young man eke, that feels

His bones with pains opprest, How he would be a rich old man, To live and lie at rest.

The rich old man that sees
His end draw on so sore,
How he would be a boy again,
To live so much the more;

Thomas, Lord Vaux.

Thomas, Lord Vaux (circa 1510-1557) of Harrowden, in Northamptonshire, was Captain of the Isle of Jersey under Henry VIII. The following lines were first printed in "The Paradise of Dainty Devices," 1576. In neatness and literary skill they are far above most of the contemporary productions.

OF A CONTENTED MIND. When all is done and said,

In the end thus shall you find, He most of all doth bathe in bliss, That bath a quiet mind; And, clear from worldly cares,

To deem can be content

The sweetest time in all his life,

In thinking to be spent.

The body subject is

To fickle Fortune's power, And to a million of mishaps

Is casual every hour:

And Death in time doth change
It to a clod of clay;

When as the mind, which is divine,
Runs never to decay.

Companion none is like

Unto the mind alone;

Anne Askew.

If her poetry be not of the first order, Anne Askew (burned at the stake, 1546) deserves to be enrolled among the poets for showing that she could practise, in a heroic death, what she had preached in verse. She was cruelly tortured by the minions of Henry VIII. for denying the real presence in the eucharist. Prevailed on by Bonner's menaces to make a seeming recantation, she qualified it with some reserves, which did not satisfy that zealous prelate. She was thrown into Newgate, and there wrote her poem of "The Fight of Faith." She was condemned to be burned alive; but being so dislocated by the rack that she could not stand, she was carried to the stake in a chair, and there burned. Pardon had been offered her if she would recant; this she refused, and submitted to her fate with the utmost intrepidity.

FROM "THE FIGHT OF FAITH."

Like as the arméd knight,

Appointed to the field,

With this world will I fight,

And faith shall be my shield.

Faith is that weapon strong, Which will not fail at need; My foes therefore among Therewith will I proceed.

Thou sayst, Lord, whoso knock, To them wilt thou attend, Undo, therefore, the lock,

And thy strong power send.

More enemies now I have

Than hairs upon my head;

Let them not me deprave,
But fight thon in my stead.

Not oft I use to write

In prose, nor yet in rhyme; Yet will I show one sight,

That I saw in my time:

I saw a royal throne,

Where Justice should have sit;

But in her stead was one
Of moody, cruel wit.

Absorpt was rightwisness,

As by the raging flood; Satan, in his excess,

Sucked up the guiltless blood.

Then thought I,-Jesus, Lord, When thou shalt judge us all, Hard is it to record

On these men what will fall!

Yet, Lord, I thee desire,

For that they do to me, Let them not taste the hire Of their iniquity.

Sir Edward Dyer.

Born in the reign of Henry VIII. (circa 1540–1607), Dyer lived till some years after King James's accession to the English throne. He was a friend of Sir Philip Sidney, who, in his verses, celebrates their intimacy. Dyer was educated at Oxford, and was employed in several foreign embassies by Elizabeth. He studied chemistry, and was thought to be a Rosicrucian. Puttenham, in his "Art of English Pocsie" (1589), commends "Master Edward Dyer for elegy most sweet, solemn, and of high conceit." The popular poem, "My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is," with additions, is credited in some collections to William Byrd (1543-1623), an eminent composer of sacred music, and who published in 1588 a volume of "Psalms, Sonnets," etc. Both Byrd and Joshua Sylvester seem to have laid claim to the best parts of Dyer's poem. A collection of Dyer's writings was printed as late as 1872.

MY MIND TO ME A KINGDOM IS.

My mind to me a kingdom is!

Such present joys therein I find,

That it excels all other bliss

That earth affords or grows by kind:

Though much I want which most would have, Yet still my mind forbids to crave.

No princely pomp, no wealthy store,
No force to win the victory,
No wily wit to salve a sore,

No shape to feed a loving eye;
To none of these I yield as thrall:
For why, my mind doth serve for all.

I see how plenty surfeits oft,

And hasty climbers soon do fall; I see that those which are aloft, Mishap doth threaten most of all; These get with toil, they keep with fear: Such cares my mind could never bear.

Content I live, this is my stay;

I seek no more than may suffice;

I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look, what I lack my mind supplies:
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.

Some have too much, yet still do crave:
I little have, and seek no more.
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store:
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.

I laugh not at another's loss;

I grudge not at another's gain;
No worldly waves my mind can toss;
My state at one doth still remain:

I fear no foe, I fawn no friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread my end.

Some weigh their pleasure by their lust, Their wisdom by their rage of will; Their treasure is their only trust,

A cloaked craft' their store of skill: But all the pleasure that I find Is to maintain a quiet mind.

My wealth is health and perfect ease;
My conscience clear my chief defense;

I neither seek by bribes to please,
Nor by deceit to breed offense:
Thus do I live, thus will I die;
Would all did so, as well as I!

1 A hidden craftiness.

George Gascoigne.

Gascoigne (circa 1535-1577), besides being notable as one of the earliest English dramatists, was one of the earliest writers of English blank verse. He was a native of Essex, became a lawyer, was disinherited by his father, took foreign military service in Holland under the Prince of Orange, and displayed great bravery in action. His best known work is "The Steel Glass," a satire in rather formal blank versc.

THE LULLABY.

Sing lullabies, as women do,

With which they charm their babes to rest; And lullaby can I sing too,

As womanly as can the best.
With lullaby they still the child,
And, if I be not much beguiled,
Full many wanton babes have I
Which must be stilled with lullaby.

First lullaby my youthful years,
It is now time to go to bed;
For crooked age and hoary hairs
Have wore the haven within mine head.
With lullaby, then, Youth, be still,
With lullaby content thy will;
Since courage quails and comes behind,
Go sleep, and so beguile thy mind.

Next lullaby my gazing Eyes,

Which wonted were to glance apace; For every glass may now suffice

To show the furrows in my face. With lullaby, then, wink awhile; With lullaby your looks beguile; Let no fair face or beauty bright Eutice you eft' with vain delight.

And lullaby my wanton Will,

Let Reason's rule now rein thy thought, Since all too late I find by skill

How dear I have thy fancies bought.
With lullaby now take thine ease,
With lullaby thy doubt appease;
For, trust in this, if thou be still,
My body shall obey thy will.

Thus lullaby, my Youth, mine Eyes,
My Will, my ware and all that was;
I can no more delays devise,

But welcome pain, let pleasure pass.

1 Again.

With lullaby now take your leave, With lullaby your dreams deceive: And when you rise with waking eye, Remember then this lullaby.

Edmund Spenser.

9

The circumstances which prevent our reading Chaucer with that facility which is indispensable to pleasure, arise from the time in which he lived. But a poet of far greater genius, not more than ten years older than Shakspeare, and who lived when English literature had passed into its modern form, deliberately chose, by adopting Chaucer's obsolete language, to place similar obstacles in the way of studying his works.

Edmund Spenser (circa 1553-1599), the son of a gentleman of good family, but of small estate, was a native of London. Educated at Cambridge, he began, almost from the moment of his leaving the university, to publish poems. His first book, "The Shepherd's Calendar," helped to popularize pastoral poetry in England. His sonnets are still among the best in the language. The patronage of Sidney and the friendship of the Earl of Leicester obtained for him the appointment of Secretary to Grey, Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Thus he was fated to spend many years of his life in Ireland, in various official posts, among a race of people with whom he had but few interests in common. Not the romantic beauty of Kilcolman Castle, in County Cork, with its three thousand surrounding acres of forfeited lands of the Earls of Desmond, granted to him by Queen Elizabeth, could compensate the poet for the loss of more familiar if less lovely English scenes; and a prevailing melancholy and discontent may be observed in most of his allusions to his own life-story.

In 1590 Sir Walter Raleigh persuaded him to accompany him to England, and presented him to Queen Elizabeth, wlro accepted the dedication of that marvellously beautiful poem, "The Faery Queene," of which the first three books were just finished. During a second visit to London, in 1595, the fourth, fifth, and sixth books were published, together with a re-issue of the preceding books. Of the remaining six books needed to complete the work, only one canto and a fragment of another canto exist.

Spenser had long been on ill terms with his Irish neighbors. In those days Ireland was not a residence propitious for a literary student in quest of tranquillity. In 1598 insurrections broke out, and as Spenser was Sheriff of the County of Cork for that year, he was rendered by his office a conspicuous mark for the enmity of the insurgents. They attacked and burned Kilcolman, and his infant child perished in the flames. These were evils too terrible to be borne by one of Spenser's sensitive temperament. He returned to England, and at the beginning of the next year died of a broken heart, and in extreme indigence.