for Magistrates consists of a long allegorical "Induction," or Introduction, and the "Complaint" of the shade of that Duke of Buckingham of whom Shakespeare tells us in Richard the Third. The "Induction" begins with a vivid picture of a winter day, and as evening draws on the poet is confronted with the effigy of "Sorrow," who is to conduct him through the gloomy land of Departed Spirits.

"SORROW "THE POET'S CONDUCTOR.

Her body small, forwithered and forspent,

As is the stalk with summer's drought opprest;
Her wealked face with woeful tears besprent,
Her color pale, and, as it seemed her best,
In woe and plaint reposèd was her rest;
And as the stone that drops of water wears,
So dented were her cheeks with fall of tears.

I stood aghast, beholding all her plight,

'Tween dread and dolor so distrained in heart, That, while my knees upstarted with the sight, The tears outstreamed for sorrow of her smart. But when I saw no end that could apart The deadly dole which she so sore did make, With doleful voice then thus to her I spake :

"Unwrap thy woes, whatever wight thou be!

And stint betime to spill thyself with plaint:
Tell what thou art, and whence, for well I see
Thou canst not dure, with sorrow thus attaint."
And with that word of Sorrow, all forfaint,
She looked up, and, prostrate as she lay,
With piteous sound, lo! thus she 'gan to say:

"Alas, I, wretch, whom thou seest distrained,
With wasting woes that never shall aslake,
Sorrow I am; in endless torments pained
Among the Furies in the infernal lake;
Where Pluto, God of Hell, so grisly blake,

Doth hold his throne, and Lethe's deadly taste Doth reave remembrance of each thing forepast; "Whence come I am, the dreary destiny

And luckless lot for to bemoan of those Whom fortune in this maze of misery

Of wretched chance most woeful mirrors chose; That when thou seest how lightly they did lose Their pomp, their power, and that they thought most sure,

Thou may'st soon deem no earthly joy may dure."

Conducted to the under-world, the poet meets the embodied shapes of all human passions, frailties, infirmities, and crimes-Remorse, Dread, Revenge, Avarice, Care, Sleep, Old Age, Disease, Famine, Death, War, and many another. After these allegorical apparitions the poet meets the ghost of the Duke of Buckingham-the only human spectre described by Sackville himself, all the others depicted in the Mirror for Magistrates being by inferior hands.

THE SPECTRE OF REMORSE.

And first, within the porch and jaws of Hell,
Sat deep Remorse of Conscience, all besprent
With tears; and to herself oft would she tell
Her wretchedness, and, cursing, never stent
To sob and sigh, but ever thus lament
With thoughtful care; as she that, all in vain,
Would wear and waste continually in pain.

Her eyes unsteadfast, rolling here and there,
Whirled on each place as place that vengeance
brought;

So was her mind continually in fear,

Tost and tormented with the tedious thought
Of those detested crimes which she had wrought;
With dreadful cheer, and looks thrown to the sky,
Wishing for death, and yet she could not die.

VOL. XX.-2

THE SPECTRE OF SLEEP.

Near by lay heavy Sleep, the cousin of Death,
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,
A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath;
Small keep took he whom Fortune frownèd on
Or whom she lifted up into the throne

Of high renown; but, as a living death,
So dead alive, of life he drew the breath.
The body's rest, the quiet of the heart,

The travel's ease, the still night's fear was he, And of our life on earth the better part;

Reaver of sight, and yet in whom we see Things oft that tyde, and oft that never be; Without respect, esteeming equally

King Croesus's pomp and Irus's poverty.

THE SPECTRE OF WAR.

Lastly stood War, in glittering arms yclad,
With visage grim, stern look, and blackly hued;
In his right hand a naked sword he had,

That to the hilts was all with blood imbrued;
And in his left (that kings and kingdoms rued)
Famine and fire he held, and therewithal
He razed towns, and threw down towers and all.

Cities he sacked, and realms (that whilom flowered
In honor, glory, and rule above the rest)
He overwhelmed, and all their fame devoured,

Consumed, destroyed, wasted, and never ceased, Till he their wealth, their name, and all oppressed His face forehewed with wounds; and by his side There hung his targe, with gashes deep and wide.

THE SPECTRE OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

Then first came Henry, Duke of Buckingham,

His cloak of black all piled, and quite forworn, Wringing his hands, and Fortune oft doth blame, Which of a duke had made him now her scorn; With ghastly looks, as one in manner lorn,

Oft spread his arms, stretched hands he joins as fast,
With rueful cheer, and vapored eyes upcast.

His cloak he rent, his manly breast he beat,
His hair all torn, about the place it lay.
My heart so molt to see his grief so great,

As feelingly, methought, it dropped away.
His eyes they whirled about withouten stay;
With stormy sighs the place did so complain,
As if his heart at each had burst in twain.

Thrice he began to tell his doleful tale,

And thrice the sighs did swallow up his voice;
At each of which he shriekèd so withal,

As though the heavens rived with the noise;
Till the last, recovering his voice,

Suppressing the tears that all his breast berained,
On cruel Fortune weeping thus he plained.

SADI (SHEIKH MUSLIHU'D-DIN), a Persian poet, born at Shiraz about 1184; died there at a great age. According to some accounts, he reached the age of nearly one hundred and twenty years; others place his death at about eighty years. He was trained at Bagdad; became a dervish, made fifteen pilgrimages to Mecca, travelled as far as India, and mastered not only several Oriental languages, but also Latin. He fought against the Crusaders in Syria, by whom he was made prisoner. He was ransomed by a merchant of Aleppo, who gave him his daughter in marriage. The marriage proved an uncongenial one, and Sadi returned to Shiraz, where he retired to a hermitage, and composed his poems.

The works of Sadi comprise the Gulistan or "Rose-Garden," the Bostan or "Fruit-Garden," the Pend Namch or "Book of Counsels," and numerous detached odes and elegies. The Gulistan consists mainly of some scores of short stories, in which the prose narrative is interspersed with poetry, sometimes a few lines, sometimes several stanzas. It is to this day the popular book of the Persians-their Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe. Within the present generation there have been several translations of the Gulistan into English, the best of which is that of Mr. Edward B.