given the first specimen in our language, and which are characteristical of his poetry." The "Induction to the Mirror for Magistrates," should be studied by the Poet and by the Painter; it is both in conception and execution, one of the most perfect poems in the English language. The Poet has introduced himself and his subject with the consummate art that almost equals the unrivalled Shakspear, and though it is high praise, it is perhaps no exaggeration, to assert, that this introduction will bear a comparison even with the opening scene in Hamlet. The approach of winter is first described by its effects, and every incident carefully wrought in that tends to heighten them. It is a winter's evening, and the poet has sought the fields,-night approaches "with misty mantle spread," the sun sets, the moon and stars appear. The Poet, from the scene around him, is led to meditate upon the mutability of human affairs. From generalising, he descends to particular instances. He continues to ramble and to meditate. The night grows dark, and he quickens his pace; when suddenly his steps are arrested by the appearance of an hideous phantom, whom he first describes by her attributes, and afterwards by the name of Sorrow. This shadowy being, knowing the subject of his thoughts, offers to conduct the Poet to the mansions of the dead, and introduce him to the illustrious unfortunate, that he may receive from them the particulars of their several fates. They proceed, and after passing the mouth of Avernus, encounter the grisly residents" within the porch and jaws of hell!" These, consisting of Remorse of Conscience, Dread, Revenge, Misery, Care, Sleep, Old-age, Malady,

Famine, and War, are described in succession. They pass the lake, and are introduced into the "large great kingdoms, and the dreadful reign of Pluto," where Sorrow pauses, and points out to her companion, "Princes of renown that whilom sat at top of fortune's wheel, now laid full low,"-she directs him to attend to their complaints, and to "recount the same to Kesar, King, and Peer." The whole is a grand and solemn dream.

The "Legend of Buckingham" is not equal to the Induction, but it, notwithstanding, contains some excellent passages. It was badly selected, and appears to have been bastily composed.

The "Mirror for Magistrates," for which these pieces of Sackville's were written, was frequently reprinted within the first half century of its appearance, but no modern edition, or selection from it, has been published since. Sackville's share of it was first admitted into a collection of English poetry, by Dr. Anderson, in 1793. A complete collection of the works of this Poet including his Tragedy of Gorboduc, and whatever else may result from a careful search, is surely a desideratum in our literature.

A Winter's Evening, and personification of Sorrow, from the Induction to the Mirror for Magistrates. The wrathful winter 'proaching on apace,

With blustering blasts hath all y-bared* the treen, And old Saturnus with his frosty face,

With chilling cold hath pierced the tender green: The mantles rent wherein enwrapped been The gladsome groves, that now lay overthrown, Their tapets† torn, and every bloom down blown.

The soil that erst so seemly was to seen,

Was all despoiled of its beauty's hue:

And soot fresh flowers, wherewith the summer's queen
Had clad the earth, now Boreas' blasts down blew :
And small fowls flocking, in their song did rue
The winter's wrath, wherewith each thing defaced
In woeful wise, bewailed the summer past.

Hawthorn had lost his motley livery,

The naked twigs were shivering all for cold,
And dropping down their tears abundantly;
Each thing, methought, with weeping eye me told
The cruel season, bidding me withold

Myself within, for I was gotten out
Into the fields, whereas I walked about.

When lo, the night with misty mantle spread,
'Gan dark the day, and dim the azure skies.

*"The prefix y does not, so far as can now be discovered, alter the sense; and therefore in poetry, seeins to serve the purpose merely of supplying the writer at pleasure, with an additional syllable." GODWIN. ♦ Tapestries.

And Phaeton now near reaching to his race,

With glistering beams gold-streaming where they bent,

Was prest to enter in his resting place.

Erithius, that in the car first went,

Had even now attained his journey's stent,
And fast declining hid away his head,
While Titan couched him in his purple bed.

And pale Cinthèa, with her borrowed light,
Beginning to supply her brother's place,
Was past the noon-stead six degrees in sight;
When sparkling stars amid the heaven's face,
With twink'ling light shone on the earth apace:
That while they brought about the nightis chair,*
The dark had dimmed the day, ere I was 'ware.

And sorrowing I, to see the summer flowers,

The lively green, the lusty leas forlorn,
The sturdy trees so shattered with the showers,
The fields so fade, that flourished so beforne;
It taught me well, all earthly things be born
To die the death, for nought long time may last;
The summer's beauty yields to winter's blast.

Then looking upwards to the heaven's leames, t
With night-stars thick y-powdered every where,
Which erst so glistened with the golden streams,
That cheerful Phoebus spread down from his sphere;
Beholding dark oppressing day so near:

The sudden sight reduced to my mind,
The sundry changes that on earth we find.

"The nightis chair the stars about do bring."-SURREY.

+ Lights.

That, musing on this worldly wealth in thought,Which comes and goes, more faster than we see The flickering flame that with the fire is wrought,My busy mind presented unto me,

Such fall of Peers as in this realm had be:
That oft I wished some would their woes descrive,*
To warn the rest, whom fortune left alive.

And strait,-forth-stalking with redoubled pace,-
For that I saw the night drew on so fast,
In black all clad,-there fell before my face,
A piteous wight, whom woe had all forwaste:+
Forth from her eyes the crystal tears out brast, ‡
And sighing sore, her hands she wrung and fold,
Tearing her hair, that ruth was to behold.

Her body small forwithered and forspent,

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

Her eyes swollen with flowing streams afloat,
Were, with her looks, thrown up full pitiously;
Her forceless hands together oft she smote,
With doleful shrieks that echoed to the sky;
Whose plaint such sighs did strait accompany,
That, in my doom, was never man did see
A wight but half so woe-begone as she.

Describe. The prefix " for," in the older writers, was used emphatically to render the signification more intense.+ Participle of Brest, to burst. Withered, wrinkled,