is kept up by a very artful admixture of styles and subjects. Legends, fancy pieces such as that of the Marriage of Thame and Isis, with its unmatched floral description, accounts of rural sports and the like, ingeniously diversify the merely topographical narrative. Had the Polyolbion been its author's only work, Goldsmith's sneer would still have been most undeserved. But the variety of Drayton's performance is almost as remarkable as its bulk. This variety it is impossible to represent fully either in this notice or in the extracts which accompany it. But to the foregoing remarks it may be added that Drayton was master of a very strong and at the same time musical decasyllabic line. His practice in Alexandrines and in complicated stanzas seems to have by no means injured his command of the ordinary heroic couplet. His series of Sonnets to Idea is perhaps his least successful work if we compare him with other men, just as The Barons' Wars is his worst performance if his own work only be considered. The Nymphidia has received higher praise than any other of his poems, and its fantastic conception and graceful tripping metre deserve this praise well enough. The curious poems of The Owl and The Man in the Moon show, if they show nothing else, his peculiar faculty of raising almost any subject to a certain poetical dignity by dint of skilful treatment. Lastly, his prose Prefaces deserve attention here, because many of them display the secret of his workmanlike skill. It is evident from them that Drayton was as far as possible from holding the false and foolish improvisation-theory of poetry, and they testify to a most careful study of his predecessors and contemporaries, and to deliberate practice in the use of the poet's tools of language and metre. G. SAINTSBURY. QUEEN MARGARET TO WILLIAM DE LA POOL, What news (sweet Pool) look'st thou my lines should tell Bidding the deaths-man to prepare the grave? My breast, which once was mirth's imperial throne, Like that cold region, from the world remote, On whose breem seas the icy mountains float; Where those poor creatures, banished from the light, Do live impris'ned in continual night. No object greets my soul's internal eyes But divinations of sad tragedies; And care takes up her solitary inn Where youth and joy their court did once begin. As in September, when our year resigns The glorious sun to the cold wat❜ry signs Which through the clouds looks on the earth in scorn; The little bird yet to salute the morn Upon the naked branches sets her foot, And there a silly chirriping doth keep As though she fain would sing, yet fain would weep, Or sad for Winter, too fast coming on: In this strange plight I mourn for thy depart, M m To whom shall I my secret griefs impart? Of so divine and rich a temper wrought, As Heav'n for thee perfection's depth had sought. TO THE CAMBRO-BRITONS AND THEIR HARP, · HIS BALLAD OF AGINCOURT. Fair stood the wind for France, Longer will tarry; But putting to the main, At Caux, the mouth of Seine, And taking many a fort, With those that stopp'd his way, With all his power. Which in his height of pride, His ransom to provide To the king sending. Which he neglects the while, And turning to his men, Yet have we well begun, By fame been raised. And for myself (quoth he), Victor I will remain, Or on this earth lie slain, Never shall she sustain Loss to redeem me. Poitiers and Cressy tell, When most their pride did swell, Under our swords they fell, No less our skill is, Than when our grandsire-great, By many a warlike feat Lopp'd the French lilies. The Duke of York so dread With the main, Henry sped, Exeter had the rear, A braver man not there, They now to fight are gone, To hear, was wonder; Well it thine age became, The English archery Stuck the French horses. With Spanish yew so strong, Stuck close together. When down their bows they threw, And forth their bilbos drew, And on the French they flew, Not one was tardy; Arms were from shoulders sent, Scalps to the teeth were rent, Down the French peasants went, Our men were hardy. |