a? ficality developing from Surrey combination with the work of Googe and Turbervile, we' get a very clear view of the first stage of English poetry in its transition from mediæval to modern times. Wyatt, Surrey, and Lord Vaux embody the chivalrous element in its quintessence, refined on the one hand by the manners of the Court, on the other by the literary elegance of Italy. Surrey's reforms fix the standard of poetical diction henceforth assumed as a starting-point by all metrical composers. All these three are men of action, who aim at translating the ideas of chivalry into language suitable to the society about them. But the themes they choose belonging, like the men themselves, to a decaying order of things, are soon abandoned to the imagination of mere scholars such as Grimald, Googe, and Turbervile, who view them through a learned medium and in an artificial light. The medieval tradition of the Troubadours is blended with the classical traditions of pastoral poetry or with the enigmas and conceits of the Greek Anthology, and the product of the union is a literary hybrid, in no way reflecting the social life of the period. Nature, however, works her own way; and the two Miscellanies succeeding Tottel's, which make their appearance after an interval of nineteen and twenty-one years respectively, show that new forces are secretly effecting a revolution in the English imagination. The Paradise of Dainty Devices, published in 1576, presents in almost every respect a strong contrast to Tottel's Miscellany. It was collected by Disle, a printer, and is made up for the most part of serious and reflective poems, deeply imbued with the spirit of the Reformation. Scarcely any of the contributors strike the note of Love or Honour; their inclination is rather to fall into the religious vein characterising the verses of Lord Vaux, which have been already cited, and which were first printed in this Miscellany. The collection opens with a translation of a poem by St. Bernard, and the nature of the contents in general may be inferred from the proverbial or hortatory titles of many of the poems, such as, "Our Pleasures are Vanities," "Fair Words make Fools fain," "Promise is Debt," "No Words but Deeds," "Think to Die." There are also verses appropriate to various holy days. The chief contributor to the Miscellany was Richard Edwards, an Oxford scholar of Corpus Christi College, appointed in 1561 Master of the Children of the Queen's Chapel. He seems to have been a favourite with Elizabeth, who, when she visited Oxford in 1566, was greatly delighted with a drama on the subject of Palamon and Arcite, which Edwards caused to be represented for her amusement in Christ Church Hall. In his own day he enjoyed a great reputation, scarcely explained by the merits of his surviving verse, most of which, composed in the fashionable Poulter's metre, has no marked character. The Paradise of Dainty Devices resembles Tottel's Miscellany in one important respect, namely its freedom from literary affectation. The Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions, on the contrary, as the title shows, is mainly inspired by technical motives. The growing taste for alliteration is manifest in every page. This collection was made by Thomas Proctor, a member of the Stationers' Company; and at the door of the Gorgeous Gallery the editor welcomed the reader with the following poetical address: See, Gallants, see the Gallery of Delights, With buildings brave, imbost with various hue, A willing mind each part together brought, And termed the whole A Gorgeous Gallery: Such fine inventions find for your delight, To do them praise so well a work to write.1 Throughout the volume the reader may observe a 1 Collier's Seven English Miscellanies, vol. iii. p. 3. constant attempt "to hunt the letter." We meet with such titles as "In praise of a beautiful and virtuous virgin whose name begins with M."; and such lines as or A mirror make of M, whose mould dame Nature in disdain, For Mercy is in M her breast, and modest is her life.2 This Miscellany contains the "Willow Song," afterwards made famous by its introduction in Othello. It opens thus : Willow, willow, willow, sing all of green willow, That on such a sudden you alter your mind? The special features of these two Miscellanies are reproduced in the work of the two most popular poets of the period who resembled each other in many important respects-Thomas Churchyard and George Gascoigne. Both were men of action as well as letters; Churchyard, in particular, having taken part in almost every campaign fought in France, the Low Countries, or Scotland, from the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII. till midway in the reign of Elizabeth; while Gascoigne chose for his poetical motto, Tam Marti quam Mercurio. Both sought for employment at Court, and were employed to devise shows and pageants for the Queen's amusement. Both record their martial experiences in metrical autobiographies. Both deal largely in the proverbial philosophy of the time as reflected in The Paradise of Dainty Devices, and are moved by the passion for alliteration which produced The Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions. Neither of them is a great poet, though Gascoigne is of a class far superior to Churchyard; each, however, in a characteristic way, represents the confused uncertain spirit of the age, and, as a soldier of fortune, forms a link between the 1 Collier's Seven English Miscellanies, iii. p. 71. 2 Ibid. p. 72. 3 Ibid. p. 105. chivalrous poets of Henry VIII's latter days and the learned courtiers who grouped themselves round the person of Elizabeth. Thomas Churchyard, the son of a farmer,' was born at Shrewsbury in 1520. Anthony Wood, of course, ascribes his education to Oxford; but, in fact, we know from himself that from 1537 to 1541 he served in the household of the Earl of Surrey, who taught him something of the art of poetry; and as from 1541 till 1570 he was engaged, almost without an interval, in warlike adventures, little time seems to have been left him for study. During these years he served under such captains as the Emperor, Lord Grey, Sir Henry Sidney, and the Prince of Orange, and has left an account of his adventures in his autobiographical and historical poems-A Storie translated out of French, The Siege of Leith, The Siege of Edinburgh Castle, A Tragical Discourse of the Unhappy Man's Life. He shared in the opinions of the religious Reformers, as Wyatt, and probably Surrey, had done before him, and when in England in 1550, during an interval of rest from campaigning, got himself into difficulties through. the poetical advocacy of his convictions. Piers Plow man's Vision had been recently republished-a fact which largely accounts for the revival of alliteration-and Churchyard imitated a striking passage from it in a short poem called Davy Dycar's Dream, which contained the following lines : When faith in friends bears fruit, and foolish fancies fade, When gropers after gain shall carp for common wealth, And wily workers shall disdain to fig and live by stealth; 1 A wife he had, a house he held, as farmers used to do.-Churchyard's Charge (Collier), p. 7. 2 Athena Oxonienses (1813), vol. i. p. 727. 3 As I have told this young man served his master twice two year, And learned therein such fruitful skill as long he held full dear, And used the pen as he was taught, and other gifts also Which made him hold the cap on head where some do crouch full low. Churchyard's Charge (Collier), p. 11. When riches wrongs no right, nor power prove put back, And might melts not with merchandise, nor lords shall sell no sheep; And every wight is well content to walk in his estate; When truth doth tread the streets, and liars lurk in den, And Rex doth reign and rule the roast, and weeds out wicked men ; It seems that these reflections gave offence, and Churchyard was brought before the Privy Council, but escaped punishment through the favour of the Protector Somerset. When he was not fighting Churchyard supported himself partly by Court patronage, partly by his literary skill. In 1563, as we have already seen, he contributed a Tragedy" to The Mirror for Magistrates; and he was employed to arrange pageants for the entertainment of the Queen at Bristol and Lichfield in 1574, and at Norwich in 1578. He outlived his poetical reputation, and by the Euphuistic poets at the close of the century was considered old-fashioned. Spenser refers to him in Colin Clout's Come Home Again, making a sly allusion to his poetical pertinacity in the character of "old Palæmon," who Sung so long until quite hoarse he grew. He I His poetical resources were, indeed, but slender. never advanced beyond the point he reached in Jane Shore, which, considering the date at which it was composed, is remarkable for the smoothness of its versification. have already given a specimen of this poem which may serve also to illustrate the style of "Thomas Wolsey," another tale contributed to an edition of the Mirror, issued in 1587.2 In later years Churchyard's invention carried him no farther than the idea of presenting his own experience as a moral example of the tragedies of Fortune. His Tragical Discourse of the Unhappy Man's Life opens just like a "Tragedy" in The Mirror for Magistrates: 1 Compare vol. i. pp. 215, 216. 2 See p. 120. |