Well, thus did I, for want of better wit,
Because my parents naughtly brought me up:
For gentlemen (they said) was nought so fit
As to attaste by bold attempts the cup
Of conquest's wine, whereof I thought to sup:
And therefore bent myself to rob and rive
And whom I could of lands and goods deprive.

Henry the Fourth did then usurpe the crown,
Despoil'd the King, with Mortimer the heir:
For which his subjects sought to put him down,
And I, while Fortune offered me so fair,
Did what I might his honour to appair: +

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40

And him enforced my daughter to espouse,
And so perforce I held him still, and sithen
In Wigmore land through battle rigorous,
I caught the right heir of the crowned house,
The Earl of March, Sir Edmund Mortimer,
And in a dungeon kept him prisoner.

Then all the Marches 'longing unto Wales,
By Severn west I did invade and burn:
Destroyed the towns in mountains and in vales,
And rich in spoils did homeward safe return:
Was none so bold durst once against me spurn.
Thus prosperously doth Fortune forward call
Those whom she minds to give the sorest fall.

When fame had brought these tidings to the King
(Although the Scots then vexéd him right sore)
A mighty army 'gainst me he did bring:
Whereof the French King being warn'd afore,
Who mortal hate against King Henry bore,

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To grieve our foe he quickly to me sent
Twelve thousand Frenchmen, unto the fight all bent.

50

A part of them led by the Earl of March,
Lord James of Burbon, a renowned Knight,
Withheld by winds, to Wales-ward forth to march,
Took land at Plymouth privily on night:
And when he had done all he durst or might,

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After that many of his men were slain, He stole to ship and sailéd home again.

Twelve thousand moe in Milford did arrive,
And came to me then lying at Denbigh :
With armed Welchmen thousands double five,
With whom we went to Worcester well nigh,
And there encampt us on a mount on high,
T'abide the King, who shortly after came,
And pitchéd down his field, hard by the same.

There eight days long our hosts lay face to face,
And neither other's power durst assail :
But they so stopt the passages the space,
That vitailes could not come to our avail,
Wherethrough constrain'd, our hearts began to fail.
So that the Frenchmen shrank away by night,
And I with mine to the mountains took our flight.
The King pursued greatly to his cost,
From hills to woods, from woods to valleys plain :
And by the way his men and stuff he lost.
And when he saw he gainéd nought but pain,
He blew retreat and gat him home again:
Then with my power I boldly came abroad,
Taken in my country for a very god.

Immediately there fell a jolly jars

Betweene the King and Percy's worthy bloods,

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5 A jolly jar. This is an early example of what now seems to be common misuse of the word derived from the French "joh.” Izzcent fascination of a joyous youth was first associated with it, the sense in which Milton uses the word in "L'Allegro,”* jest sal youthful jollity." The idea would easily be transferred to joyeu mirth, and as in much mirth there is loudness and confusa, E might get to such a combination of ideas as jolly discord. But a probably, enough to say that when jolly, like good, came to be can simply for giving force to a word, "a jolly jar" would be no gre contradiction of terms than "a good thrashing." Indeed, the "m

intensives may be joined in such a phrase as "a jolly good thrashing." Still, it is just possible to question whether the word "jolly" in the text be really derived from "joli." There was an old word, "joll," "joul," or "jowl," meaning to strike against anything, to clash violently. It occurs in the graveyard scene in "Hamlet: "-"That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave 'jowles' it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jawbone that did the first murder! Again, in "As You Like It." " "They may joll horns together like any deer in the herd." In Palsgrave's " Dictionary "there is "jolle," meaning to beat; and Mr. Halliwell, in his "Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words," quotes, in illustration, the line, Ther they jollede Jewes thorow." It is conceivable that such a word may point to an origin for the phrase "jolly jar" that would make the adjective directly fit.

1 Mouldwarp, mole, so called from its throwing up the earth. First English "molde," earth, and "weorpan" (German "werfen"), to throw.

Which God doth let the devilish sort devise, To trouble such as are not godly wise.

And that appeared by us three beasts indeed,
Through false persuasion highly borne in hand
That in our feat we could not choose but speed,
To kill the King and to enjoy his land:
For which exploit we bound ourselves in band
To stand contented each man with his part,
So folly did assure our foolish heart.

But such, they say, as fish before the net
Shall seldom surfeit of the prey they take:

Of things to come the haps be so unset
That none but fools may warrant of them make:
The full assur'd success doth oft forsake,

For Fortune findeth none so fit to flout

As careless sots, which cast no kind of doubt.

How say'st thou, Henry Hotspur, doe I lie?
For thou right manly gav'st the King a field,
And there wast slain because thou wouldst not fly:
Thine uncle Thomas Percy, forced to yield,
Did cast his head (a wonder seen but seeld)

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From Shrewsbury town to the top of London Bridge.
Lo thus fond hope did both their lives abridge.
When Henry this great victory had won,
Destroyed the Percies, put their power to flight,
He did appoint Prince Henry his eldest son,
With all his power to meet me if he might:
But I, discomfit through my partner's fight,
Had not the heart to meet him face to face,
But fled away, and he pursued the chase.

Now, Baldwin, mark, for I, call'd Prince of Wales,
And made believe I should be he indeed,
Was made to fly among the hills and dales,
Where all my men forsook me at my need;
Who trusteth loiterers seeld hath lucky speed :
And when the Captain's courage doth him fail,
His soldiers' hearts a little thing may quail.

And so Prince Henry chaséd me, that lo
I found no place wherein I might abide :
For as the dogs pursue the silly doe,
The brache behind, the hounds on every side,
So traced they me among the mountains wide: 4
Whereby I found I was the heartles hare,
And not the beast the prophet did declare.

And at the last: like as the little roach
Must else be eat or leap upon the shore
When as the hungry pikerel doth approach,
And there find death which it escaped before:
So double death assaulted me so sore
That either I must unto mine enemy yield,
Or starve for hunger in the barren field.

Here shame and pain awhile were at a strife,
Pain bade me yield, shame bade me rather fast:
The one bade spare, the other bade spend my life,
But shame (shame have it) overcame at last.
Then hunger gnew, that doth the stone wall brast,

2 Sots, fools. See Note 1, page 17.

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3 Brache, a dog for tracking game. French "braquer," to direct, bend; "braconnier," a poacher.

* Glendower's last refuge was among the mountains of Snowdon.

And made me eat both gravel, dirt, and mud,
And last of all, my dung, my flesh, and blood.

This was mine end, too horrible to hear,
Yet good enough for life that was so ill,
Whereby, O Baldwin, warn all men to bear
Their youth such love, to bring them up in skill.
Bid Princes fly false prophet's lying bill,
And not presume to climb above their states:
For they be faults that foil men, not their fates.
TH. PHAER.

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The first series ended with a nobly written poem on Edward IV., sleeping in dust after the pomps and pains of life, which had been written by John Skelton, when he was a young man of about five-andtwenty, soon after King Edward's death in 1483. It was so good and so apt to the purpose of his book, that Baldwin could not easily know it and leave it unused. Four years later, in 1563, there was a new edition of "The Mirror for Magistrates," with eight new tragedies; and it is in this that Sackville's "Induction" and his tragedy of "Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham," first appeared.

The next step towards providing in "The Mirror' a series of moralised tragedies drawn from the whole sequence of English history was made by John Higgins, a clergyman and schoolmaster at Winsham, in Somersetshire. John Higgins published, in 1576, a series of tragedies, rhymed and moralised by himself, beginning with Albanact (who was son of Brut, the mythical Trojan founder of Britain, and first king of Albany or Scotland), and telling how he was slain by King Humber in the year before Christ 1085. From this date Higgins carried his sequence down to the time of Roman Britain. It was called "The First Part of the Mirror for Magistrates," and opened by John Higgins, its author, with the following

INDUCTION.

When Summer sweet with all her pleasures past,
And leaves began to leave the shady tree,

The winter cold increased on full fast,
And time of year to sadnes movéd me:
For moisty blasts not half so mirthful be
As sweet Aurora brings in spring-time fair,
Our joys they dim, as winter damps the air.
The nights began to grow to length apace,
Sir Phoebus to th' Antarctique gan to fare:
From Libra's lance to the Crab he took his race
Beneath the line, to lend of light a share.
For then with us the days more darkish are,

10

2 Behight, promise. First English "behátan" or "beha'tan," 30 promise, vow.

44

That Momus' spite with more than Argus' eyes, Can never watch to keep it from the wise.

1 Clit, dirty, sticky with mud, or, if a verb, daubed, soiled, or darkened. In literature, the word "clit" is known only in this passage, and Nares gave it up. But in Scottish dialect "clytrie" is filth; to "cloiter" is to be engaged in dirty work, and Jamieson defines cloitery as "work which is not only wet and nasty, but slimy." In the very valuable series of "Original and Reprinted Glossaries," edited by the Rev. W. W. Skeat for the English Dialect Society, Captain Harland gives, among Swaledale words, "clart" (sounded klaat), to daub, and "clarty" (sounded klaati), dirty, clammy. In the same series, the "Reprinted Thanet Glossary" of the Rev. J. Lewis (1736) gives the noun "clite" as meaning a clay mire;" and the "Glossary' "of the Rev. John Hutton's "Tour to the Caves in the West Riding of Yorkshire" (1781), gives the verb "clate," to daub. Probably the root is that of clay, First English "cla'g," from "clifian," German "kleben," to cleave or stick. It may be serviceable to some readers if in this place I call attention to the substantial help given by the English Dialect Society to those who study words. It was founded in 1873. It establishes a common centre for the collection of material towards a complete record of the words used in Provincial English, and of the limits of the use of each. It publishes (subject to proper revision) MS. collections of Provincial Words made by private observers, reprints glossaries not generally accessible, and is issuing a Bibliographical List of the works that have been published, or are known to exist in MS., illustrative of the various dialects of English. The work of the society is under Mr. Skeat's direction, and the publications make, in quantity and quality, a liberal return for an annual half-guinea. The treasurer of the English Dialect Society is the Rev. J. W. Cartmell, Christ's College, Cambridge.

And yet I could not so forsake the view,

Nor presence, ere their minds I likewise knew.

This prince was King Albanact. Higgins's First Part ended in Roman British times, and as the series before issued by Baldwin and Ferrers began in the latter part of the fourteenth century, there was a gap between them which was partly filled up in 1578 by Thomas Blenerhasset, with a few tragedies drawn from our history between the times of the Romans in Britain and the Norman Conquest. several parts were afterwards joined and harmonised; Drayton's "Life and Death of Thomas Cromwell was included in it, and the book was completed in the next reign, in 1610, with "A Winter Night's Vision being an addition of such Princes especially famous, who were exempted in the former Historie," by Richard Niccols, of Magdalene Hall, Oxford.

:

The

When the Elizabethan dramatists arose, this "Mirror for Magistrates," showing high truths of life in homely phrase with many a proverb intermixed, became one of the sources wherefrom tragic stories could be drawn. These dramatists, also, soon made blank verse their own. The measure was, as we have seen, first used among us in Henry VIII.'s reign, by the Earl of Surrey, at a time when it was being tried in Italy, and it was adopted in two short poems by Grimald; but it took no root in our literature, outside the drama, before Milton wrote "Paradise Lost." In Queen Elizabeth's time it was established among the dramatists by Marlowe, and perfected by Shakespeare. But off the stage there was in her reign no poem of any length written in blank verse except Gascoigne's "Steel Glass" in 1576, and, fourteen years later, a topographical poem on the River Lea.

George Gascoigne was a scholar and a soldier, as his portrait indicates, and his frequent use of a motto in which Mars and Mercury were blended: "As well by Mars as by Mercury" (Tam Marti quam Mercurio). After training at Cambridge and Gray's Inn, he translated a comedy from Ariosto and a tragedy from Euripides, published original poems, and fought as a captain under William of Orange against tyranny of Spain in the Netherlands. He was about forty years old when he published his satire in blank verse, designed, as its title expressed, to hold up an honest old-fashioned Mirror-true as

GEORGE GASCOIGNE.

From the Edition of his "Steele Glas," published in 1576.

steel to the faults and vices of his countrymen. His patron was Lord Grey of Wilton, a sturdy Elizabethan Puritan, whom young Edmund Spenser, a few years later, served as secretary in Ireland; and to this nobleman George Gascoigne dedicated

THE STEEL GLASS.1

The Nightingale, whose happy noble heart,
No dole can daunt, nor fearful force affright;
Whose cheerful voice doth comfort saddest wights,
When she herself hath little cause to sing;
Whom lovers love because she plains their griefs,
She wrays their woes and yet relieves their pain;
Whom worthy minds always esteeméd much,
And gravest years have not disdained her notes:
(Only that king, proud Tereus by his name,

With murdering knife did carve her pleasant tongue, 10

1 The Steel Glass. Polished metal was the first form of artificial mirror. Moses "made the laver of brass, and the foot of it of brass, of the looking-glasses of the women" (Exodus xxxviii. 8). Silver mirrors were used by the Roman ladies, often large enough to reflect the whole figure; they used, also, mirrors of a white metal, formed of copper and tin, that needed sponge and powdered pumice-stone to keep them bright. Not only the costliness of silver caused an artificial white metal to be used, although that metal is the most powerful reflector; silver absorbs, it is said, only nine per cent. of the incident light, while speculum metal (an alloy of two parts copper to one of tin) absorbs thirty-seven per cent., but the silver is more liable to tarnish. Reflecting surfaces were made also of polished stone, and of glass coloured to destroy its transparency and give it a reflecting power like that of highly-polished marble, akin to which was "the beryl glass with foils of lovely brown" that Gascoigne praises. The use of burnished steel as a reflector was too obvious to be long overlooked. Our first mirror was usually a round hand-mirror, kept in a case to preserve it from rust. Gascoigne speaks, in his "Epilogue," of having shut his glass too hastily. Exposed mirrors on walls and tables were not common until they ceased to be of metal. The first mention of the use of transparent glass, made to reflect by covering its back with lead, is in the "Perspectiva" of John Peckham, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1279 to 1292. But these early glass mirrors were little used. Perhaps they were inferior to those of metal, being made at first by pouring molten lead over the glass plate while yet hot from the furnace, and afterwards by the use of an amalgam of tin. It was not until the