raries to have been either illusive or exaggerated. Traits of character will distinguish great men, independently of their pens or their swords. The contemporaries of Sydney knew the man: and foreigners, no less than his own countrymen, seem to have felt, from his personal influence and conversation, an homage for him, that could only be paid to a commanding intellect guiding the principles of a noble heart. The variety of his ambition, perhaps, unfavourably divided the force of his genius: feeling that he could take different paths to reputation, he did not confine himself to one, but was successively occupied in the punctilious duties of a courtier, the studies and pursuits of a scholar and traveller, and in the life of a soldier, of which the chivalrous accomplishments could not be learnt without diligence and fatigue. All his excellence in those pursuits, and all the celebrity that would have placed him among the competitors for a crown, was gained in a life of thirty-two years. His sagacity and independence are recorded in the advice which he gave to his own sovereign. In the quarrel with Lord Oxford he opposed the rights of an English commoner to the prejudices of aristocracy and of royalty itself. At home he was the patron of literature. All England wore mourning for his death. Perhaps the well known anecdote of his generosity to the dying soldier speaks more powerfully to the * Vide the biographical notice of Lord Oxford. heart than the whole volumes of elegies in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, that were published at his death by the universities. Mr. Ellis has exhausted the best specimens of his poetry. I have only offered a few short ones. TO SLEEP. FROM THE ARCADIA. COME sleep, O sleep, the certain knot of peace, With shield of proof shield me from out the prease 1 I will good tribute pay if thou do so. Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed, 1 Press, or crowd. SONNETS. In martial sports I had my cunning tried, When Cupid having me his slave descried In Mars's livery, prancing in the press, "What now, Sir Fool?" said he, "I would no less; O HAPPY Thames, that didst my Stella bear, Have made, but forc'd by Nature still to fly, ROBERT GREENE Was born at Norwich about 1560, was educated at Cambridge, travelled in Spain and Italy, and on his return held, for about a year, the vicarage of Tollesbury, in Essex. The rest of his life seems to have been spent in London, with no other support than his pen, and in the society of men of more wit than worldly prudence. He is said to have died about 1592, from a surfeit occasioned by pickled herrings and Rhenish wine. Greene has acknowledged, with great contrition, some of the follies of his life; but the charge of profligacy which has been so mercilessly laid on his memory, must be taken with great abatement, as it was chiefly dictated by his bitterest enemy, Gabriel Harvey, who is said to have trampled on his dead body when laid in the grave. The story, it may be hoped, for the credit of human nature, is untrue; but it shews to what a pitch the malignity of Harvey was supposed to be capable of being excited. Greene is accused of having deserted an amiable wife; but his traducers rather inconsistently re proach him also with the necessity of writing for her maintenance. A list of his writings, amounting to forty-five separate productions, is given in the Censura Literaria, including five plays, several amatory romances, and other pamphlets, of quaint titles and rambling contents. The writer of that article has vindicated the personal memory of Greene with proper feeling, but he seems to overrate the importance that could In have ever been attached to him as a writer. proof of the once great popularity of Greene's writings, a passage is quoted from Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, where it is said that Saviolina uses as choice figures as any in the Arcadia, and Carlo subjoins, or in Greene's works, where she may steal with more security.' This allusion to the facility of stealing without detection from an author, surely argues the reverse of his being popular and well known. Greene's style is in truth most whimsical and grotesque. He lived before there was a good model of familiar prose; and his wit, like a stream that is too weak to force a channel for itself, is lost in rhapsody and diffuseness. JEALOUSY. FROM TULLY'S LOVE. WHEN gods had framed the sweets of Woman's face, |