Were her tresses angel gold, To convert them to a braid; Were her band as rich a prize No; she must be perfect snow, Farewell her, whate'er she be! JOSHUA SYLVESTER, WHO in his day obtained the epithet of the silvertongued, was a merchant adventurer, and died abroad at Middleburg, in 1618. He was a candidate, in the year 1597, for the office of secretary to a trading company at Stade; on which occasion the Earl of Essex seems to have taken a friendly interest in his fortunes. Though esteemed by the court of England (on one occasion he signs himself the pensioner of Prince Henry), he is said to have been driven from home by the enmity which his satires excited. This seems very extraordinary, as there is nothing in his vague and dull declamations against vice, that needed to have ruffled the most thinskinned enemies-so that his travels were probably made more from the hope of gain than the fear of persecution. He was an eminent linguist, and writes his dedications in several languages, but in his own he often fathoms the bathos, and brings up such lines as these to king James. So much, O king, thy sacred worth presume I on, James, the just heir of England's lawful union. His works are chiefly translations, including that of the Divine Weeks and Works of Du Bartas. His claim to the poem of the Soul's Errand, as has been already mentioned, is to be entirely set aside. STANZAS FROM" ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS." RELIGION, O thou life of life, How worldlings, that prophane thee rife, Under thy sacred name, all over, The proud their pride, the false their fraud, The thief his theft, her filth the bawd, The impudent their impudence. Ambition under thee aspires, And Avarice under thee desires; Wrath under thee outrageous grows, Religion, erst so venerable, What art thou now but made a fable, Sacred Religion, where art thou? Not in the church with Simony, SAMUEL DANIEL. SAMUEL DANIEL was the son of a music-master, and was born at Taunton, in Somersetshire. He was patronized and probably maintained at Oxford, by the noble family of Pembroke. At the age of twenty-three he translated Paulus Jovius's Discourse of Rare Inventions. He was afterwards tutor to the accomplished and spirited Lady Anne Clifford, daughter to the Earl of Cumberland, who raised a monument to his memory, on which she recorded that she had been his pupil. At the death of Spenser he furnished, as a voluntary laureat, several masks and pageants for the court, but retired, with apparent mortification, before the ascendant favour of Jonson1. 1 The latest editor of Jonson affirms the whole conduct of that great poet towards Daniel to have been perfectly honourable. Some small exception to this must be made, when we turn to the While composing his dramas he lived in Old, street, St. Luke's, which was at that time thought retirement from London; but at times he frequented the city, and had the honour of ranking Shakspeare and Selden among his friends. In his old age he turned husbandman, and closed his days at a farm in Somersetshire. RICHARD THE SECOND, THE MORNING BEFORE HIS MURDER IN POMFRET CASTLE. DANIEL'S CIVIL WARS, ST. 62, 69. WHETHER the soul receives intelligence, However, so it is, the now sad king, derision of Daniel's verses, which is pointed out by the editor himself, in Cynthia's Revels. This was unworthy of Jonson, as the verses of Daniel at which he sneers are not contemptible, and as Daniel was confessedly an amiable man, who died "beloved, honoured, and lamented."--E. |