thor pours out his wordy description of the different symptoms, by which it is distinguished.

"See-see! hee's all on a froth and fume: looke on him well, and like him worse. His head startles, haires bristle, browes wrinkle, eyes sparkle, teeth chatter, tongue stammers, lips quaver, joynts tremble, hands clap, fingers twitter, feet wander; his bloud rises, stomacke fills, veines swell; his heart burnes, breast boyles, breath shortens, colour goes and comes-now red as fire-now pale as clout,-now rashly hot and flaming-now fearefully wanne and chill. What uncouth alterations of mind? Did you ever see suche franticke anticke gestures of body? in this glasse (I warne you all) behold, and abhorre, yourselves. Did he here also see himselfe, he would scarce know himselfe; yet scarce that, ere loath himselfe. The man quite marres a good face of his owne. How uncomely and loathsome is his mind. now (could you marke it) that works these distempers, and distractions in his body? he seemes, me thinkes, as ugly as outragious; and his features not more unseemely than his feats. Marke him now; now he stands, now starts, now stampes, now stares, now shrugges, now scratches, now snuffes, now grinnes, now gapes, now wrings: such apish tricks, such bedlam prancks, as you would judge him, in his fitt, either a foole or madman; and who will thinke you other, in his case? Anger is a short madnesse. Ah, peevish passion, that thus distempers and distracts us! of all our hard and adverse affections, the most harsh and churlish: the rest have some easement; this only will no mitigation feare hath some boldnesse, sorrow some joy, despayre some hope; this fury only hath no mercy: they move us, but this inrages; they disturbe, but this confounds our quiet.

"Yet more tricks with this angry ape; come aloft, Jack. Sirrah, how doe your fellow brutes startle and bestirre them in a moved mood? See the sport; he now rampes like a lion, bristles like a boare, foames like a beare, kicks like a horse, stampes like a bull, pushes like a ram, grinnes like a dogge, scratches like a cat, swells like a toad, hisses like a snake, bills like a cocke, tugges like a goose, buzzes like a beetle, stings like a waspe, and now mumpes and mowes like himselfe: nay about, Jacke; he now bends his browes, gnashes his teeth, scratches his head, teares his haire, beats his breast, wrings his hands, smites the post with his fist, and spurns the dust before him with his feet. The angry ape, said I; I should have said, the ape of anger. There is no savagenesse of beasts, which he here imitates not, if not exceeds: nay, hee'le follow the very fiends, in his fury."

To each of the three parts is appended a sort of epitaph. That on anger is the best, and is really a curiosity.

"Good reader know,

That commest nigh,

Here lies he low,

That look't so high.

Both poore and nak't,
That was gay cloath'd;
Of all forsak❜t,

Who others loath'd.
He once thought all
Envi'd his worth;
Nor great, nor small,
Now grudge his turfe.
The heavenly cope
Was his ambition:
Three cubits' scope
Is his fruition.
He was above all;
God above him:
He did not love all;
Nor God love him.

He, that him taught,
First to aspire,

Now hath him caught,

And payes his hire."

To complete the series of portraits, we should extract the one which he gives of the covetous man.

"Wearish wretch; so like a flea-biter hee lookes. Say as you see, is he not mostly wry-neckt, crompe-shouldred, pale-fac't, thincheekt, hollow-eyed, hooke-nos'd, beetle-brow'd, purse-lipt, gauntbelly'd, rake-backt, buckle-hamm'd, stump-legg'd, splay-footed, dryfisted, and crooke-fingered; with a learing looke, slow breath, stealing pace, squeaking voice: his tall hat, and tattered cloak, thread-bare buskins, and cobbled shooes, a swagging pouch, and a spadle-staffe; and if you reckon him onely by his coat and carcasse, one would scarce bestow the hanging of him, to have them both. They say, commonly, ill humours, ill manners; but here, certainly, ill manners, ill members; for (could you see into him) he is not more ill-favoured, than ill-conditioned.'

"Loe, the covetous carle! what a needy niggard it is: oh, 'tis a scraping churle! out on him, greedy gripe! a very gut-head, he hath asses' eares direct; a forehead, an it were to set his leekes on; he sees well, an his eyes were uncast: I wonder he is not ring'd for rooting; ; you may see your face in his so transparant cheeks; a head he hath like a moule, an his nailes were growne; and a foot to shovell the street before him. Hateful miscreant! how hath he worne and wrested himselfe from God's good making? His steeple hat hath harboured many a thousand, and his woollen cap serves to keepe warme his wits; his weather-beaten cloake he had by inheritance; and hee meanes to make it in his will: he hath forgot the making of his dou

blet; but it puts him (ever and anon) in mind of repairing his breeches are in the fashion, not so much for pride, as to save cloth : but how bare soever be his backe, and belly thinne, his bagge is well lined, and he keeps it warme: there's not a hole in his hose, and yet not a place where there hath not beene a hole: his shooes have cost him more the maintaining, than would provide him shooes: he keepes a free house-you may as soone breake your necke as your fast; and a cleane withall-you may as readily wet your shoos as your lips. The man is oft-times so melancholy at home, that he is glad when he may cheare up himselfe at his neighbour's board: and, upon many occasions, growes so desperate, that hee cares not what becomes of him; only he is loth to be at the charges of making himselfe away."

ART. IV. Thealma and Clearchus. A Pastoral History in smooth and easie Verse. Written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq. an Acquaintant and Friend of Edmund Spenser. London, 1683.

This poem was published by the venerable patriarch of anglers, Izaak Walton, as the production of a deceased friend. The only information he has communicated respecting the author, is contained in the intimation on the title-page, that he was an acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spenser," and in the following brief préface.

66

"The reader will find in this book, what the title declares, a pastoral history, in smooth and easie verse; and will in it find many hopes and fears finely painted, and feelingly expressed. And he will find the first so often disappointed, when fullest of desire and expectation; and the latter, so often, so strangely, and so unexpectedly relieved, by an unforeseen Providence, as may beget in him wonder and

amazement.

And the reader will here also meet with passions heightened by easie and fit descriptions of joy and sorrow; and find also such various events and rewards of innocent truth and undissembled honesty, as is like to leave in him (if he be a good natured reader) more sympathizing and virtuous impressions, than ten times so much time spent in impertinent, critical, and needless disputes about religion: and I heartily wish it may do so.

And, I have also this truth to say of the author, that he was in his time a man generally known, and as well beloved; for he was humble, and obliging in his behaviour; a gentleman, a scholar, very innocent and prudent; and indeed his whole life was useful, quiet, and virtuous. God send the story may meet with, or make, all readers like him.

May 7, 1678."

I. W.

When we add, that there are two songs, with the name of Chalkhill attached to them, introduced in The Complete Angler, we believe we have placed the reader in possession of every thing that is known respecting the supposed author of Thealma and Clearchus. It is not easy to conceive, that a gentleman of his taste and talents, who enjoyed the friendship of Spenser, should wholly escape the panegyrics or censures of his contemporaries, and the industrious researches of poetical biographers. Had he been any thing more than a fictitious personage, honest Izaak would hardly have dismissed him with such a brief and unsatisfactory notice: "the narrative old man" would have treated us with some of the delightful garrulous details in which he has commemorated so many of his literary friends. The author of Thealma, the friend of Spenser, and a brother-angler, certainly deserved and would have received a much more ample allowance of biographical gossip. The conclusion appears to us inevitable, that Chalkhill was merely a nomme de guerre, like Peter Pindar or Barry Cornwall.-Whether Walton was himself the author of the poem before us may admit of more controversy: we are ourselves strongly convinced that he was, and we think any person who takes the trouble we have done in investigating the circumstances, and in comparing the Thealma with the acknowledged productions of Walton, will come to the same conclusion. We confess, that our wish may, in some measure, be "father to the thought:" we have read this delightful poem with redoubled pleasure since we persuaded ourselves that it was an emanation of the same amiable spirit, which put forth the most delightful and genuine pastoral in the English language, and we should feel proud to add another sprig to the verdant wreath which encircles the venerable brow of old Izaak Walton. We shall briefly state the principal reasons on which we found our opinion as to the unity of Chalkhill and Walton, but we fear, unless the reader is

Mr. Todd, in his life of Spenser, enumerates Chalkhill among the friends and admirers of the English Ariosto, but it is solely on the strength of Walton's assertion; as this industrious commentator evidently knew nothing more of the author of Thealma and Clearchus, than was to be found in the scanty notice of its editor. Ritson has introduced Chalkhill among the authors of the sixteenth century, in his Bibliographia Poetica, but he merely copies Walton. Mr. Campbell overlooked Chalkhill in his Specimens of the British Poets; but to make him amends, he has introduced him into his Introductory Essay, where he had no manner of business. Mr. Singer was the first to question the authenticity of Walton's statement, and his researches satisfied him that Chalkhill was altogether a fictitious personage.

already conversant with their (or his) works, our arguments will lose some portion of their weight.

We have already adverted to the mysterious silence of Walton with respect to his friend's life: he neither tells us where he lived nor when he died-he gives this "airy nothing" no "local habitation." Another circumstance worthy of remark is, the guardedness of his praise, contrasted with the boundless eulogies of the editors and "wit-insuring friends" of that period, and with the spirit of Walton's own commendatory verses on Donne, Cartwright, Herbert, &c. He bestows his applause with the modest consciousness of an ingenuous man, who, in his assumed character, felt himself obliged, yet almost afraid, to commend. The two songs introduced in The Complete Angler with the name of Chalkhill attached to them, bear a very close resemblance, in thought and style, to those confessedly the production of Walton, and, like them, are introduced without any allusion to the author or any comment on their peculiar merits, while all of the many songs introduced as the compositions of other writers are honoured with a particular commendation of themselves or their authors. One of Chalkhill's songs is in praise of a country life, and the other is an enthusiastic eulogy on the delights of angling.

It may be considered improbable, that Walton, if he were himself the author of Thealma, would have given it to the world in its present unfinished state, but it should be borne in mind, that he was in his ninetieth year when he published it ;a time of life when, in the common course of things, he had little chance of being able to bestow much attention and labour on it. It is very possible, that he might adopt the innocent stratagem of producing it as the work of a deceased friend, as an excuse for publishing an unfinished tale, and as a method of disarming the severity of criticism. The juvenile effusion which