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Among the English miscellaneous poets of the age of Elizabeth, who preceded Spenser, Sackville unquestionably holds the first rank.

THOMAS SACKVILLE was of a very ancient family, and was born at Buckhurst, Sussex, in 1536. Having prepared for college at Eton school, he entered the university of Oxford, but sometime after removed to Cambridge, where he remained until he took the degree of master of arts. From Cambridge he passed to the Inner Temple, London, and proceeded so far in the study of the law as to be called to the bar; not, however, with the view of practicing the legal profession, but merely to prepare himself the more effectually to serve his country in parliament, into which he entered toward the close of the reign of Mary.

Sackville had acquired, while at the university, the reputation of a good poet; and in 1557, he formed the design of writing a series of poems under the title of The Mirror for Magistrates, the object of which was to exhibit the career of eminently bad men who had come to an unhappy end. Of this poem he executed little more than the Induction, or introduction, which was immediately published, and received with unbounded applause. In 1561, he aided Thomas Norton in the composition of Gorboduc, the first regular tragedy produced in the English language. This performance we shall, however, have occasion more particularly to notice under the department of dramatic literature.

Having, in this way, succeeded in establishing the reputation of being the best poet of the age, Sackville suddenly abandoned the muses, made the tou of France and Italy, and on his return to England assumed the character of a statesman. He soon became a great favorite with queen Elizabeth, to whom he was distantly related, and by whom he was raised to the peerage under the title of Lord Buckhurst. In 1591, he was, by the queen's special interposition, made chancellor of Oxford, and in 1598, on the death of Lord Burleigh, he succeeded to the treasury, and thus became the queen's recognized prime minister. After the death of Elizabeth he retained the office of lord high treasurer under king James, and was created, by that monarch, on the thirteenth of March, 1604, earl of Dorset. In the height of his power and influence, Sackville was still unremitting in his attention to business, and at his death, which occurred on the nineteenth of April, 1608, he left a universal regret for his departure.

In The Mirror for Magistrates,' Sackville, like Dante, and several other poets, lays the scene of his poem in the infernal regions, whither he is conducted under the guide of an allegorical personage named Sorrow. It was his object to make all the great persons of English history, from the Conquest downwards, pass here in review, and each tell his own story as a warning to existing statesmen; but other duties compelled the poet, after he had written the 'Induction,' and a legend on the life of the Duke of Buckingham, to leave the completion of the work to the inferior hands of Baldwyne and Ferrers. The part of this poem executed by Sackville fre

quently exhibits a strength of description, and a power of drawing allogorical characters, scarcely inferior to Spenser. From this poem we extract the following descriptions of its various allegorical characters :

ALLEGORICAL PERSONAGES IN THE INFERNAL REGIONS.

And first, within the porch and jaws of hell,
Sat deep Remorse of Conscience, all bespent
With tears; and to herself oft would she tell
Her wretchedness, and, cursing, never stent
To sob and sigh, but ever thus lament
With thoughtful care; as she that, all in vain,
Would wear and waste continually in pain.

Her eyes unsteadfast rolling here and there,

Whirl'd on each place, as place that vengeance brought,
So was her mind continually in fear,

Tost and tormented with the tedious thought

Of those detested crimes which she had wrought;
With dreadful cheer, and looks thrown to the sky,
Wishing for death, and yet she could not die.

Next, saw we Dread, all trembling how he shook,
With foot uncertain, proffer'd here and there;
Benumb'd with speech, and with a ghastly look,
Searched every place, all pale and dead for fear,
His cap borne up with staring of his hair;
'Stoin'd and amazed at his own shade for dread,
And fearing greater dangers than was need.

And, next, within the entry of this lake,

Sat fell Revenge, gnashing her teeth for ire;
Devising means how she may vengeance take;
Never in rest, till she have her desire;

But frets within so far forth with the fire
Of wreaking flames, that now determines she
To die by death, or 'veng'd by death to be.
When fell Revenge, with bloody foul pretense,
Had show'd herself, as next in order set,
With trembling limbs we softly parted thence,
Till in our eyes another sight we met;
When fro my heart a sigh forthwith I fet,
Rueing, alas, upon the woful plight

Of Misery, that next appear'd in sight:

His face was lean, and some-deal pin'd away,
And eke his hands consumed to the bone;
But, what his body was, I can not say,

For, on his carcass raiment had he none,
Save clouts and patches pieced one by one;
With staff in hand, and scrip on shoulders cast,
His chief defense against the winter's blast:
His food, for most, was wild fruits of the tree,
Unless sometime some crumbs fell to his share,

Which in his wallet long, Got wot, kept he,

As on the which full daintily would he fare;
His drink, the running stream; his cup, the bare
Of his palm closed; his bed, the hard cold ground:
To this poor life was Misery y-bound.

Whose wretched state when we had well beheld,
With tender ruth on him, and on his fears,
In thoughtful cares forth then our pace we held;
And, by and by, another shape appears

Of greedy Care, still brushing up the briers;
His knuckles knob'd, his flesh deep dinted in
With tawed hands, and hard y-tanned skin:

The morrow gray no sooner had begun

To spread his light e'en peeping in our eyes, But he is up, and to his work y-run;

But let the night's black misty mantles rise,
And with foul dark never so much disguise
The fair bright day, yet ceaseth he no while,
But hath his candles to prolong his toil.

By him lay heavy Sleep, the cousin of Death,
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,
A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath,
Small keep took he, whom fortune frowned on,
Or whom she lifted up into the throne
Of high renown; but as a living death,
So dead alive, of life he drew the breath:

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And next in order sad, Old Age we found:
His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind;
With drooping cheer still poring on the ground,
As on the place where nature him assign'd

To rest, when that the sisters had untwined
His vital thread, and ended with their knife
The fleeting course of fast declining life.

There heard we him with broke and hollow plaint
Rue with himself his end approaching fast,
And all for nought, his wretched mind torment
With sweet remembrance of his pleasures past.
And fresh delights of lusty youth forewaste;
Recounting which, how would he sob and shriek,
And to be young again of Jove beseek!

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Crook-back'd he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-eyed;
Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four;
With old lame bones, that rattled by his side;
His scalp all piled, and he with eld forelore,
His wither'd fist still knocking at death's door;
Fumbling, and drivelling, as he draws his breath;
For brief, the shape and messenger of Death.
And fast by him pale Malady was placed:

Sore sick in bed, her colour all foregone;

Bereft of stomach, savor, and of taste.

Ne could she brook no meat but broths alone;
Her breath corrupt; her keepers every one
Abhorring her; her sickness past recure,
Detesting physic, and all physic's cure.

But oh, the doleful sight that then we see !

We turn'd our look, and on the other side

A grisly shape of Famine mought we see:

With greedy looks, and gasping mouth, that cried
And roar'd for meat, as she should there have died;
Her body thin and bare as any bone,

Whereto was left nought but the case alone.

And that, alas, was gnawen every where,

All full of holes; that I me nought refrain
From tears, to see how she her arms could tear,

And with her teeth gnash on the bones in vain,
When, all for nought, she fain would so sustain
Her starven corpse, that rather seem'd a shade
Than any substance of a creature made:

Great was her force whom stone wall could not stay:

Her tearing nails snatching at all she saw;

With gaping jaws, that by no means ymay

Be satisfied from hunger of her maw,

But eats herself as she that hath no law;
Gnawing, alas, her carcass all in vain,

Where you may count each sinew, bone, and vein.

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Lastly, stood War, in glittering arms yclad,

With visage grim, stern look, and blackly hued:
In his right hand a naked sword he had,

That to the hilts was ail with blood imbued;
And in his left (that kings and kingdoms rued)
Famine and fire he held, and therewithal
He razed towns and threw down towers and all:

Cities he sack'd, and realms that (whilom flower'd
In honour, glory, and rule, above the rest)
He overwhelm'd, and all their fame devour'd,
Consum'd, destroy'd, wasted, and never ceas'd,
Till he their wealth, their name, and all oppress'd:
His face forehew'd with wounds; and by his side

There hung his targe, with gashes deep and wide.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY and SIR WALTER RALEIGH deserve a passing notice among the early poets of Elizabeth's reign, though it is chiefly for their compositions in prose that their memories are cherished. The former has left us a few Sonnets, delicate in sentiment, and sweet and flowing in expression, of which the following are specimens:—

Because I oft in dark abstracted guise
Seem most alone in greatest company,

With dearth of words, or answers quite awry

To them that would make speech of speech arise,

They deem, and of their doom the rumour flies,

That poison foul of bubbling Pride doth lie
So in my swelling breast, that only I
Fawn on myself, and others do despise.
Yet Pride, I think, doth not my soul possess,
Which looks too oft in his unflattering glass;
But one worst fault Ambition I confess,
That makes me oft my best friends overpass,
Unseen, unheard, while thought to highest place
Bends all his powers, even unto Stella's grace.
Come, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
The indifferent judge between the high and low
With shield of proof shield me from out the prease1
Of those fierce darts, Despair at me doth throw;
O make in me those civil wars to cease:
I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed;
A chamber, deaf to noise, and blind to light;
A rosy garland, and a weary head.
And if these things as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.

O happy Thames, that didst my Stella bear!
I saw thee with full many a smiling line
Upon thy cheerful face joy's livery wear,
While those fair planets on thy streams did shine.
The boat for joy could not to dance forbear;
While wanton winds, with beauties so divine
Ravish'd, staid not, till in her golden hair
They did themselves (O sweetest prison) twine:
And fain those Eols' youths there would their stay
Have made; but, forced by nature still to fly,
First did with puffing kiss those locks display.
She, so dishevell'd, blush'd. From window I,
With sight thereof, cried out, 'O fair disgrace;
Let Honour's self to thee grant highest place.'

SIR WALTER RALEIGH Wrote comparatively little poetry, but that which we have is sufficient to satisfy us that had he courted the poetic muse exclusively, he would have attained to a very high degree of celebrity. The following extracts from a poem under the title of The Country's Recreations breathe a melancholy tenderness that poetic feeling alone could inspire:

Heart-tearing cares and quiv'ring fears,
Anxious sighs, untimely tears,

Fly, fly to courts,

Fly to fond worldling's sports;

Where strained sardonic smiles are glozing still,
And grief is forced to laugh against her will;

1 Press, throng.

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