Wood places

He

Was born in the Weald of Kent. his birth in 1553. Oldys makes it appear probable that he was born much earlier*. studied at both the universities, and for many years attended the court of Elizabeth in expectation of being made Master of the Revels. In this object he was disappointed, and was obliged, in his old age, to solicit the Queen for some trifling grant to support himt, which it is uncertain whether he ever obtained. Very little indeed is known of him, though Blount, his editor, tells us that he sate at Apollo's table, and that the god gave him a wreath of his own bays without

[* Lyly was born in Kent in 1554, and was matriculated at Oxford in 1571, when it was recorded in the entry that he was seventeen years old.-COLLIER's Annals, vol. iii. p. 174.]

If he was an old man in the reign of Elizabeth, Oldys's conjecture as to the date of his birth seems to be verified, as we scarcely call a man old at fifty.

snatching." Whether Apollo was ever so co plaisant or not, it is certain that Lyly's work "Euphues and his England," preceded by anoth called "Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit," & promoted a fantastic style of false wit, bombas metaphor, and pedantic allusion, which it w fashionable to speak at court under the name Euphuism, and which the ladies thought it ind pensable to acquire. Lyly, in his Euphue probably did not create the new style, but on collected and methodised the floating affect tions of phraseology.-Drayton ascribes t overthrow of Euphuism to Sir P. Sydney, wh

he says,

did first reduce

Our tongue from Lylie's writing then in use,
Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies,
Plying with words and idle similies,
As th' English apes and very zanies be
Of everything that they do hear and see.

Sydney died in 1586, and Euphues had appeared but six years earlier. We may well suppose Sydney to have been hostile to such absurdity, and his writings probably promoted a better taste; but we hear of Euphuism being in vogue

CUPID AND CAMPASPE.

CUPID and my Campaspe play'd
At cards for kisses: Cupid paid.

He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows;
His mother's doves and team of sparrows;
Loses them too: then down he throws
The coral of his lip-the rose
Growing on 's cheek, but none knows how,
With these the crystal on his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin;
All these did my Campaspe win :
At last he set her both his eyes;
She won, and Cupid blind did rise;
O Love, hath she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?

SONG.

FROM ALEXANDER AND CAMPASPE.

WHAT bird so sings, yet so does wail?
O'tis the ravish'd nightingale-
Jug, jug, jug, jug-tereu-she cries,
And still her woes at midnight rise.

many years after his death; and it seems to have expired, like all other fashions, by growing vulgar. Lyly wrote nine plays, in some of which there is considerable wit and humour, rescued from the jargon of his favourite system.

Was the second son of Patrick, fifth Baron of Polwarth, from whom the family of Marchmont are descended. He was born probably about the middle, and died about the end, of the sixteenth century. During four years of the earlier part of his life, he resided in France, after which he returned home and studied law, but abandoned the bar to try his fortune at court. There he is said to have been disgusted with the preference shown to a poetical rival, Montgomery, with whom he exchanged flytings, (or invectives,) in verse, and who boasts of having "driven Polwart from the chimney nook." He then went into the church, and was appointed rector or minister of Logie; the names of ecclesiastical offices in Scotland then floating between presbytery and prelacy. In the clerical profession he continued till his death. Hume lived at a period when the spirit of Calvinism in Scotland was at its gloomiest

Brave prick-song! who is't now we hear?
None but the lark so shrill and clear;
Now at Heaven's gate she claps her wings,
The morn not waking till she sings.

Hark! hark! but what a pretty note, Poor Robin red-breast tunes his throat; Hark! how the jolly cuckoos sing Cuckoo-to welcome in the spring.

FROM MOTHER BOMBIE.

O CUPID, monarch over kings,
Wherefore hast thou feet and wings?
Is it to show how swift thou art,
When thou wound'st a tender heart?
Thy wings being clipt and feet held still,
Thy bow so many could not kill.

It is all one in Venus' wanton school,
Who highest sits, the wise man or the fool-
Fools in Love's college
Have far more knowledge,
To read a woman over,
Than a neat-prating lover;
Nay, 'tis confest

That fools please women best.

pitch, and when a reformation, fostered by the poetry of Lyndsay, and by the learning of Buchanan, had begun to grow hostile to elegant literature. Though the drama, rude as it was, had been no mean engine in the hands of Lyndsay against popery, yet the Scottish reformers of this latter period even anticipated the zeal of the English puritans against dramatic and romantic poetry, which they regarded as emanations from hell. Hume had imbibed so far the spirit of his times as to publish an exhortation to the youth of Scotland to forego the admiration of all classical heroes, and to read no other books on the subject of love than the Song of Solomon. But Calvinism* itself could not entirely eradicate the

*This once gloomy influence of Calvinism on the literary character of the Scottish churchmen, forms a contrast with more recent times, that needs scarcely to be suggested to those acquainted with Scotland. In extend

ing the classical fame, no less than in establishing the moral reputation of their country, the Scottish clergy have exerted a primary influence; and whatever Presbyterian eloquence might once be, the voice of enlightened principles and universal charity is nowhere to be heard more distinctly than at the present hour from their pulpits. For shaded. b Scotticè for than. < Then. d Which. * Largest and smallest. ! Abroad. Emboldened. h Shining. i Uprises. Flat-nosed. I Lowing kine.

Early.

summer's day, there is a train of images that seem peculiarly pleasing and unborrowed-the pictures of a poetical mind, humble but genuine in its cast.

The passenger, from perils sure,
Goes gladly forth the way,
Brief, every living creature
Takes comfort of the day.

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The misty reek m, the clouds of rain
From tops of mountain skails",
Clear are the highest hills and plain,
The vapours take the vales.

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Begaired is the sapphire pend With spraings of scarlet hue; And preciously from end to end, Damasked white and blue.

The ample heaven, of fabric sure,
In clearness does surpass
The crystal and the silver, pure
As clearest polish'd glass.

The time so tranquil is and clear,
That no where shall ye find,
Save on a high and barren hill,
The air of passing wind.

All trees and simples, great and small,
That balmy leaf do bear,
Than they were painted on a wall,
No more they move or steir".

The rivers fresh, the callour streams,
O'er rocks can swiftly rin',
The water clear like crystal beams,
And makes a pleasant din.

Calm is the deep and purple sea,
Yea, smoother than the sand;
The waves, that woltering" wont to be,
Áre stable like the land.

So silent is the cessile air,

That every cry and call,

The hills and dales, and forest fair, Again repeats them all.