TH. HUDSON. Of TH. HUDSON, whofe name is mentioned with feveral others, under the character of Warner, my researches have furnished me with no farther account. Some extracts from his poems are to be found in "England's Parnaffus, or the Choyceft Flowers of our Modern Poets, with their poetical Comparisons, Descriptions of Bewties, Perfonages, Caftles, Pallaces, Mountaines, Groves, Seas, Springs, Rivers, &c. whereunto are annexed other various difcourfes both pleafant and profitable. Imprinted at London for N. L. C. B. and Th. Hayes, 1600." It is dedicated to Sir Thomas Monson, by the author, who in moft of the copies writes himself R. A. but in one or two, which T. Hayward (or rather Oldys) met with *, there is R. Allot, courfes concerning Marriage" about 1590. Wood's Ath. I. p. 334. Ames records "The Mirour of Majeftrates, by G. Whetstone, 1584', 4to. printed for Richard Jones. Hift. Print. p. 347. Warton had never feen it, but believed it had nothing to do with the well-known Poems under that title. Hift. Poet. III. p. 279. *T. Hayward's Quinteffence of English Poetry, 1740. Pref. P. viii. of of which name there was a bookfeller at that time, but it is not known whether he was the collector. However in a little book of epigrams, by John Weever, printed in 1599, (12mo.) Warton found the following compliment. Ad Robertum Allot, et Chriftopherum Middleton Short and more fweet, your lays: Quick but no wit, fharp no conceit, This performance however, fays Hayward, (or his friend), " is evidently defective in feveral respects." The compiler "cites no more than the names of his authors to their verses, who are most of them now fo obfolete, that not knowing what they wrote, we can have no recourfe to their works, if ftill extant. And, perhaps, this might be done designedly, to prevent fome, tho' not all, readers from difcovering his indifcretion in maiming fome thoughts, his prefumption in altering others, and his error in afcribing to one poet what had been wrote by another. This artifice, if real," fays he," does not prevent us from obferving his ill judgment in the choice of his authors; and in his extracts from them, his negligence in repeating the fame paffages in different places, and particularly his unpardonable hafte and irregularity, in throwing almost the laft half of his book out of its alphabetical order, into a confufed jumble of topicks topicks without order or method. This book, bad as it is, fuggefts one good obfervation however, upon the use and advantage of fuch collections, which is, that they may prove more fuccessful in preferving the best parts of fome authors, than their works themselves."* But Warton fays, that the extracts are made with a degree of taste. And indeed from this circumftance, and the prefervation it has given to paffages of many fcarce poets, whofe very names might otherwife have been buried in oblivion, the book is very curious and valuable. The following is the lift of the poets, from whofe works there are extracts. * Hayward's, or Oldys's Pref, ut fupr. p. viii, ix. John Davies. Joshua Sylvefter. William Shakespeare. Jarvis Markham. The extracts from Hudfon's Poems, are numerous and full: and are fometimes noted to have been copied from fome translations of his. CHARLES FITZ-GEFFREY. "Charles Fitz-Geoffry, a poetical writer of Queen Elizabeth's reign, of fome esteem formerly, I judge, by that collection of choice "Flowers and Defcriptions, as well out of his, 66 as the works of feveral others, the most re"nowned Poets of our nation collected above "fixty years ago." I infert FITZGEFFREY's name here, because Wood feems by mistake to have attributed to him the above Collection by Allot. His words are "Fitzgeffrey hath made, as tis faid, a Collection of Choice Flowers and Defcriptions as well out of his, as the works of feveral others, the moft renowned Poets of our nation: collected about the beginning of the reign of K. James I. but |