Now let them drinke, till they nod and winke, They shall not miffe to have the bliffe Good ale doth bringe men to. And al goode fowles that have scoured bowles, God fave the lives, of them and their wives, Backe and fide,, &¢...^^; This fong opens the second act of GAMMER Gurton's NEEDLE, a comedy, written and printed in 1551, and foon afterwards acted at Chrift's College in Cambridge. In the title of the old edition it is faid to have been written " by Mr. S. "master of artes," who probably was a member of that society. This is held to be the first comedy in our language: that is, the first play which was neither Mystery nor Morality, and which handled a comic ftory with fome difpofition of plot, and fome difcrimination of character. The writer has a degree of jocularity which fometimes rifes above buffoonery, but is often difgraced by lowness of incident. Yet in a more polished age he would have chofen, nor would he perhaps have disgraced, a better subject. It has been thought surprising that a learned audience could have endured fome of these indelicate fcenes. But the established feftivities of scholars were grofs and agreeable to their general habits: nor was learning in that age always accompanied by gentleness of manners. When the fermons of Hugh Latimer were in vogue at court, the univerfity might be justified in applauding GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE. On the authority of MSS. Oldys. A valuable black letter copy, in thei poffef fion of Mr. Steevens, is the oldeft I have SECT SE C T. XXX. TR RUE genius, unfeduced by the cabals and unalarmed by the dangers of faction, defies or neglects thofe events which destroy the peace of mankind, and often exerts its operations amidst the most violent commotions of a state. Without patronage and without readers, I may add without models, the earlier Italian writers, while their country was shook by the intestine tumults of the Guelfes and Guibelines, continued to produce original compofitions both in profe and verse, which yet ftand unrivalled. The age of Pericles and of the Peloponnefian war was the fame. Careless of those who governed or disturbed the world, and superior to the calamities of a quarrel in which two mighty leaders contended for the prize of universal dominion, Lucretius wrote his fublime didactic poem on the fyftem of nature, Virgil his bucolics, and Cicero his books of philofophy. The profcriptions of Auguftus did not prevent the progress of the Roman literature. In the turbulent and unpropitious reign of queen Mary, when controverfy was no longer confined to speculation, and a spiritual warfare polluted every part of England with murthers more atrocious than the flaughters of the moft bloody civil conteft, a poem was planned, although not fully completed, which illuminates with no common luftre that interval of darkness, which occupies the annals of English poetry from Surrey to Spenfer, entitled, A MIRROUR FOR MAGISTRATES. More writers than one were concerned in the execution of this piece but its primary inventor, and most distinguished contributor, Dd 2. contributor, was Thomas Sackville the first lord Buckhurst, and first earl of Dorfet. Much about the fame period, the fame author wrote the first genuine English tragedy, which I fhall confider in its proper place. Sackville was born at Buckhurst, a pricipal feat of his antient and illustrious family in the parish of Withiam in Suffex. His birth is placed, but with evident inaccuracy, under the year 1536. At least it should be placed fix years before. Difcovering a vigorous understanding in his childhood, from a domeftic tuition he was removed, as it may reasonably be conjectured, to Hart-hall, now Hertford college, in Oxford. But he appears to have been a master of Arts at Cambridge. At both univerfities he became celebrated as a Latin and English poet; and he carried his love of poetry, which he seems to have almost folely cultivated, to the Inner Temple. It was now fashionable for every young man of fortune, before he began his travels, or was admitted into parliament, to be initiated in the study of the law. But instead of pursuing a science, which could not be his profeffion, and which was unaccommodated to the bias of his genius, he betrayed his predilection to a more pleasing species of literature, by compofing the tragedy just mentioned, for the entertainment and honour of his fellow-students. His high birth, however, and ample patrimony, foon advanced him to more important fituations and employments. His eminent accomplishments and abilities having acquired the confidence and esteem of queen Elifabeth, the poet was foon loft in the statesman, and negotiations and embaffies extinguished the milder ambitions of the ingenuous Mufe. Yet it should be remembered, that he was uncorrupted amidst the intrigues of an artful court, that in the character of a first minister he preserved the integrity of a private man, and that his family refused the offer of an apology to his memory, when it was infulted by the mali • Archbishop Abbot, in Sackville's Funeral-fermon, fays he was aged 72 when he died, in the year 1608. If fo, he was not twenty years of age when he wrote GORDOBUCK. Wood, ATH. OxоN. i. F. 767. cious infinuations of a rival party. Nor is it foreign to our purpose to remark, that his original elegance and brilliancy of mind fometimes broke forth, in the exercise of his more formal political functions. He was frequently disgusted at the pedantry and official barbarity of style, with which the public letters and inftruments were usually framed: and Naunton relates, that his "fecretaries had difficulty to please him, he was "fo facete and choice in his style." Even in the decisions and pleadings of that rigid tribunal the star-chamber, which was never esteemed the school of rhetoric, he practiced and encouraged an unaccustomed ftrain of eloquent and graceful oratory: on which account, fays Lloyd, "fo flowing was his invention, "that he was called the ftar-chamber bell "." After he was made a peer by the title of lord Buckhurft, and had fucceeded to a most extensive inheritance, and was now discharging the bufiness of an envoy to Paris, he found time to prefix a Latin epiftle to Clerke's Latin tranflation of Caftilio's COURTIER, printed at London in 1571, which is not an unworthy recommendation of a treatise remarkable for its polite Latinity. It was either because his mistress Elisabeth paid a fincere compliment to his fingular learning and fidelity, or because she was willing to indulge an affected fit of indignation against the object of her capricious paffion, that when Sackville, in 1591, was a candidate for the chancellorship of the university of Oxford, she condescended earnestly to follicit the university in his favour, and in oppofition to his competitor the earl of Effex. At least The appears to have approved the choice, for her majesty soon afterwards vifited Oxford, where she was entertained by the new chancellor with fplendid banquets and much folid erudition. It is neither my design nor my province, to develope the profound policy with which he conducted a peace with Spain, the address with which he penetrated or baffled the machinations of Effex, and the circumfpection and success with which he managed the FRAGM. REGAL. P. 70. Lloyd's WORTHIES, p. 678. treasury treasury of two opulent fovereigns. I return to Sackville as a poet, and to the hiftory of the MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES". About the year 1557, he formed the plan of a poem, in which all the illuftrious but unfortunate characters of the English history, from the conqueft to the end of the fourteenth century, were to pass in review before the poet, who defcends like Dante into the infernal region, and is conducted by SORROW. Although a descent into hell had been suggested by other poets, the application of fuch a fiction to the present defign, is a confpicuous proof of genius and even of invention. Every perfonage was to recite his own misfortunes in a separate foliloquy. But Sackville had leisure only to finish a poetical preface called an INDUCTION, and one legend, which is the life of Henry Stafford duke of Buckingham. Relinquishing therefore the design abruptly, and hastily adapting the close of his INDUCTION to the appearance of Buckingham, the only story he had yet written, and which was to have been the last in his feries, he recommended the completion of the whole to Richard Baldwyne and George Ferrers. Baldwyne seems to have been graduated at Oxford about the year 1532. He was an ecclefiaftic, and engaged in the education of youth. I have already mentioned his metrical verfion of SOLOMON'S SONG, dedicated to king Edward the fixth. His patron was Henry lord Stafford *. George Ferrers, a man of fuperior rank, was born at faint Albans, educated at Oxford, and a student of Lincolns-inn. Leland, who has given him a place in his ENCOMIA, informs us, that he was patronised by lord Cromwell. He was in par Many of his Letters are in the CABALA. And in the univerfity register at Oxford, (Mar. 21. 1591.) fee his Letter about the Habits. See alfo Howard's COLL. p. 297. f See fupr. 181. Ut infr. He wrote alfo Three bookes of Moral Philofophy. And The Lives and Say ings of Philofophers, Emperors, Kings, etc. de- liament |