figns juft as Herodotus, but with lefs affectation and inconfiftency, marked the nine books or divifions of his history with the names of the nine Mufes. Yet fo ftrange and pedantic a title is not totally without a conceit, as the author was born at Stellada, or Stellata, a province of Ferrara, and from whence he calls himself Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus.

This poem is a general fatire on life, yet without peevishness or malevolence; and with more of the folemnity of the cenfor, than the petulance of the fatirift. Much of the morality is couched under allegorical perfonages and adventures. The Latinity is tolerably pure, but there is a mediocrity in the verfification. Palingenius's transitions often discover more quickness of imagination, and fertility of reflection, than folidity of judgment. Having started a topic, he pursues it through all its poffible affinities, and deviates into the most distant and unneceffary digreffions. Yet there is a facility in his manner, which is not always unpleafing: nor is the general conduct of the work void of art and method. He moralifes with a boldnefs and a liberality of fentiment, which were then unufual; and his maxims and strictures are sometimes tinctured with a fpirit of libertinism, which, without exposing the opinions, must have offended the gravity, of the more orthodox ecclefiaftics. He fancies that a confident philofopher, who rafhly presumes to fcrutinife the remote myfteries of nature, is fhewn in heaven like an ape, for the public diverfion of the gods. · A thought evidently borrowed by Popes. Although he fubmits his performance to the fentence of the church, he treats the authority of the popes, and the voluptuous lives of the monks, with the severest acrimony. It was the last circumstance that chiefly contributed to give this poem almost the rank of a claffic in the reformed countries, and probably produced an early English tranflation. After his death, he was pronounced an heretic; and his body was taken up, and committed to the flames. A measure

It should have been STELLATENSIS.

* See ESSAY on Pope, p. 94.

which only contributed to spread his book, and diffeminate his doctrines.

Googe feems chiefly to have excelled in rendering the descriptive and flowery paffages of this moral ZODIAC. He thus describes the Spring.

The earth againe doth florifhe greene,
The trees repaire their springe;
With pleasaunt notes the nightingale
Beginneth new to fing.

With flowers fresh their heads bedeckt,

The Fairies dance in fielde:

And wanton fonges in moffye dennes
The Drids and Satirs yielde.
The wynged Cupide fast doth cast

His dartes of gold yframed, &ch.

There is some poetic imagination in SAGITTARIUS, or the ninth book, where a divine mystagogue opens to the poet's eyes an unknown region of infernal kings and inhabitants. But this is an imitation of Dante. As a fpecimen of the tranflation, and of the author's fancy, I will transcribe some of this imagery.

'Now open wyde your fprings, and playne

Your caues abrode difplaye,

You fifters of Parnaffus hyll

Beset about with baye!
And vnto me, for neede it is,

A hundred tongues in verse.
Sende out, that I these ayrie kings
And people may rehearse.

Here fyrst, whereas in chariot red
Aurora fayre doth ryfe,

And bright from out the ocean feas

Appeares to mortal eyes,

B. ii. TAURUS. Signat. Biij..

T

And

And chaseth hence the hellish night
With blushing beauty fayre,
A mighty King I might difcerne,
Placde hie in lofty chayre:
Hys haire with fyry garland deckt

Puft vp in fiendish wife;

Wyth browes full broade, and threatning loke,

And fyry-flaming eyes.

Two monstrous hornes and large he had,

And noftrils wide in fight;

Al black himself, (for bodies black

To euery euyll fpright,

And ugly shape, hath nature dealt,)
Yet white his teeth did fhowe;
And white his grenning tufkes ftode,
Large winges on him did growe,
Framde like the wings of flindermice;
His fete of largest sise,

In fashion as the wilde-duck beares,
Or goose that creaking cries :
His tayle fuch one as lions haue:
All naked fate he there,
But bodies couered round about

Wyth lothsome fhagged haire,

A number great about him ftoode, &c '.

After viewing the wonders of heaven, his guide Timalphes, the son of Jupiter and Arete, fhews him the moon, whose gates are half of gold and half of filver. They enter a city of

the moon.

The loftie walles of diamonde strong

Were raysed high and framde;

The bulwarks built of carbuncle

That all as fyer yflamde.

Biz. Signat. H H iij.

And

Then follows a mixture of claffical and christian history and mythology. This poem has many symptoms of the wildness and wanderings of Italian fiction.

It must be confeffed, that there is a perfpicuity and a freedom in Googe's verfification. But this metre of Sternhold and Hopkins impoverished three parts of the poetry of queen Elifabeth's reign. A hermit is thus described, who afterwards proves to be fir EPICURE, in a part of the poem which has been copied by fir David Lyndefey.

His hoary beard with filuer heares

His middle fully rought ';

His skin was white, and ioyfull face :

Of diuers colours wrought,

A flowry garland gay he ware

About his femely heare, &c ".

The seventh book, in which the poet looks down upon the world, with its various occupations, follies, and vices, is opened. with these nervous and elegant stanzas.

My Mufe aloft! raise vp thyself,

And vfe a better flite :

Mount vp on hie, and think it scorn

Of bafe affayres to write.

Ibid. Signat. G G iiij.

1 Reached.

Lib. iii. Ej.

More

More great renoune, and glory more,
In hautye matter lyes:

View thou the gods, and take thy courfe
Aboue the starrye skies:

Where spring-tyme lafts for euermore,
Where peace doth neuer quayle;
Where Sunne doth shyne continuallye,
Where light doth neuer fayle.
Clowd-caufer fouthwinde none there is,
No boyftrous Boreas blowes;
But mylder breathes the western breeze
Where sweet ambrofia growes.
Take thou this way, and yet fometimes
Downe falling fast from hye,

Nowe vp, nowe downe, with fundry fort
" aloft go flye.

Of gates" aloft

And as fome hawty place he seekes

That couets farre to fee,

So vp to Joue, past starres to clyme,
Is nedefull nowe for thee.

There shalt thou, from the towry top

Of cryftall-colour'd skie,

The plot of all the world beholde

With viewe of perfit eye 3.

One cannot but remark, that the conduct and machinery of the old vifionary poems is commonly the fame. A rural scene, generally a wilderness, is fuppofed. An imaginary being of confummate wisdom, a hermit, a goddefs, or an angel, appears; and having purged the poet's eye with a few drops of fome celestial elixir, conducts him to the top of an inacceffible mountain, which commands an unbounded plain filled with all nations. A cavern opens, and difplays the torments of the damned: he next is introduced into heaven, by way of the moon, the ■ Going. • Beyond. Signat. Nj.

only