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Virgil's poems are thus characterised, in fome of the best turned lines we find in these pastorals:

He funge of fieldes, and tilling of the grounde,
Of fhepe and oxen, and battayle did he founde;
So fhrille he founded in termes eloquent

I trowe his tunes went to the firmament".

He gives us the following idea of the sports, spectacles, and pleasures, of his age.

Some men deliteth beholding men to fight,

Or goodly knightes in pleasaunt apparayle,

Or sturdie fouldiers in bright harnes and male *.—
Some glad is to see these ladies beauteous,
Goodly appoynted in clothing fumpteous:
A number of people appoynted in like wise
In coftly clothing, after the newest gise;

Sportes, difgifing, fayre courfers mount and praunce,
Or goodly ladies and knightes fing and daunce:

To fee fayre houfes, and curious picture,
Or pleasaunt hanging, or fumpteous vesture,
Of filke, of purpure, or golde moste orient,
And other clothing divers and excellent:
Hye curious buildinges, or palaces royall,
Or chapels, temples fayre and substanciall,
Images graven, or vaultes curious';

Gardeyns, and meadowes, or places' delicious,
Forefts and parkes well furnished with dere,

Cold pleaufant streames, or wellès fayre and clere,
Curious cundytes, &c.

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We have before feen, that our author and Skelton were rivals. He alludes to Skelton, who had been laureated at Oxford, in the following lines.

the times. A fhepherd, after mentioning his skill in fhooting birds with a bow, fays, EGL. i.

No fhephearde throweth the axletree fo farre.

A gallant is thus defcribed, EGL. ii. For women ufe to love them most of all, Which boldly bofteth, or that can fing and jet;

Whiche hath the maiftry oftimes in tournament,

Or that can gambauld, or dance feat and gent.

The following forts of wine are recited, EGL. ii.

As mufcadell, caprike, romney, and malmefy,

From Genoe brought, from Greece, or Hungary.

As are the dainties of the table, ibid. A fhepherd at court must not think to eat,

Swanne, nor heron,

Curlewe, nor., crane. Again, ibid.

What fishe is of favour fwete and delicious,Rofted or fodden in fwete herbes or wine; Or fried in oyle, moft faporous and fine.The pafties of a hart.

The crane, the fefaunt, the pecocke, and curlewe,

The partriche, plover, bittorn, and heronfewe:

Seasoned fo well in licour redolent,

That the hall is full of pleasant smell and fent.

At a feaft at court, ibid.

Slowe be the fewers in ferving in alway, But fwift be they after, taking the meate away:

A fpeciall custom is ufed them amonge,
No good difhe to fuffer on borde to be long:
If the difhe be pleafaunt, eyther fleshe or
fifhe,

Ten handes at once fwarme in the dishe:

And if it be flefhe ten knives fhall thou fee Mangling the lefhe, and in the platter flee: To put there thy handes is perill without fayle,

Without a gauntlet or els a glove of mayle.

The two laft lines remind us of a faying of Quin, who declared it was not fafe to fit down to a turtle-feaft in one of the city-halls, without a basket-hilted knife and fork. Not that I fuppofe Quin borrowed his bon mots from black letter books.

The following lines point out fome of the feftive tales of our ancestors. EGL. iv. Yet would I gladly heare fome mery FIT Of Mayde Marian, or els of Robin Hood; Or Bentley's Ale which chafeth well the blood,

Of Perte of Norwich, or fauce of Wilberton, Or buckifh Toby well-stuffed as a ton.

He mentions Bentley's Ale, which maketh me to winke, EGL. ii.

Some of our antient domeftic paftimes and amufements are recorded, EGL. iv. Then is it pleafure the yonge maydens amonge

To watche by the fire the winter-nightès long:

And in the afhes fome playès for to marke, To cover wardens [pears] for faulte of other warke :

To tofte white fhevers, and to make prophitroles;

And, aftir talking, oftimes to fill the bowles,

&c.

He mentions fome mufical inftruments, EGL. ii.

Methinkes no mirth is scant, Where no rejoyfing of minstrelfie doth want: The bagpipe or fiddle to us is delectable, &c.

And the mercantile commodities of dif ferent countries and cities, EGL. iv. England hath cloth, Bordeus hath flore of wine,

Cornwalle hath tinne, and Lymfter woolès fine.

London

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Then is he decked as poete laureate,

When ftinking Thais made him her graduate:·
If they have smelled the artes triviall,

They count them poets bye and heroicall.

The TOWRE OF VERTUE AND HONOUR, introduced as a fong of one of the fhepherds into these paftorals, exhibits no very masterly strokes of a fublime and inventive fancy. It has much of the trite imagery usually applied in the fabrication of these ideal edifices. It, however, fhews our author in a new walk of poetry. This magnificent tower, or castle, is built on inacceffible cliffs of flint: the walls are of gold, bright as the fun, and decorated with olde historyes and pictures manyfolde: the turrets are beautifully fhaped. Among its heroit inhabitants are king Henry the eighth, Howard duke of Norfolk, and the earl of Shrewsbury. LABOUR is the porter at the gate, and VIRTUE governs the house. LABOUR is thus pictured, with fome degree of fpirit.

Fearfull is LABOUR, without favour at all,
Dreadfull of visage, a monster intractable;
Like Cerberus lying at gates infernall;
To fome men his looke is halfe intollerable,
His fhoulders large for burden ftrong and able,
His bodie bristled, his necke mightie and stiffe;
By sturdie finewes his joynts ftrong and stable,
Like marble ftones his handès be as stiffe.

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Here must man vanquish the dragon of Cadmus,
Gainst the Chimere here ftoutly muft he fight;
Here must he vanquish the fearfull Pegasus,
For the golden flece here must he fhewe his might:
If LABOUR gainfay, he can nothing be right:
This monster LABOUR oft changeth his figure,
Sometime an oxe, a bore, or lion wight,
Playnely he feemeth thus changeth his nature.

Like as Protheus ofte changeth his stature.

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Under his browes he dreadfully doth lowre
With glistering eyes, and fide-dependant beard,
For thirst and hunger alway his chere is foure,
His horned forehead doth make faynt hearts afeard.

Alway he drinketh, and yet alway is drye,

The sweat diftilling with droppes abundant, &c.

The poet adds, that when the noble Howard had long boldly contended with this hideous monster, had broken the bars and doors of the castle, had bound the porter, and was now preparing to afcend the tower of Virtue and Honour, FORTUNE and DEATH appeared, and interrupted his progrefs'.

The first modern Latin Bucolics are those of Petrarch, in number twelve, written about the year 1350. The Eclogues of Mantuan, our author's model, appeared about the year 1400, and were followed by many others. Their number multiplied fo foon, that a collection of thirty-eight modern bucolic poets in Latin was printed at Bafil, in the year 1546". These writers judged this indirect and disguised mode of dialogue, confifting of fimple characters which spoke freely and plainly, the most safe and convenient vehicle for abusing

e EGL. iv.

f Ibid.

& BUCOLICORUM ECLOGA XII.

h Viz. xxxviii. AUTHORES BUCOLICI, Bafil. 1546. 8vo.

the

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the corruptions of the church. Mantuan became fo popular, as to acquire the estimation of a claffic, and to be taught in schools. Nothing better proves the reputation in which this writer was held, than a speech of Shakespeare's pedant, the pedagogue Holofernes. "Faufte, precor, gelida quando pecus omne fub ulmo', and fo forth. Ah, good old MANTUAN ! "I may speak of thee, as the traveller doth of Venice, Vinegia, Vinegia, chi non te vedi, ei non te pregia. Old MAN"TUAN! Old MANTUAN! Who understandeth thee not, "loveth thee not*." But although Barklay copies Mantuan, the recent and feparate publication in England of Virgil's bucolics, by Wynkyn de Worde', might partly suggest the new idea of this kind of poetry.

With what avidity the Italian and French poets, in their respective languages, entered into this fpecies of compofition, when the rage of Latin verfification had fubfided, and for the purposes above-mentioned, is an inquiry referved for a future period. I fhall only add here, that before the close of the fifteenth century, Virgil's bucolics were translated into Italian", by Bernardo Pulci, Foffa de Cremona, Benivieni, and Fiorini Buoninfegni.

i One of Mantuan's lines. Farnaby in his Preface to Martial fays, that Faufte precor gelida, was too often preferred to Arma virumque cano. I think there is an old black letter tranflation of Mantuan into English. Another tranflation appeared by one Thomas Harvey, 1656. Mantuan was three times printed in England before the year 1600. Viz. B. Mantuani Carmelite theologi ADOLESCENTIA feu BucoLICA. With the commentary of Jodocus Badius. Excud. G. Dewes and H. Marshe, 1584. 12mo. Again, for the fame, the fame year, 12mo. Again, for Robert Dexter, 1598. 12mo. With Arguments to the Eclogues, and Notes by John Murmelius, &c.

k LOVE'S LAB. L. ACT iv. Sc. 3. 1 BUCOLICA VIRGILII cum commento familiari. At the end, Ad juvenes hujus

Maroniani operis commendatio. Die vero viii Aprilis. 4to. And they were reprinted by the fame, 1514, and 1516.

m Viz. LA BUCOLICA DI VIRGILIO per Fratrem Evangeliftam Fossa de Cremona ord. fervorum. In Venezia, 1494. 4to. But thirteen years earlier we find, Bernardo PULCI nella BUCOLICA di Virgilio di Jeronimo BENIVIENI, Jacopo FIORINO Buoninfegni de Sienna: Epiftole di Luca Pulci. In Firenze, per Bartolomeo Mifcomini, 1484. A dedication is perfixed, by which it appears, that Buoninfegni wrote a PISCATORY ECLOGUE, the first ever written in Italy, in the year 1468. There was a fecond edition of Pulci's verfion, La BucOLICA di VIRGILIO tradotta per Bernardo PULCI con l'Elegie. In Fiorenza, 1494.

SECT.

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