"And there is pleasing Alcon, could he raise

His tunes from lays to matters of more skill," which criticism roused the lyric poet to essay a bolder flight. It was probably written before "Edward II.;" but the "Jew of Malta" at least had appeared, and Lodge ought to have profited by Marlowe's glowing style, intense energy, and uplifted surges of imagination. These gifts were uncommunicable, and yet it is strange that his blank verse could not flow more lightly. The unities are disregarded in about the usual style, and minor discrepancies abound. It gives one a queer feeling to find a Roman clown of the time of Marius alluding to St. Paul church steeple. The plot is drawn from Plutarch's account, which Lodge was well able to read in Latin. His linguistic attainments appear to have been Latin, French, Italian, and possibly Spanish. Though put on the stage by Philip Henslow in 1589, and reasonably successful there, this play was not printed till 1594, the year in which rugged Chapman gave expression to his gloomiest mood in "The Shadow of Night," and 'well-languaged' Daniel gave "Cleopatra" and the "Complaint of Rosamond" to the public.

The same year also witnessed the appearance of "The Looking Glass for London and England," a curious play "made by Thomas Lodge, Gent. and Robert Greene in Artibus Magister," also written some time before. It is not hard to select passages that are as evidently Lodge's work as others are Greene's, the swing and extravagant but superb diction of the latter being difficult to ignore. The scenes throughout are laid in proud Nineveh, in the days of the prophet Jonah. The play opens gorgeously with Rasni, arogant as Marlowe's Tamburlaine, and his ibutary kings, who declare “ Rasni is God n earth, and none but he." The priderunk monarch exults over Nineveh, "three ays' journey length from wall to wall," with six hundred towers that topless touch the ouds," and declares that:

"My sceptre straineth both the parallels." Rasni proposes marriage to his sister, Relia, and she consents, but is struck dead

by lightning. The king turns his evil regard on Alvida, the wife of one of his viceroys, who poisons her husband. Meanwhile, angels and prophets give warning that the cup of their iniquity is full. Clowns, peasants, spendthrifts, mechanics, and interesting street-scenes abound, and the hearer is never allowed to forget that the shaft was aimed at London. Graphic passages are on almost every page. Signs of coming wrath thicken. "Priests of the sun " and magi march in pallid procession to avert the threatened evil; ghosts of the dead rise, crying, "Woe to this city, woe"; statues of the elder kings crash on the pavement; rains of blood fall from cloudless skies; Jonah the Prophet walks the streets crying destruction; from throne to hovel men and women repent, sit fasting, clothed in sackcloth, and at last avert the overhanging stroke. There is a depth of profound religious earnestness a bout the entire play, strongest, however, in the closing parts.

The portions of this play that refer to the magicians and wise men are evidently a thinly disguised attack on the philosophic school of Raleigh, Hariot, and their supporters. Political allusions are abundant, and this of itself would justify its careful study.

We have arrived at 1595, when "A Fig for Momus" appeared, preceding by two years Hall's "Satires," and hence giving Lodge a claim to be thought the earliest English satirist. This book was dedicated to the Earl of Derby, with many flourishes, compliments, and classical allusions. The "Gentlemen Readers" are next told why they are saluted with "so peremptorie a title." It is "not in contempt of the learned, but in despight of the detractor, who, worthily deserving the name of Momus, shall rather at my hand have a fig to choake him.” But he wishes to wrong none. If any man repine I am sure he is guiltie, because he bewrayeth himselfe." Also, as I am readie to satisfie the reasonable, so I have a gird in store for a railer." This book is one of Lodge's best; the letters and satires are good-natured and vigorous. tain dandyish "F. M." (3d though

He tells a cersatire) that al

"The idle Moor, the Turke and Saracine,
The Chineis and the walthie Abisine
Observe that custom and idolatrie
Which was in-grafted in their infancie,"
He (the aforesaid F. M.) must

"Beware to frizzle, curl and kembe thy haire, To spend three hours in gazing in a glasse, Before thy wife and daughter goe to masse.' A pretty compliment is paid to Drayton: "Michael, as much good hap unto thy state As Orators have figures to dilate.-Alas for those that by scurrilitie Would purchase fame and immortalitie; But know this, friend, true excellence depends On numbers aimed to good and happie ends." This quotation is from the fifth letter, which also alludes to the interesting "Endimion and Phoebe," published by Drayton the previous year and then withdrawn from sale, only one perfect copy being in existence. Perhaps the great success of Shakespere's earlier poems caused Drayton to suppress it, but Lodge devotes twenty-five or thirty lines to graphic allusion and deft praise. "Endim ion" has a reference to Lodge under the anagram of Golde, by which he was known, and it would even seem that Drayton often received assistance in his writings from Lodge :

"And thou, my Goldey, which in summer days
Had feasted us with merry roundelayes,
And when my muse scarce able was to flye
Didst imp her wings with thy sweet poesie."

Drayton's fine description of night, beginning:

"Now black-browed Night placed in her chaire

Sat, wrapped in clouds, within her cabinet."

is from the "Endimion."

The seventh letter in "Momus" is on the

"Anatomie of Alchemy." So sensible a person as Lodge could not but recognize the absurdities of the alchemists:

"Their purpose is to drag out by the eares A quint-essence to fix and fashion gold, To clothe decrepit age with youthy yeares, To quicken plants by nature fruitless-old; But all their promised mountains prove a mouse.” There are also a number of "Eclogues," in which Edmund Spencer appears as lin," Drayton as "Rowland," Lord Burghley

"Co

as "Eglon," but "Damian" and "Wagrin" are not easily identified. In one of these Eclogues Lodge speaks of himself, under the usual anagram, and says he has decided to abandon verse-making:

"Which sound reward, since this neglected time,

Repines to yield of men of high desart.

I'le cease to ravel out my wits in rime

For such who make so base account of art.
And since by wit there is no means to climb,

I'le hold the plough awhile, and plie the cart.
And if my muse to wonted loves return
I'le write and judge, peruse, commend-and
burn."

This possibly marks the date of his resolve to study medicine, though it was probably three years before he was able to enter the

Avignon medical school. His publications of the next year were largely the results of previous work, and given to the world with deliberate intention to make an end of the business of authorship. In 1596 he pub

lished no less than four books, the last of which was a curious apology and farewell. Lodge then devoted himself to hard and successful study. Of these four books the first was "The Devil Conjured," an assault in sturdy prose upon magic and alchemy. It is a dialogue between a hermit, who dwells among the inhospitable mountains of Egypt, and three travelers from Tyre, India, and Cappadocia.

Next came the "Margarite of America," to which allusion has been made as treas

ure-trove from his Cavendish voyage.

He

dedicates it to Lady Russell, explaining that it was written where "bitter and extreme frosts at midsummer continually clothe the discomfortable mountains," and where "manie wondrous Iles, manie strange fishes, manie monstrous Patagones withdrew my senses." Some poems quite in Lodge's best vein are scattered through this romance, which must be called one of his best works. Margarite lover sings:

"Ye gentle pearles, where ere did nature make you Or whether in Indian shores you found Fo mould,

Or in those lands where spices serve for fuel?
O, if I might from out your essence take you
And twine myselfe to shape what ere I woulde,
How gladly would I be my lady's jewel."

Another issue of 1596 was "Wit's Miserie and the World's Madness," possibly appearing before the "Margarite," and dedicated to the three brothers Hare. He alludes to his contemporaries: Spencer, "best read in ancient poetry"; Daniel, "choice in word and invention"; Drayton, "diligent and formal"; Nash, "true English Aretine."

Lastly came the mournful and repentant "Prosopopeia," dedicated to the Countess of Derby and the Countess of Cumberland. Like Nash's "Christ's Teares," it was a retraction of whatever had been faulty, illjudged, abusive, or evil in his previous writings; and a sorrowful palinode he made of it. There has been much discussion over this work, some critics believing that Lawrence Twyne, author of "The Pattern of Painful Adventures," drawn upon by Shakespere in his Pericles, wrote the "Prosopopeia." But the weight of evidence favors Lodge's authorship, one might almost say his guilt; for the book is in decidedly bad taste, overwrought, unreal, and fantastic. Lodge had written little or nothing of which he needed to be ashamed, but others had set the fashion of public disavowals, and so he too would wear crape and make a pilgrimage. Then he turns to his medical and anatomical stud ies with a stout heart, although in his fortyfirst year.

As already noted, the famous Avignon schools attracted his attention, and there he earned the degree of "Doctor of Physic," receiving also in 1602 the same degree from Oxford. His scholarly translation of "Josephus" appeared the same year, dedicated to Lord Howard, and seven editions were calld for before 1670. The plague was again aging in London in 1603, and Lodge wrote short treatise upon its history and treatbent. He was then living in Warwick Lane, njoying quite a practice, and his brochure ssails the quacks and nostrum-venders who aded on the credulity of the poor. About jog Heywood, in his "Troja Britannica," umes Lodge as a learned and famous phytian. In September, 1612, as shown by a onument in Rolleston Church, Nottingmshire, his younger brother died. Thom

VOL. III.-10.

as Lodge was named sole executor. The leisure of the next two years was devoted to a translation of Seneca's complete works, published in 1614 and dedicated to Chancellor Ellesmere. When it was reprinted, four years later, the Earl of Suffolk received the same compliment. It was not unusual at that time to dedicate different editions of the same work to different persons. There is no further mention of Lodge till 1616, when the Privy Council granted him a passport to travel "into the Archduke's country" to "collect debts due him." He took a friend and two servants, and was absent four or five months. It has been hinted that he was escaping from his own creditors, but this view lacks evidence and is altogether unlikely. We may justly think of Lodge as combining business and pleasure, traveling leisurely through the Low Countries, and visiting many famous cathedrals and art-collections before his return.

Sometime in 1622 the Countess of Lincoln published her "Nurserie," and Lodge appears as the author of a stately “Commendation" in the form of a prefatory address, setting forth the merits of the book and the virtues of the Countess. We may imagine the courtly and gray-bearded physician, who had long before laid aside such vanities as lyrics and stories, yielding, not without secret pleasure, to the lady's request, and writing. this dignified preface "for friendship's sake," in his Low Layton home, close by his murmuring bees, and beset as he wrote by newly awakened memories of Nash and Greene, of Daniel, Drayton, and Marlowe.

Anthony Wood, the Oxford historian, says that Thomas Lodge "made his exit (of the Plague, I think) in September 1625." He left behind him a book of simple medical rules, and notes on treatment of common diseases. Its title was "The Poor Man's Talent," not as has been said "The Poor Man's Legacie." It was dedicated to the Countess of Arundell, but was never published until 1882, when it appeared under the auspices of the Hunterian Club, and has attracted considerable attention.

Thomas Lodge's active and successful life

I WENT to the city to visit my niece Milly Alby, about the first of March. Milly wrote to me that I'd better send word what day I'd come so they could meet me, as the gas was shut off and the streets would be as dark as Egypt by the time I got there. But I was all ready to start, and didn't like to stop to write, especially as John had been to Milly's, and could tell me what car to take, and how far I'd have to walk after I'd left the car.

"I don't see but you'll get along all right if you take the right car and get off at the right street and go to the right number," said John.

I couldn't see either. There didn't seem to be the least occasion to feel a mite worried; so the next morning I started. John took me to the steam-cars, and they took me a tremendous long ride to the ferry-boat, and in the ferry-boat I went over to the city. Then everybody began to push and rush, and I asked a lady which was the car that would take me the nearest to Webster Street. It was barely light enough to see which one she pointed out, so I thought maybe she'd made a mistake, and I asked the conductor if his car would take me to Webster Street.

"O, yes," says he, but he didn't hardly look at me; so when he come round for my five cents I tried to tell him where to stop the car for me, but he went right along to he other passengers before I was half through elling him. I knew very well he didn't hear me, so I went over to the door to tell im real plain; for it wa'n't likely I wanted > be carried way off to some other part of he city. He said he understood all about ; so then I settled down, and only asked m three or four times if we wa'n't most ere, or if we hadn't gone by Webster reet, or if he was sure he remembered ere I was to stop.

I'm sure I spoke real kind and polite, and an't understand what made him get more

"Honesanmyeastler" "Savensthree""A stree"-"Nithanlakin."

At last I was sure he said Webster, so I grasped my bag and started.

"You said Webster Street this time, didn't you?" I ventured cheerfully, as he pulled the strap to stop the car.

"No, I didn't, ma'am! and you jest better set still and stop stopping this car, or we shall get behind time or run off the track. It's dangerous for a woman of your build to keep waltzing round this way."

"I never waltz," says I quite haughty, for I was 'most vexed; it wa'n't any kind of a way for him to talk, me being a visitor to the city so.

Well, bimeby he rattles open the door and waves his hand at me, and calls very loud: "Now, ma'am, here's Webster Street, all safe and sound.”

The passengers all smiled real kind of hearty as I said "Good night" to them and went out.

"Which way shall I go to get to Mr. Alby's?" I asked as I was climbing down the steps.

"Good gracious! Do you s'pose I know everybody in the city? Look on the doors till you find the right number"; and he rattled the strap to start the machine.

It was proper dark, and I couldn't sca'cely