On Thracian harpe with sounde whereof the rocks of Rodop rang, That nothing is creat for euer to endure; Dame Nature's byrdes each on must stoupe; when death throwes out the lure. The head wyth crispen lockes, or goulden hayres full, In time hath borne an hoary bush, or bin a naked scull. And that which tract of time doth bring out of the grayne, Olde Satvrne sharps his syth at length to reape it downe agayne. Though Phoebvs ryse at morne, with glistring rayes full proude, Hee runnes his race, and ducketh downe at length in foggy clowde. To th' Gœtans Orphevs sang such kinde of melody; And how the gods themselues were bounde to lawes of destiny. The shiuerynge sunne in heauen shall leese his fadyng lighte; The pallace of the frames of heavens shall runne to ruin quight. And all these blockish gods some kynd of death shall quell, And in confused chaos blynde they shall for euer dwell, And after ruin made of goblin, hegge, and elfe, Death shall bringe finall destenye vppon it selfe.". at last Col. Imprinted at London in Flet streate neare vnto Sainct Dunstons church by Thomas Marshe. 1581. These short specimens are given as supplementary to the critical account of the volume inserted by Warton in the History of English Poetry, Vol. III. p. 382. That writer observes, "it is remarkable that Shakspeare has borrowed nothing from the English Seneca;" yet it seems probable a translation produced at the juncture when holy mysteries were fast declining in estimation, assisted other writers, and formed no mean extension of the rising freedom given to dramatic genius. George Gascoigne, whose pieces for public representation class among the earliest we now possess, has some lines in one of his miscellaneous poems descriptive of the characters that supported the extravagant buffoonery then displayed on the stage in the form of a pageant. "Thus is the stage slakt out, where all these partes be plaide, "If one at a solemne stage play, would take vpon him to pluck of the plaier's garments, whiles they were saying theyr partes & so discipher vnto the lokers on the true & natiue faces of eche of the players, shoulde hee not (trow yee) marre all the matter; and well deserue for a madman to be pelted out of the place with stones: yee shoulde see yet straightwayes a new transmutation in thinges, that who before played the woman, should than appeare to be a man: who seemed youth, should shew his hore heares: who counterfaited the king should tourne to a rascall, and who played God Almighty, shoulde become a cobler as he was before." The prayse of Follie, &c. Englished by Sir Thomas Chaloner, Knight, 1577. Vaine Vaine tatling plaied the vice, wel cadde in rich aray,* And poor Tom Troth is laught to skorn, wt. garments nothing gay; The woman wantonnesse, she commes with ticing traine, Pride in her pocket playes bo-peepe, and bawdrie in her braine. Hir handmaides be deceipte, daunger, and dalliance, Riot and reuell follow hir, they be of hir alliance; Nexte these commes in Simme Swash, to see what sturre they keep, Climme of ye. Clough then takes his heeles, tis time for him to creep; To packe the pageaunt up, commes Sorowe with a song, He says these iests can get no grotes, & al this geare goth wrong; The meane he mumbles out of tune, for lack of life and hart: Thus all in discords stands the cliffe, and beggrie sings the base. J. H. ART. LXI. The first foure Bookes of Virgil's Eneis, translated into English heroicall verse by Richard Stanyhurst: with other poeticall devises thereunto annexed. At London: Imprinted by Henrie Bynneman, dwelling in Thames Streate, *"Now Roscius pleades in the senate house; asses play vpon harpes; the stage is brought into the church; and vices make plaies of church matters- -They shall put off their fooles coate, and leaue snapping of their wodden dagger, and betake themselues to a soberer kinde of reasoning, which will bee verie hard for such vices to do. Wearie of our stale mirth, that for a penie may haue farre better by oddes at the Theater and Curtaine, and any blind playing house euerie day.Like Wil. Sommers, when you knowe not who bob'd you, strike him that first comes in your foolish head." Martin's Month's minde, 1589. neare unto Baynardes Castell, Anno Dom. 1583. 8vo. pp. 106*. "AFTER the associated labours of Phaier and Twyne,+ says Warton, it is hard to say what could induce Robert [Richard] Stanyhurst, a native of Dublin, to translate the first four books of the Eneid into English hexameters, which he printed at London in 1583, and dedicated to his brother, || Peter Plunket, the learned baron of Dusanay in Ireland." This dedication is dated from Leyden in Holland, the last of June 1582: and as it may serve to explain a point which seems to have cramped our poetical historian, while it affords a curious memorial of the writer's pedantical conceit and quaint vulgarity, much of it is here extracted. "To the right hon. my very loving brother, the lorde baron of Dunsanye. § "Having (my good lord) taken upon mee to execute some parte of Maister Askam's will, who in his golden pamphlet, intituled the Schoolemaister, doth wish the universitie students to applie their wittes in beautifying our Englishe language with heroicall verses;¶ I held no Latinist so fit to give the onset *From an entry in the Stationer's books, this work seems to have been first printed at Leyden; an edition unknown to Ames, or Herbert. See Ritson's Bibl. Poetica, p. 351. + Twyne's continuation did not appear till after this version of Stanyhurst. See Steevens's List of Ancient Translations. But see note post p. 424. Hist. of Eng. Poetry iii. 399. Qu Patrick? § P. Plunket Lord Dunsany, and Stanyhurst, seem to have mar. ried two sisters, and thence probably it was, that the latter styles him brother. ¶ Ascham, in 1564, had strongly protested against ryme, as a VOL. I. DD on as Virgil, who for his perelesse stile and matchlesse stuffe, doth beare the pricke and price among all the Romane poets. Howbeit, I have here halfe a gesse, that two sorts of carpers wil seeme to spurne at this mine enterprise: the one utterly ignorant, the other meanely lettered. The ignorant wil imagine, that the passage was nothing craggy, in as much as M. Phaer hath broken the ice before mee: the meaner clearkes wil suppose my travaile in these heroicall verses to carrie no greate difficultie, in that it laye in my choice to make what word I woulde short or long, having no English writer before me in this kinde of poetrie, wyth whose squire I shoulde leavel my syllables.* "To shape therefore an aunsweare to the first; I say-they are altogither in a wrong boxe: consider gothic usage; yet he rather objected to the nature of carmen heroicum, because dactylus, the aptest foot for that verse, is so seldom found in English: but although carmen hexametrum (he adds) doth rather trotte and hoble, than runne smoothly, yet I am sure our English tong will receive carmen iambicum as naturallie as either Greke or Latin." Scholemaster, fol. 60. *This slur oblique would seem to be directed against Gab. Harvey, who before 1580 had composed, and in that year published, English verses in Latin measures, of which he was proud to be considered as the primus artifex. Hence the following egotistic boast in one of his wordy contests with Nash: "If I never deserve anye better remembraunce, let me be epitaphed the Inventour of the English hexameter, whome learned M. Stanihurst imitated in his Virgill, and excellent Sir Philip Sidney disdained not to follow in his Arcadia and elsewhere." Foure Letters, &c. 1592. I suspect that Drant had opposed this fashionable novelty in principle as well as practice, since Harvey speaks of rules for the Dranting of verses in Pierce's Supererogation, 1593; and had done so before, in his correspondence with Spenser. |