Then Collin Clout* his pipe did sound,
Making both heaven and earth resound.
The shepheards all, both farre and near,
About him flock'd, his layes to hear;
And for his songs he was so fam'd,
He was the prince of shepheards nam'd,
And next to him, was the sweet quill
Of far-renowned Astrophil †
Admired, who whether that he chose
To pipe in verse or else in prose,
Was held the bravest swain to be,
Ere folded flocks in Arcadie.

After him rose as sweet a swain
As ever pip'd upon the plain:

He

sang of warres, and tragedies
He warbled forth; on him the eyes
Of all the shepheards fixed were,
Rejoycing much his songs to hear.

And then liv'd he § who sweetly sung
Orlando's fate, in his own tongue,
Who would not deigne t' divulge his own,
But by another would be known:
O gentle shepheard! we to thee
Are bound in a supream degree.

And after him a swain || arose,
In whom sweet Ovid's spirit chose
For to reside: he sang of love,
How Cupid ladies' hearts can move;
And teach, how large the continent
Of Arcadie is in extent:

He prais'd his Maker in his layes,

And from a king receiv'd the bayes.

Not long ago liv'd learned Ben, j
He whose songs, they say, outvie
All Greek and Latine poesie ;

Who chanted on his pipe divine
The overthrow of Catiline:

The Arcadian shepheards wonder all,
To hear him sing Sejanus' fall,
O thou renowned shepheard, we
Shall ne're have one againe, like thee.
With him contemporary then
(As Naso and fam'd Maro, when
Our sole Redeemer took his birth)
Shakespeare trod on English earth:
His Muse doth merit more rewards
Than all the Greek or Roman bards:
What flow'd from him was purely rare,
As born to blesse the Theater:
He first refin'd the commick lyre,
His wit all do and shall admire;
The chiefest story of the stage;
Or when he sung of war and strage,
Melpomene soon view'd the globe;
Invelop'd in her sanguine robe.
He that his worth would truely sing,
Must quaffe the whole Pierian spring."

T. P.

ART. II. Linsi-Woolsie: or Two Centuries of Epigrammes. Written by William Gamage; batchelour in the artes. Patere aut abstine. Printed at Oxford by Jos. Barnes. 1513. 12mo.

* Jonson.

+ Slaughter or death, may probably be meant; from Strages, Lat. Another

Another title-page bears the date of 1621, but it is not likely that the book had more than one impression, as it consists of the saddest trash that ever assumed the name of epigrams; and which, with a very slight alteration, well merits the sarcasm bestowed by Shenstone on the poems of a Kidderminster bard:

Thy verses, friend, are linsey woolsey stuff,

And we must own-you've measur'd out enough." From their having been printed at Oxford and penned by an A. B. it is probable, however, that Gamage was entitled to an incidental notice in Athenæ Oxonienses, which he has not obtained. His volume is dedicated to Katherine, Lady Mansell. The following epigrammatistic compliments were offered to coeval writers, and might, in part, have served for poesies to their rings.

"To ingenious Ben Jonson.

"If that thy lore were equall to thy wit, *
Thou in Apollo's chaire might'st justly sit."

"To the ingenious poet, Mr. Wm. Herbert, of his booke intituled The Prophesie of Cadwalader. ↑

"Thy royall prophesie doth blaze thy name:
So poets must, if they will merit fame."

• It is remarkable that this opinion runs directly counter to the judgment of modern critics, who concur in thinking it the fault of learned Ben, that he studied books where he should have studied men. See Mr. Neve's elegant remarks on our ancient poets.

↑ Herbert's prophesie of Cadwallader was printed in 1604.

" To

To the most famous and heroike Lady Mary,
L. Wroth.

"Thy worthy Husband ladifies thee Wrath,
Pray be not so with my poore pen to place
'Fore R the O; then justly Lady Worth

I might thee stile-worth what? hie honours Grace

To the ingenious Epigrammatists Jo Owen and
Jp. Heath, † both brought up in New College Oxon.

"Though you were both not of one mother bore,
Yet nursed were you at the self-same brest,

For fluent genius, and ingenious lore,

And the same dugges successively have prest:

'Tis true ye are but fosterers by birth,

Yet brothers right in rimes conceiptfull mirth."

T. P.

ART. III. E. W. his Thameseidos. Devided into three bookes, or cantos.

"Nunquam stigias ibit ad umbras inclita virtus."

At London: Printed by W. W. for Simon Waterson. 1600. 4to. Signat. F. 4.

The author of this scarce poem is undecyphered by any dedicatory prefix of his own, or by any commen

This lady was niece to the illustrious Sir Philip Sidney, and wrote a romance called Urania. She married Sir Thomas Wroth, himself a writer of epigrams, and in good esteem (says Wood) for his poetry and or his encouragement of poets. Athenæ, II. 257.

+ For some account of Heath and his epigrams, see CENSURA, V. 26. Owen is pretty generally known, by the numerous editions of his Latin epi grams, or by his translators, Pecke and Harvey.

datory

datory tribute from others; though he seems not to have been undeserving of a patron, nor his work of contemporary praise. Its chief defect appears to be, that the fables it contains too nearly resemble Ovidian Metamorphoses; and its obvious merit is, that it afforded a model for Drayton to enlarge upon in his Polyolbion. The following personification of Thames, as a female, occurs in the first page.

"And now, from new-spows'd wife, the fierie Sunne
Was risen, and from ocean-seas begunne

To drive his golden chariot, that he might
To all the world declare his glorious light;"
When Thamesis, the fairest queene on earth,
To solemnise her annuall day of birth,
Appareled in robe of purest white,

All thicke of golden shimiring* spangles dight,
Which gainst the Sunne reflecting beames did cast,
As do the starres that in the heavens are plast;
Her haire bound up in knots, like golden wier,
And crown'd with garlands of sweete smelling brier:
Unto a meddow by, his flowing streames

Did goe, where she, from heat of Phœbus' beames,
Under the coole shade of the spreading trees
Did meane to sport, and sing sweete virolees, †
With her faire Nymphes, each having in her hand,
To fill with precious flowers, a little maund."

It probably occurred to the author that such a title as "fairest queen on earth," though figuratively given to a river, might excite a thrill of displeasure in the

* Gl'stering.

+ Virelays s'em to have been a species of roundelays, or roundels, with which they are twice enumerated by Chaucer.

Basket.

breast