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occasion of exhibiting her Ladyship's elegant and forcible style in prose, from the exordium to this translation.

"It seemes to me strange, and a thing much to be marveiled, that the laborer to repose himselfe hasteneth as it were the course of the sunne; that the mariner rowes with all force to attaine the port, and with a joyfull crie salutes the descried land; that the traveller is never quiet nor content, till he be at the end of his voyage; and that we, in the meane while, tied in this world to a perpetuall taske, tossed with continuall tempest, tyred with a rough and combersome way, cannot yet see the end of our labour but with griefe, nor behold our port but with teares, nor approach our home and quiet abode but with horrour and trembling. This life is but a Penelope's web, wherein we are alwayes doing and undoing; a sea open to all winds, which, sometime within, sometime without, never cease to torment us; a wearie journey through extreame heats and colds, over high mountaines, steepe rockes, and theevish deserts. And so we terme it, in weaving at this web, in rowing at this oare, in passing this miserable way. Yet loe, when Death comes to end our worke; when she stretcheth out her armes to pull us into the port: when, after so many dangerous passages and lothsome lodgings, she would conduct us to our true home and resting-place: in steade of rejoycing at the end of our labour, of taking comfort at the sight of our land, of singing at the approch of our happie mansion; we would faine (who would beleeve it?) retake our worke in hand, we would again hoise saile to the wind, and willingly undertake our journey anew. No more then remember we our paines; our shipwracks

and

and dangers are forgotten: we feare no more the travailes nor the theeves. Contrariwise, we apprehend death as an extreame paine, we doubt it as a rocke, we flie it as a thiefe. We do as little children, who all the day complaine, and when the medicine is brought them, are no longer sicke; as they who all the weeke long runne up and downe the streetes with paine of the teeth, and seeing the barber comming to pull them out, feele no more paine. We feare more the cure than the disease, the surgeon than the paine. We have more sense of the medicine's bitternesse, soone gone, then of a bitter languishing, long continued; more feeling of death, the end of our miseries, than the endlesse miserie of our life. We fear that we ought to hope for, and wish for that we ought to feare."

Though not printed till 1600, the last leaf of the volume is dated "Wilton, the 13 of May, 1590."

T. P.

ART. XI. A misticall deuise of the spirituall and godly love betwene Christ the Spouse, and the Church or congregation. Firste made by the wise prince Saloman, and now newly set forth in verse by Jud Smith. Wherunto is annexed certeine other briefe stories. And also a Treatise of Prodigalitie, most fit and necessarie for to be read and marked of all estates. 1575. Imprinted at London by Henry Kirckham, and are to be solde at his shoppe, at the little northe doore of Paules, at the signe of the Black Boie. Small 8vo.

Mr.

Mr. Warton, in his enumeration of the various English versions of Solomon's song made in the 16th century,* does not notice the present; nor is it registered either by Ames or Herbert. An address to the Christian reader is prefixed by John Wharton, a puritanical writer of poetry, and thus begins:

"In perusing this little volume intituled A misticall devise,' being requested of my frend therunto, I did fynde such a pleasantnes therin, that my hart rejoyced and gave du signes what pleasure and delight my minde of it conceived. For surely (gentle reader) if thou covit to heare any olde bables, as I may terme them, or stale tales of Chauser, or to learne howe Acteon came by his horned head, if thy mynde be fixed to any such metamorphocall toyes, this booke is not apt nor fit for thy purpose. But if thou art con

trarywise bent to heare, or to reade holsome documentes, as it becometh all Christians, then take this same: for thou shalt fynde it sweeter (as the prophet sayeth) then the honye or the honye combe. For Salomon had great delite in the makinge of these, to recreat and revyve his spirits, and called them by this name, Canticum Canticorum, whyche is to saye-the song of songes."

These songs are very briefly and prosaically metrified, in ten pages: then succeeds "A coppie of the Epistle that Jeremye sent unto the Jewes, which were led away prisoners by the king of Babilon, &c." in verse. This also fills ten pages. Then, "The Commaundements of God our Creator, geven by Moyses," followed by texts from scripture, on four pages: and on four

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concluding ones, "The Commaundements of Sathan, put in practise dayly by the Pope." A very scanty specimen may suffice, from his version of the song of Solomon.

Christ speaketh to the Churche.
"Come, wend unto my garden gay,
My sister and my spowse;
For I have gathered mirre with spice,
And other goodly bowes.

I meane to eate my honnye, and
My honny combe so sweete,
And I will drinke my wyne and milke,

For so it seemeth meete.

Christe to the Apostles.

Eat now, my frinds, do nothing spare,
But be of perfect cheare;

And drink with mirth, for you of me

Are sure beloved deare."

T. P.

ART. XII. Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes, and Sonnets. London: Printed by J. G. for Rich. Marriot and Hen. Herringman, and sold in St. Dunstan's Churchyard, Fleet-street, and at the New Exchange. 1657. Small 8vo.

From an address of the publishers to the author (who was Dr. Henry King, bishop of Chichester) it appears, that this little volume was printed without that author's

• "The Devil's Commandments,” in verse, make a part of that antiquated medley called The Calender of Shepheards. In course they are diametrically opposite to those delivered by Moses.

VOL. V.

E

consent,

consent, if not against his inclination. Part of their apology runs thus:

"The best we can say for our selves is, that if we have injured you, it is meerly in your own defence, preventing the present attempts of others, who to their theft would (by their false copies of these poems) have added violence, and some way have wounded your reputation."

Wood* tells us, that these poems, on their first appearance, were attributed to Dr. Philip King, the author's brother, and inserted as such in the Bodleian catalogue. The uncertainty of the real author might have led to a clumsy deception, which I have twice had occasion to observe. Whether the book had sold but little, from being published anonymously, or whether a number of copies had fallen into the hands of some ignorant book-jobber, certain it is, that the old title-page was displaced, and that a new one was prefixed, with the date of 1700, in which the poems were called Ben Johnson's!! No popular name could perhaps have been more awkwardly misapplied: for, besides a total dissimilarity between the metrical style of rare Ben and Bishop King, there is a copy of verses inscribed "To my sister, Anne King," at p. 83, while (unluckily for the spurious title) an elegy is addressed "To my dead friend Ben Johnson," at the distance of a few pages.

Mr. Headley has truly said, that the poetry of bishop King, which was either written at an early age or as a relaxation from severer studies, is neat and un

• Athénæ Oxon. II. 432.

Biog. Sketches before Select Beauties of Anc. Eng. Poetry, p. lvii.

commmonly

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