CONCLUSION OF VOL. II.

T

may perhaps be thought that the foregoing Poems are not so interesting as those contained in the

First Volume. Two new names

are however here added to our lists of old Poets, RICHARD GIPPS, and JOSEPH BRYAN: and the Extracts from WILLOUGHBY'S " Avisa," and LORD BROOK'S" Calica," surely deserve notice. The entire Poem by NICHOLAS BRETON, of which the original edition is exceedingly rare, is very beautiful, and very worthy the re-impression it has received. Every reader of taste must be struck with the simplicity and clearness of the language, and the flow of the versification.

The writers most eminent for the lighter Lyric, and Pastoral Song, in these days, appear to have been Christopher Marlow; Robert Greene; Nicholas Breton; Thomas Lodge; Richard Barnfield; Sir Walter Raleigh; and A. W. Of all these the original volumes have

at least for a century been singularly scarce. Marlow's beautiful translation of "The Hero and Leander," (a most rare little volume) is reprinted in "Restituta." Many extracts from the choice pieces of Robert Greene and Thomas Lodge occur in the first volume of this work. The poems of Raleigh, Breton's "Longing," and "Melancholike Humours;" and A. W.'s poems, (which form the second volume of Davison's "Rhapsody,") have also been given from the Lee Priory Press. Mr. James Boswell has furnished the rare pieces of Barnfield in his present to the Roxburghe Club; and Mr. Alexander Boswell has given Lodge's "Fig for Momus" from his private press. The cultivated reader has thus opened to him an access to treasures, which had hitherto been shut to all but two or three fortunate Collectors. Over such stores Steevens and Malone brooded with solitary complacence. Hence they generally drew their parallel passages; and often much of the subject and matter of their notes. It was a field in which it was fair and wise to glean: and the task was worthy of praise, had it not been a little too selfishly

conducted; and had they borne their heads no higher than the standard to which their abilities and acquirements would have limited them.

With Marlow's powers, from his celebrated Song, Come, live with me, and be my love, the modern public have long been familiar. With two or three of the shorter pieces of Breton, Bishop Percy has also long ago made them acquainted. One of Barnfield's odes has also been long in the hands of the people as a poem of Shakespeare. But A. W. as a separate poet, is now for the first time revived to fame. Let the reader turn to the elegant, highly-finished, and enchanting FICTION, How Cupid made a Nymph wound herself with his arrows, in the first volume of the new edition of Davison's Rhapsody," p. 17. beginning,

66

"It chanc'd of late a shepherd's swain:"

and let him answer, if such a poet ought to have died unhonoured and unknown! I had formerly ascribed this poem to Raleigh, till new lights containing positive proof made me reluctantly withdraw it from him.

It would not have seemed very easy to have added any pieces worthy of revival to the elegant Selections of Percy and Ellis: but the two volumes of EXCERPTA TUDORIANA will, I trust, prove that the task has been accomplished. Many little flowers are now offered to the reader's notice, which those works do not contain: and the garland I here present will form a necessary. Supplement to them.

So much has been said of late about the minor Elizabethan Poetry, that nothing occurs to me regarding these productions, which has not been already anticipated. A most acceptable treasure to readers of this class has just been furnished by a singularly elegant reprint from Bensley's press, of FAIRFAX's vigorous and admirable translation of Tasso, in two vols. large 12mo. under the editorial care of Mr. Singer. The wood engravings at the head of each book, designed by Thurston, are exquisite. I cannot however agree with the accomplished Editor, with whose refined and cultivated taste I seldom find occasion to differ, in preferring Fairax's, or rather the Italian stanza, to that which