mate of the late lamented Rev. William Benwell, of Caversham, near Reading, who died in 1796, and of the present poet Mr. William Bowles, who has celebrated his memory in some pathetic verfes. His Specimens' certainly fhow a cultivated tafte, and an extent of information, very extraordinary in fo young a man; and there are 32 pages of lively biographical sketches of nine-andtwenty poets, from whofe works there are extracts. But he used fo little diligence in examining the fources of biography, as to fay he could give no farther account of Habington than was furnished by Langbaine, when he might have read in Wood's Athenæ,' a long article appropriated to him. The book is badly printed on mean paper.' P. lxx.

The printer, we believe, was Mr. John Nichols. The anonymous fpecimens mentioned p. lxxii, were published by Mr. Ellis, author of the Memoir of a Map of the Countries between the Euxine and the Caspian feas. Some account is given of the dramatic biographers; and the preface is closed with what we regret to mention, a page full of anger and vexation, directed (as we are informed) against fome perfons who mifrepresented the author's intentions in a novel which he publithed. Nothing can be more remote from the liberal spirit of poetry or of poetical biography, than this rhapfody; and our regard for the ingenious writer prompts us to wish for its omiffion.

Our author has, with great propriety, arranged the materials of Phillips in chronological order; and he begins with Robert of Gloucester, a poetical annalist of the reign of Edward I. This commencement we must regard as rather abrupt, and thould have liked to have seen a prefatory differtion on the British, Northern, and Saxon poets, with fpecimens, as Mr. Gray projected for his Hiftory of English Poetry. We doubt whether the earl of Surrey were the first author of blank verfe in the English language, as the practice might be traced even from the Anglo-Saxon times. As a fpecimen at once of Phillips's characters, and of our author's additions, we offer the following extract,

"Nicholas lord Vaux, a poetical writer among the nobility, in the reign of king Henry the 8th; whofe commendation, faith the author of the Art of English Poefy, lyeth chiefly in the facility of his metre, and the aptnefs of his defcriptions, fuch as he takes upon him to make, namely, in fundry of his fongs, wherein he theweth the counterfeit action very lively and pleasantly."

The name of Nicholas, Warton has proved to be a mistake. Lord Vaux the poet, must have been lord Thomas, (the son of lord Nicholas) who was fummoned to parliament in 1531, and feems to have lived till the latter end of the reign of queen Mary.

Two poems in the collection above mentioned are known to have been written by lord Vaux: "A dyttie or fonnet made by the lord Vaus, in the time of the noble queen Mary, representing the image of death." This is what is vulgarly faid to have been written on his death-bed, and is re-printed in Percy's Ballads, and Anderfon's Collection of Poets. The other is "The Affault of Cupid, upon the fort, in which the lover's heart lay wounded." This is alfo re-printed by Anderson. Great number of Vaux's poems are extant in the "Paradife of Dainty Devifes;" another collection published in 1578, in quarto.'

There was another favourite poet of the fame period generally claffed with lord Rochford and lord Vaux, but not mentioned by Phillips. This was fir Francis Bryan, Wyat's particular friend. He was born of a good family, educated at Oxford, employed in feveral honourable embaffies during the reign of Hen. the VIIL and gentleman of the privy-chamber to that king*. He was captain of the light-horse under Edward duke of Somerset, lieutenantgeneral of the army against the Scots, and made banneret by the protector immediately after the battle of Muffelborough, about 27 Sept. 1547+. He died chief jufticiary of Ireland, at Waterford, 1548. He was nephew to John Bourchier, lord Berners, the tranflator of Froiffart. He translated from French Guevara's Difsertation on the Life of a Courtier, Lond. 1548. 8vo. Several of the poems by uncertain authors, before mentioned, are also suppofed to have been the productions of Bryan.

There is one other principal poet of this day, who has been refcued by Warton from total oblivion. This perfon's name was Nicholas Grimoald, a native of Huntingdonfhire, educated both at Cambridge and Oxford. He is the fecond English poet after lord Surrey who wrote in blank verfe. He wrote a poem on the death of Marcus Tullius Cicero; and another on the death of Zoroas, an Egyptian aftronomer, both printed in Tottel's collection, 1557, with the initials N. G. Warton says, that as a writer of verfes in rhyme he yields to none of his cotemporaries for a masterly choice of chafte expreffions and the concife elegancies of didactic verfification. A third specimen of early blank verfe was by William Vallans, 1590, in a "Tale of Two Swannes," which, under a poetic fiction, defcribes the fituation and antiquities of several towns in Hertfordshire §.

Edmund lord Sheffield, created a baron by Edw. VI. and killed by a butcher in the Norfolk infurrection, is faid by Bale to have written fonnets in the Italian manner.

"It would be unpardonable," fays Warton, "to difmifs Tottel's valuable mifcellany without acknowledging our obligations to

him, who deferves highly of English literature, for having collected at a critical period, and preferved in a printed volume, fo many admirable fpecimens of ancient genius, which would have mouldered in manufcript, or perhaps, from their detached and fugitive ftate of existence, their want of length, the capricioufnefs of tafte, the general depredations of time, inattention, and other accidents, would never have reached the prefent age. It seems to have given birth to two favourite and celebrated collections of the fame kind, the Paradife of Dainty Devifes, before mentioned, and England's Helicon, which appeared in the reign of Elizabeth *." P. 48.

We do not understand what Mr. Brydges means, p. 101, by an engraved map of the Saxon and British kings;' but fuppofe that it is a genealogical table.

Ju p. 105, et feq. an account is given of the old tranflators of the Greek and Latin claffics. At p. 130 there occurs an extraordinary mistake, as our readers will judge.

"George Etheridge, a comical writer of the prefent age, whofe two comedies, Love in a Tub,' and 'She would if he could,' for pleafant wit, and no bad economy, are judged not unworthy the applaufe they have met with."

He was born at Thame in Oxfordshire, admitted in C. C. Col lege in Nov. 1534; and in Feb. 1539 was admitted Probationerfellow. In 1553, being efteemed an excellent Grecian, he was appointed king's profeffor of that language in the univerfity, which, as he had flood forward against the papifts in Mary's reign, he was obliged to refign on Mary's acceffion. He now practifed phyfic, by which he gained confiderable wealth amongst thofe of his own perfuafion. He adhered to the laft to his religious opinions, being living an old man in 1588, with the character of a good mathema tician, an eminent Hebritian, Grecian, and poet, and, above all, an excellent phyfician †.' P. 130.

We have not Wood's book at hand: if we had, we should reftore the last paragraph to the proper perfonage. Suffice it to obferve that George Etheridge is a well-known dramatist of the reign of Charles II.

In the account of Spenfer our author has largely, but judicioufly, extracted from Dr. Warton's obfervations. The remark that Spenfer's first book may be regarded as an entire work of itfelf, is juft; and we would recommend a feparate publication of that book, containing twelve cantos, as more interefting to common readers of poetry than the prodigious extent of the Fairy Queen. In like manner the tales, and fome other felect pieces of Chaucer, may be published apart

* Warton, III. p. 69.

+ Wood's Ath. I. p. 238,

for the general library of English poetry. It has not, we believe, hitherto been remarked, that our collections of poetry are too long, and our felections too brief. The French, Italians, and Spaniards, follow a different plan, and select the piéces choifies and the Parnaffe, with more tafte and judge

ment.

We have read that king Charles I. was accuftomed to amufe himself with Fairfax's tranflation of Taffo; but we remember no authority for the affertion that king James (I.) valued his Taffo above all other English poetry.'

We will close our extracts with the account of Drayton.

"Michael Drayton, contemporary of Spencer and fir Philip Sidney, and for fame and renown in poetry not much inferior in his time to either: however, he seems somewhat antiquated in the esteem of the more curious of thefe times, efpecially in his Polyalbion: the old-fashioned kind of verfe whereof seem somewhat to diminish that refpe&t which was formerly paid to the fubject, as being both pleasant and elaborate, and thereupon thought worthy to be commented upon by that once walking-library of our nation, Selden; his England's Heroical Epiftles are more generally liked; and to fuch as love the pretty chat of nymphs and fhepherds, his Nymphals, and other things of that nature, cannot be unpleasant."

• Drayton, according to the teftimony of Burton the historian of Leicestershire, was fprung from an ancient family, who derived their name from the town of Drayton, in that county; but his father (who, Aubrey fays, probably falfely, was a butcher) removing into Warwickshire, he was born in the village of Harfull in that County, in 1573. He was early diftinguifhed for his proficiency in literature, which put him into the way of preferment; and in 1588 he was a spectator at Dover of the Spanish Armada. Nine or ten years before the death of Q. Elizabeth, he became eminent for his poetical talents, and in 1593 published a collection of paftorals under the title of "Idea; the Shepherd's Garland, fashioned in nine eclogues; with Rowland's Sacrifice to the Nine Mufes," 4to, dedicated to Mr. Robert Dudley. This Shepherd's Garland is the fame with what was afterwards reprinted, with emendations by our author, in 1619, folio, under the title of Paftorals, containing Eclogues, with the Man in the Moon. It is remarkable, that the folio edition of Drayton's Works in 1748, though the titlepage profeffes to give them all, does not contain this part of them. His Barons Wars" and "England's Heroical Epiftles," hist "Downfalls of Robert of Normandy," "Matilda," and "Gavefton," were all written before 1598. He joined in the congratulations on king James's acceffion, by a poem, 1603, 4to, which, he fays, in his preface to the Poly-olbion, was fo misinterpreted, as nearly to prove his ruin. This accident, probably, made him defpair of all future hopes of favour at court, In 1613 he published.

the first part of his Poly-olbion, by which Greek title, fignifying very happy, he denotes England; as the antient name of Albion is by fome derived from Olbion, happy. It is a chorographical defcription of the rivers, mountains, forefts, caftles, &c. in this ifland, intermixed with its remarkable antiquities, rarities, and com modities. Prince Henry, to whom this first part is dedicated, and of whom it exhibits a print, in a military pofture, exercifing a pike, had shown the poet fome fingular marks of his favour: the immature death therefore of this young patron was a great lofs to him. There are 18 fongs in this volume, illuftrated with the learned notes of Selden; and there are maps before every fong, wherein the cities, mountains, forests, rivers, &c. are reprefented by the figures of men and women. His metre of 12 fyllables being now antiquated, it is quoted more for the history than the poetry in it; and in that refpect is fo very exact, that as bifhop Nicholfon obferves, it affords a much truer account of this kingdom and the dominion of Wales than could well be expected from the pen of a poet. It is interwoven with many fine epifodes: of the conqueft of this ifland by the Romans; of the coming of the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans, with an account of their kings; of Englifh warriors, navigators, faints, and of the civil wars of England, &c. This volume was reprinted in 1622, with the second part, or continuation of twelve fongs more, making 30 in the whole, and dedicated to Prince Charles, to whom he gives hopes of beftowing the like pains upon Scotland.

In 1619 came out his firft folio volume of poems; and in 1627 was published the fecond volume, containing "the Battle of Agencourt," in ftanzas of eight lines (written after he was 60 years old) "the Miseries of Queen Margaret." "Nymphidia, or the Court of Fairies," "Queft of Cynthia," "The Shepherd's Syrena," ""The Moon Calf," a fatire on the mafculine affectations of Women, and the effeminate difguifes of men of thofe times, and "Elegies," 12 in number. In 1630 he published another volume of poems, in 4to, entitled "The Mufes Elizium, in ten fundry Nymphals, with three Poems on Noah's Flood, Mofes's Birth and Miracles, and David and Goliah."

He died in 1631, and was buried in Westminster-abbey. It feems, by Sir Afton Cockayne's poems, as if he lived latterly in the country, and was held in high eftimation by the gentlemen of his neighbourhood.

Drayton's tafte was lefs correct, and his ear lefs harmonious than Daniel's---but his genius was more poetical, though it seems to have fitted him only for the didactic, and not for the bolder walks of poetry. The Poly-olbion is a work of amazing ingenuity; and a very large proportion exhibits a variety of beauties, which partake very ftrongly of the poetical character; but the perpetual perfonification is tedious, and more is attempted than is within the compafs of poetry. The admiration in which the He