"The idle drone, that labours not at all,

Suckes up the sweete of honny from the bee: Who worketh most, to their share least doth fall; With due desert reward will never be.

"The swiftest hare, unto the mastive slowe Oft times doth fall to him as for a praye:

The greyhounde thereby doth misse his game we know
For which he made such speedy hast away.

"So he that takes the payne to penne the booke,
Reapes not the giftes of goodly golden muse;
But those gayne that, who on the worke shall looke,
And from the soure the sweete by skill doth chuse :
For he that beates the bush the byrde not gets,
But who sittes still, and holdeth fast the nets."]

66

THOMAS SACKVILLE,

LORD BUCKHURST, AND EARL OF

DORSET.

Ir is not my business to enter into the life of this peer as a statesman: it is sufficient to say, that few first ministers have left so fair a character. His family disdained the offer of an apology for it against some little cavils, which spreta exolescunt; si irascare, agnita videntur2." It is almost as needless to say, that he was the patriarch of a race of genius and wit3. He early quitted the study of the law for the flowery paths of poetry, and shone both in Latin and English composition. In his graver

2

Lloyd's Worthies, p. 680. [To lord Buckhurst Campian dedicated his Observations on English Poesie, 1602; which called forth Daniel's Defence of Ryme.]

* [Himself a poet, says Dr. Anderson, he encouraged the art which he improved, by his liberality; and left his wit and patronage of polite literature to his descendants, of whom was Charles Sackville, earl of Dorset, the well-known patron of Dryden and Prior:

66 -Whose great forefathers every grace,
Reflecting and reflected in his race;

Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,
And poets still, or patriots, deck the line."

British Poets, vol. i. p. 653.]

[Having been in his younger days, according to Wood,

poetically inclined, he wrote while he continued in Oxon,

years, the brilliancy of his imagination grew more correct, not less abundant. He was called, says Lloyd, "the Starchamber Bell," (a comparison that does not convey much idea at present; but he explains it by adding) "so very flowing was his invention 5." His secretaries, says sir Robert Naunton, had difficulty to please him, he was so facete and choyce in his phrases and style.

He was author of the celebrated tragedy called "Gorboduc;"

the first dramatic piece of any consideration in the English language, written many years before Shakspeare set forth his plays. He was assisted in it by Norton, a fellow-labourer of Sternhold and Hopkins. This tragedy was acted before the queen at Whitehall, by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple, 1561. It originally had the title of "Ferrex and Porrex," was printed incorrectly and surreptitiously in 1565; more completely in 1570; in 1590, by the title of

several Latin and English poems; which though published either by themselves, or mixed among other men's poems, yet (he adds) I presume they are lost or forgotten, as having either no name to them, or that the copies are worn out. Athenæ, vol. i. col. 347.]

• Lloyd's Worthies, p. 678.

6 Antony Wood.