"Gorboduc." It was republished by Dodsley in 1736, with a preface by Mr. Spence, by the procuration of Mr. Pope, "who wondered that the propriety and natural ease of it had not been better imitated by the dramatic authors of the succeeding age." It is to be found at the head of the second volume of the Collection of old Plays, published by Dodsley. Sir Philip Sidney, in his Apologie for Poetrie, gives this lofty character of it:-"It is full of stately speeches and well-sounding phrases, clyming to the height of Seneca his style, and as full of notable moralitie, which it doth most delightfully teach, and so obtayne the very end of poesie." Puttenham

* Vide Preface. [Dr. Anderson, an excellent judge, thinks that the assistance of Norton may be justly doubted; since every scene of Gorboduc is marked by Sackville's characteristic manner, which consists in a perspicuity of style and a command of numbers, superior to the tone of his age. British Poets, ut sup.]

[Edmund Bolton, whom Oldys and Warton pronounce a judicious and sensible old English critic, for his Hypercritica or Rule of Judgment in writing or reading our Histories, written about 1616, though not printed till 1722; this said critic terms the tragedy of Gorboduc, "the best of that time, even in sir Philip Sidney's judgment," and thinks all skilful Englishmen cannot but ascribe as much thereto, for its phrase and eloquence.]

[Notwithstanding the praise of Sidney, Bolton, and others, it has been observed by Dr. Anderson that this tragedy never

says, "I thinke that for tragedie the lord of Buckhurst and maister Edward Feirys, for such doings as I have seen of theirs, do deserve the highest price; the earle of Oxford, and maister Edwardes, of her majesties chappell, for comedy and enterlude "." His lordship wrote besides

"A Preface, and the Life of the unfortunate Duke of Buckingham, in the Reign of Richard the Third, in verse 3,"

in a work intituled, "A Mirrour for Magistrates, being a true chronicle History of the

was popular, owing to the uninteresting nature of the plot, the tedious length of the speeches, the want of a discrimination of character, and almost a total absence of pathetic incidents. The dialogue, however, contains much dignity, strength of reflection, and good sense. Ut sup.]

• Art of Poetry. [Meres also, in his Comparative Discourse of our English Poets, with the Greeke, Latine, and Italian, declares, that as Eschylus, Euripides, &c. flourished in Greece; so these are our best for tragedie; the lorde Buckhurst, maisters Ferris, Shakespeare, &c. Palladis Tamia, 1598.]

* [In a list of authors prefixed to Hayward's British Muse, 1738, the legend of Michael Joseph the blacksmith, and lord Audeley, is given to the earl of Dorset on the supposition that Cavil, who is named as the author, was a mistake for Sackville; but this solitary conjecture seems destitute of all support.]

[A work, says Cibber, of great labour, use, and beauty. The Induction is indeed a masterpiece; and if the whole could have been completed in the same manner, it would have been an honour to the nation to this day, nor could have sunk under the ruins of time: but the courtier put an end to the poet;

untimely Falls of such unfortunate Princes and Men of Note, as have happened since the first Entrance of Brute into this Island until this latter Age." This work was published in 16105, by Richard Niccols of Magdalen college in Oxford, but was the joint produce of lord Buckhurst, Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Higgins, Mr. Ferrers, and Mr. Churchyard, men of the greatest wit in that age. The original thought was his

and one cannot help wishing for the sake of our national repu tation, that his rise at court had been a little longer delayed. Lives of the Poets, vol. i. p. 56.]

"[The first edition of this work was printed in 1559, and was entitled, "A Myrroure for Magistrates, wherein may be seen by Example of others, with how grevous Plages Vices are punished, and howe frayl and unstable worldly Prosperitie is founde, even of those whom Fortune seemeth most highly to favour." Lord Buckhurst's pieces appeared in the second edition of 1563. Succeeding impressions, with much enlargement, were published in 1571, 1575, 1578, and 1587; which is the latest edition that can be relied on for its authenticity, as Niccols, who added much of his own in the copy cited by lord Orford, took the strange liberty of re-modelling the metre of several early legends, and adapting it to his own time and taste.]

"Life of Drayton, before his Works, p. 5. [See more of the origin, progress, and execution of this work, with extracts from Sackville's Induction, &c. in Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. sect. xxx. et seq. Mr. Godwin remarks, that Sackville commenced his poetical career from about the time when Stow's edition of Chaucer made its appearance. Life of C. vol. i. p. 205.]

lordship's", as we learn from the editor, who says, "that the penmen (of the Chronicle) being many and divers, all diverslie affected in the method of this their Mirror, he followed the intended scope of that most honorable personage, who, by how much he did surpasse the rest in the eminence of his noble condition, by so much he hath exceeded them all in the excellencie of his heroicall stile, which with a golden pen he hath limmed out to posteritie in that worthy object of his minde, the tragedy of the Duke of Buckingham; and in his preface then intituled, Master Sackvil's Induction. This worthie president of learning, intending to perfect all this storie himself, from the conquest; being called to a more serious expence in the great state-affaires of his most royall ladie and soveraigne, left the dispose thereof to M. Baldwin, Mr. Ferrers, and others 8."

[The plan, says Warton, was confessedly borrowed from Boccacio's De Casibus Principum, a book translated by Lydgate, but which never was popular, because it had no English examples. Hist. of E. P. vol. iii. p. 217.]

• Collins's Peerage in Dorset, p. 714. [I had consulted the editions of 1559, 1575, and 1587, without being able to trace any such passage as lord Orford has cited from Collins; but I have since found it in Nichols's edit. of 1610, upon a second title dated 1609, and have rendered the extract nearer its original.]

"Several Letters" in the Cabala, and four among the Harleian manuscripts.

Tiptoft and Rivers set the example of borrowing light from other countries, and patronized the importer of printing, Caxton. The earls of Oxford and Dorset struck out new lights for the drama, without making the multitude laugh or weep at ridiculous representations of Scripture. To the two former we owe printing; to the two latter, taste :-what do we not owe perhaps to the last of the four! Our historic plays are allowed to have been founded on the heroic narratives in the Mirrour for Magistrates; to that plan, and to the boldness of lord Buckhurst's new scenes, perhaps we owe SHAKSPEARE! Such debts to these four lords, the probability of the last obligation, are sufficient to justify a CATALOGUE of NOBLE AU

THORS.

Lord Buckhurst was created earl of Dorset. There is a letter from him to the earl of Sussex, printed in Howard's Coll. p. 297. Lord Dorset wrote too a Latin letter to Dr. Barth. Clerke, prefixed to his translation mentioned in the preceding article. See p. 117.

[Bolton, the critic cited at p. 126, said of this work, “the best of these times (for warrantable English), if Albions England be not preferred, is the Mirrour for Magistrates, and in that Mirrour Sackvil's Induction, the work of Thomas afterward earl of Dorset, and lord treasurer of England," &c. Hypercritica, P. 234.]