TH

JOHN DAY.

HIS author lived in the reign of King James I. and was fome time ftudent in Caius College in Cambridge. No particulars are prefer. ved concerning this poet, but that he had connection with other poets of fome name, and wrote the following plays :

1. Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, with the Merry Humour of Tom Stroud, the Norfolk Yeoman, feveral times publicly acted by the Prince's Servants; printed in 4to. London, 1659; for the plot, as far as it concerns history, confult the writers in the reign of King Henry VI.

2. Humour out of Breath, a Comedy, faid to have been writ by our author, but fome have doubted his being the real author of it.

3. Ifle of Gulls, a Comedy, often acted in the Black Fryars, by the children of the Revels, printed in 4to. London, 1633. This is founded upon Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia.

4. Law Tricks, or Who Would Have Thought It a Comedy, feveral times acted by the children of the Revels, and printed in 4to. 1608.

5.1 .Parliament of Bees, with their proper characters, or a Bee-Hive furnished with Twelve Honey-Combs, as pleasant as profitable, being an allegorical defcription of the ancients of good and bad men in thofe days, printed in 4to. London, 1641.

6. Travels of Three English Brothers, Sir Thomas, Sir Anthony, and Mr. Robert Shirley, a Hif tory, played by her Majefty's Servants, printed in 4to. London, 1607, and dedicated to Honour's Fa

vourites,

vourites, and the entire friends of the family of the Shirleys. In the compofition of this play our author was affifted by William Rowley, and Mr. George Wilkins; the foundation of it may be read in feveral English Writers, and Chronicles, and it is particularly fet down in Dr. Fuller's Worthies, in his defcription of Suffex. When our author died cannot be juftly afcertained, but Mr. Langbaine has preferved an elegy written on him, by his friend Mr. Tateham, which begins thus ;

Don Phoebus now hath loft his light,
And left his rule unto the night;
And Cynthia, fhe has overcome
The Day, and darkened the fun :
Whereby we now have loft our hope,
Of gaining Day, into horoscope, &c.

In this manner he runs on like a gentleman in Lincolns Inn, who wrote an ingenious poem upon the transactions between a Landlord and his Tenant Day, who privately departed from him by Night, printed in a fingle fheet, London, 1684. To fhew the parallel, the following lines are fufficient.

How Night and Day confpire a fecret flight;
For Day, they fay, is gone away by Night.
The Day is paft, but landlord where's your rent?
You might have feen, that Day was almoft spent.
Day fold, and did put off whate'er he might,
Tho' it was ne'er fo dark, Day wou'd be light.

*****

Sir WALTER RALEIGH

WA

AS defcended of an ancient family in Devonshire, which was feated in that county before the conqueft, and was fourth fon of Walter Raleigh, efquire, of Fards, in the parish of Cornwood. He was born in the year 1552 at Hayes, a pleasant farm of his father's in the parish of Budley, in that part of Devonshire bordering Eastward upon the Sea, near where the Ottery difcharges itself into the British Channel; he was educated at the univerfity of Oxford, where, according to Dr. Fuller, he became a commoner of Oriel College, as well as Chrift Church, and difplayed in his early years a great vivacity of genius in his application to his ftudies. Some have faid, that after leaving the univerfity, he fettled himself in the Middle Temple, and ftudied the law, but this opinion must be erroneous, fince he declares afterwards on his trial, that he never read a word of law 'till he was prifoner in the Tower. In 1569, when he was not above 17 years of age, he was one of the select troop of a hundred gentlemen voluntiers, whom Queen Elizabeth permitted Henry Champernon to tranfport into France, for the affiftance of proteftant Princes there †, but of what fervice they were, or what was the confequence of the expedition, we have no account. So great a fcene of action as the whole kingdom of France was at that period, gave Raleigh an opportunity of acquiring experience, and reading characters, as well as improving himself in the knowledge of languages and manners, and his own Hiftory of the World contains fome remarks which he

Prince's Worthies of Devon.

Camdeni Annales Elizabethæ, p. 172. Edit. Batav. 1625.

then

then made of the conduct of fome great generals there, of which he had himself been witnefs. After our author's return from France, he embarked in an expedition to the northern parts of Ameri ca, with Sir Humphry Gilbert, his brother by the mother's fide, that gentleman having obtained the Queen's Patent to plant and inhabit fuch parts of it as were unpoffeffed by any Prince with whom fhe was in alliance; but this attempt proved unfuccefsful by means of the divifion which arose amongst the Voluntiers. The next year, 1580, upon the defcent of the Spanish and Italian forces in Ireland under the Pope's banner, for the fupport of the Defmonds in their rebellion in Munfter, he had a captain's commiflion under the lord Grey of Wilton, to whom at that time the famous Spenfer was fecretary; but the chief fervices which captain Raleigh performed, were under Thomas earl of Ormond, governor of Munster. He fur

prized the Irish Kerns at Ramile, and having inclofed them, took every rebel upon the fpot, who did not fall in the conflict. Among the prifoners there was one laden with Withies, who being asked, what he intended to have done with them? boldly answered, to have hung up the English Churles; upon which Raleigh ordered him to be immediately dispatched in that manner, and the reft of the robbers and murderers to be punished according to their deferts *. The earl of Ormond departing for England in the spring of the year 1581, his government of Munfter was given to captain Raleigh; in which he behaved with great vigilance and honour, he fought the Arch rebel Barry at Clove, whom he charged with the atmoft-bravery, and after a hard Aruggle, put to flight. In the month of August, 1581, captain John Gough being appointed Governour of Mune

Hooker, fol. 167.

Ber

fter by the Lord Deputy, Raleigh attended him in feveral journies to fettle and compofe that country; but the chief place of their refidence was Cork, and after Gouch had cut off Sir John · Defmond, brother to the earl of Defmond, who was at the head of the rebellion, he left the government of that city to Raleigh |, whofe company being not long after disbanded upon the reduction of that earl, the flaughter of his brother, and the fubmiffion of Barry, he returned to England. The Lord Deputy Grey having refigned the fword in Ireland towards the end of Auguft, 1582, the difpute between him and Raleigh, upon reasons which are variously affigned by different writers, was brought to a hearing before the council table in England, where the latter fupported his caufe with fuch abilities as procured him the good opinion both of her Majefty, and the Lords of the Council, and this, added to the patronage of the earl of Leicester, is fuppofed to be one confiderable occafion of his preferment, though it did not immediately take place, nor could the hopes of it reftrain him from a fecond expedition with his brother Sir Humphry Gilbert to Newfoundland, for which he built a fhip of 200 tons called The Bark Raleigh, and furnished it compleatly for the voyage, in which he refolved to attend his brother as his Vice-Admiral. That fleet departed from Plymouth the 11th of June, 1583, but after it had been two or three days at fea, a contagious diftemper having feized the whole crew of Raleigh's fhip, obliged him to return to that port; however by this accident, he escaped the misfortune of that expedition; for after Sir Humphry had taken poffeffion of Newfoundland, in the right of the crown of England, and affigned lands to every man of his com

Cafe's Hiftory of Ireland, fol. 367.

pany,