"without flatterie," that using this science as a recre ation, he has overgone most of those who make it a profession".

Webbe, our early discourser on English metre, declares that the earl of Oxford may challenge to himself the title of the most excellent among the rare devisers of poetry in queen Elizabeth's court. The same "noble gentleman" is placed first in the "crew of courtly makers," by Puttenham, and is ranked by Meres among the best for comedy. Mr. Ellis observes, therefore, with his usual propriety and judgment, that lord Oxford's poetical talents were much admired, or at least extolled, by his contemporaries; and such of his sonnets as are preserved in the Paradise of dainty Devices are certainly not among the worst, although they are by no means the best in that collection".

His lordship has a poem "On Desire," in Breton's Bowre of Delights, 1579, which Puttenham commended for its "excellencie and wit," and Dr. Percy has reprinted from the Garland of Good-will, in order "to gratify curiosity 8." Three other pieces occur in the Paradise of dainty Devices, edition 1576, and five in that of 1596. One other is printed in the quarto edition of Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, 1591; another in the Phoenix Nest, 1593; another in England's Helicon, 1600; and three extracts from different

• Dedication before English Madrigals, 1599.

7 Specimens, vol. ii. p. 167.

poems in England's Parnassus, 1600. The last of these have been reprinted by Mr. Brydges in Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum. Two other poems communicated from an ancient manuscript miscellany by Mr. Lysons, were printed in lord Orford's works?; but perhaps no fairer specimen can be shown of this earl's poetical talent, which seldom rose above mediocrity, than the verses prefixed to Bedingfield's translation of Cardanus' Comforte, 1576. They follow a long epistle in prose, addressed by the earl" to his lovinge frend Thomas Bedingfeld, esquyer, one of her majesties gentlemen pencioners," who published the book at his lordship's commaundement.

"THE EARLE OF OXENFORDE TO THE READER.

"The labouring man that tilles the fertile soyle, And reapes the harvest fruiet, hath not in deede The gaine but payne, and if for al hys toyle

He gets the strawe, the lord will have the seede.

"The manchet fyne falles not unto his share,

On coursest chear his hungrye stomacke feedes: The landlord doth possesse the fynest fare;

He pulles the flowers, the other pluckes but weedes.

"The mason poore that buildes the lordly halles, Dwelles not in them, they are for hye degree:

His cottage is compact in paper walles,

And not with bricke or stone, as others be.

9 Vol. i. p. 551.

• Printed cheat.

"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."]

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 videntur"." 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 4. In his graver

2

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

3 [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:

4

-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,