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 s.

[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.]

8 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.]

[This noble poet, according to Fuller 3, who cites Mills's Catalogue of Honour for his authority, was son and heir to sir Richard Sackville, chancellor and sub-treasurer of the exchequer, &c.; and was bred in the university of Oxford, where he became an excellent poet, leaving both Latin and English poems of his composing to posterity. From a domestic tuition, says Warton 5, he was removed, as it may reasonably be conjectured, to Hart hall, now Hertford college, Oxon; but he appears to have been a master of arts at Cambridge. It then was fashionable for every young man of fortune, before he began his travels, or was admitted into parliament, to be initiated in the study of the law; Mr. Sackville therefore was removed to the Inner Temple. During his residence there, says the editor of Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum, who could speak with congenial feeling on such a subject, he pursued the more pleasing study of poetry, instead of the dull and narrow trammels of the law. His high birth however, and ample patrimony, proceeds Warton, soon advanced him to more important situations

Worthies of Sussex, p. 105.

He was born, says Cibber, or Shiells, or Coxeter their guide, at Buckhurst in the parish of Withiam, Sussex; and from his childhood was distinguished for wit and manly behaviour. Lives of the Poets of G. Britain, vol. i. p. 55

Hist. of E. P. vol. iii. p. 210.

and employments. His eminent accomplishments and abilities having acquired the confidence and esteem of queen Elizabeth, the poet was soon lost in the statesman, and negotiations and embassies extinguished the milder ambitions of the ingenuous muse. Yet it should be remembered, continues our candid historian, that he was uncorrupted amidst the intrigues of an artful court, and that in the character of a first minister he preserved the integrity of a private

man 7.

The accurate Mr. Reed informs us, that in the fourth and fifth year of queen Mary, his name is found on the parliamentary lists, and again in the fifth of Elizabeth. Not long after, he went abroad to travel, and was detained some time prisoner at Rome; but was liberated, and returned to take possession of a patrimonial inheritance which devolved to him in 1566. He was knighted by the duke of Norfolk in the queen's presence, in 1567, and at the same time promoted to the dignity of a peerage, by the title of baron Buckhurst. In 1573, his royal mistress sent him embassador to Charles the ninth of France, where he was treated with all due distinction. In 1574 he sat

To the same purport also Mrs. Cooper observes, "the courtier put an end to the poet, and he has left us just enough to eclipse all the writers that succeeded him, in the same task; and makes us wish that his preferment had been at least a little longer delayed." Muses' Library, p. 89.

7 Warton, ut sup. Modern times have furnished as rare an instance of uprightness, in our late premier Henry Addington. " Biog. Dram. vol. i. p. 380; from Wood and Cibber.

as one of the peers on the trial of Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, at which time he was also in the privy-council. He was nominated one of the commissioners for the trial of Mary queen of Scots; and though it does not appear that he was present at her condemnation at Fotheringay castle, yet after the confirmation of her sentence he was the person made choice of, on account of his address and tenderness of disposition, to bear the unhappy tidings to her, and to see the sentence carried into execution.

In

1567 he went on an embassy to the states-general to accommodate a difference in regard to some remonstrances made against the conduct of lord Leicester. This commission he executed with fidelity and honour, but he incurred the displeasure of lord Burleigh, whose influence with the queen occasioned him not only to be recalled, but confined to his house for nine months. On the death of lord Leicester in 1588, his interest at court was renewed; he was made a knight of the garter, and joined with lord Burleigh in promoting a peace with Spain. On December 17, 1591, he was, in consequence of several letters from the queen in his favour, elected chancellor of the university of Oxford, in opposition to the object of her capricious passion Essex, and incorporated master of arts. Her majesty soon after visited the university, where she was entertained with splendid banquets and much solid erudition. On the death of lord Burleigh, in 1598, as a just reward for his meritorious services, he was constituted lord high treasurer. In the succeeding year he was joined in a commission with sir